(7 of 8)
It made for a nifty little string, with Ringwald fleshing out on screen the teen heroines he had scribbled on paper. Samantha Baker, Claire Standish and Andie Walsh are of different classes (sophomore, senior, senior) and different classes (middle, moneyed, working poor). But they share qualities that Hughes must have seen in Ringwald: a coiled poise, a resilient sense of humor about herself, an openness to emotions. Without forcing feelings, Molly can coax them effortlessly to the surface. Feel bad, Sam? Her face puffs, flushes and blotches; depression looks like an instant allergy. Feel good, Andie? Her face lights up like a neon billboard on Sunset Strip. "She has this terrific ability to express things without saying anything," says Judd Nelson."She lets you see into her for a moment. And then, when she wants to, she turns it off."
And now, maybe, she wants to turn Hughes off. Molly can hardly regret being made a star in successful comedies written by a man who enjoyed playing both Svengali and pal to a gifted young actress. But gratitude does not mean indentured servitude. "When John moved from Chicago to L.A. after The Breakfast Club," she says, "he changed. I wouldn't say he 'went Hollywood,' but he started looking very GQ. I don't really see him anymore. I still respect him a lot, and if he gave me a good script, I'd read it. But I don't think we'll work together again real soon." Sorry, all you Ringlets and Breakfast Clubbers. Molly's cutting the Hughes-Ringwald umbilical string. Time to grow up.
4:30. Lunch, finally, at Chianti, a Melrose Avenue favorite of Molly's. Her usual cuisine is less fastidious: hash browns, fried chicken strips with an orange-whip drink and, a Ringwald special, catsup-drenched onion rings from which the onions have been eviscerated--fried batter au Heinz. Today, though, she orders sliced tomatoes with vinaigrette and char-grilled chicken over shoestring potatoes.
After the day's fourth cup of coffee and eleventh cigarette, Molly's off to the Sherman Oaks Galleria, the Mecca of Valley Girls. If Andy Hardy's life was small town, Molly and her generation's is mall town: cruising the stores and the guys for a little post-innocent fun. Today's purchase is a portable tape player, a present for Mom. We detour to glom some sweaters, to pet the hamsters in the pet shop, to try on some beige Shiseido lipstick. Molly resists (and transcends) the Valley Girl stereotype, though she lives and speaks a variation of it. During a photo session she'll say, "This pose is, like, totally uncomfortable."