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"She could remember anything if it was rhymed or set to music," says Adele, who made sure the Ringwald home was filled not only with music but with the voices of people reading to other people. Adele would read to Bob and the children; soon, through her seductive pedagogy, the children were reading to their father. "At bedtime," Molly recalls, "she would read us a Dr. Seuss book, and then suddenly she'd stop, turn out the lights and hide the book. The next day we'd tear the house apart looking for it so we could read what happened next." When Molly was six, Adele posed as her secret pen pal, writing and mailing letters to her daughter. "Every letter would reach a climax," Molly says, "with my secret pal hanging by a daisy off the edge of a cliff or over a pit of alligators. Then the letter would say, 'Well, have to go now. Write me back, and I'll finish the story.' "
At four, Molly began kibitzing at a nearby community theater. At five, she ) was the Dormouse in Alice in Wonderland; at six, a preacher's child in Truman Capote's The Grass Harp; at eight, she did a guest appearance on TV's The New Mickey Mouse Club; then, at nine, the role of Kate in the West Coast production of Annie. Molly's promise as an actress, and Bob's search for better jazz bookings, brought the Ringwald family to Los Angeles and their San Fernando Valley home. She snagged a continuing role in Norman Lear's girls' school sitcom, The Facts of Life, but was cut after the first year. "I was devastated," Molly says. "But my mom kept saying it was for the best, and she was right. I didn't work for a year, which gave me a chance to grow up a lot." Good thing too: by now she was all of 13.
And ready for destiny's casting call. Writer-Director Paul Mazursky auditioned Molly for a crucial role in his film Tempest. "I came in, and Paul told me he was going to throw a penny at me for every dumb thing I said. Whatever I said, plink, he just kept tossing them. Pretty soon he was throwing nickels and quarters and dollars, and I just kept talking. When the interview was over, I reached down and gathered up all the money and put it in my pocket. He asked if he could have his money back, and I said no."
Mollywood Ending No. 1: she got the part. To help this budding Valley Girl pass as a New York teenager, Mazursky set Molly and her parents up in a Greenwich Village flat. "It was bizarre after California," she grimaces. "Like, people urinating in the hallways." Still, she did fine. Mollywood Ending No. 2: she won critics' raves, a Golden Globe nomination and the particular attention of John Hughes, a screenwriter who was looking to direct a story about teenagers.