Molly Ringwald

A teen screen icon of the '80s, Molly Ringwald transitioned to singing in the 2010s, releasing her debut album Except...Sometimes in 2013. This seemed to be a sudden transition for the actress, but as the daughter of pianist Bob Ringwald, she grew up in a musical household and had been singing since she was a child, appearing on I Wanna Be Loved by You, a 1974 album by her father's group the Fulton Street Jazz Band. Molly was six at the time, and it was the beginning of her professional career. Soon she was on-stage, playing Annie in Los Angeles in 1978 and then transitioning to small roles on television, eventually landing a regular role on the first season of The Facts of Life (the one that ran from 1979-1980). Ringwald was still singing, appearing on a couple of records released by <a href="spotify:artist:3xvaSlT4xsyk6lY1ESOspO">Disney</a>, but her next big break arrived in 1984, when John Hughes cast her as the lead in Sixteen Candles. This romantic teen comedy turned into a huge hit and for a while in the mid-'80s, Molly Ringwald was among the most popular actresses in America, thanks to her roles in Hughes-written films, including 1985's The Breakfast Club and 1986's Pretty in PInk.

Toward the end of the decade, Ringwald's purple patch came to a close -- her last big film was <a href="spotify:artist:40VdWHd27Axb4mlpSfBpxX">Alan Alda</a>'s 1990 comedy Betsy's Wedding -- she then moved to Paris, France for a time, thoroughly escaping the spotlight. She returned in the mid-'90s and began appearing semi-regularly on television, including roles on the mini-series adaptation of <a href="spotify:artist:6cXlNJGEwzOrgajIqpUUcg">Stephen King</a>'s The Stand and the sitcom Townies. Ringwald kept herself busy in the 2000s, threading some Broadway and big-screen roles between her television appearances. She finally landed a hit in 2008 when she played a mother on ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager. That teen drama ran strong for the next five years -- during which time she published two books -- one a self-help/memoir called Getting the Pretty Back; the other a work of fiction called When It Happens to You: A Novel in Stories -- and upon its conclusion in 2013, Ringwald released her debut solo album Except...Sometimes on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Concord+Records%22">Concord Records</a>. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi