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Bob and Adele's little girl has already banked about $1 million from her last three films and is likely to make about that much for her next one. She has signed a development deal with United Artists. The very Warren Beatty, ladies and gentlemen, has squired Molly to political dinners. Beatty's company is producing the film she begins shooting this week, The Pickup Artist, Director James Toback's romantic comedy about a young schoolteacher on the make and the feisty museum guide he targets. Beatty has had Ringwald in mind for a movie project since he saw her in Tempest. Even then, he says, he was struck by her "level of intelligence and spontaneity, the lack of affectation in her acting. And obviously her good looks." (About her relationship with Beatty, she once sarcastically blurted out, "Of course, I'm expecting his child.") And as if all these perks and paeans weren't enough, next month Molly graduates from high school.
While Ringwald's agent scans the dozen or so scripts that arrive each week, Molly blueprints a conservative future beyond The Pickup Artist. College, but not this fall. Marriage and motherhood, someday. A Broadway musical, if the mix is right. Her next movie, scheduled for later this year, is Peter Bogdanovich's film version of the off-Broadway play To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday. These projects may answer the question many of her friends have about Ringwald's career. Paul Mazursky: "Will she take the next step and do adult roles, women who are worried about something more than what to wear to the dance? It's a tough transition. But I think she'll make it."
There is every good reason to think so, for Molly reads herself--her personality and priorities--like a wise child devouring a Dr. Seuss book. "One of the most important things about being an actress," she says, "is to have a strong sense of your own experience, emotions and style. That's one reason I admire Diane Keaton. She has a real aura and personality, a style of her own. I like Jessica Lange, because she can be vulnerable and still strong. And from movies of the '30s, Carole Lombard--her wackiness, her timing for comedy, her beauty that's not exactly classic but it's sexy and comes from her humor."
So strange, this young woman with a thrift shop's jumble of cultural references. She knows the repertoire of every long-ago blues chanteuse as if it were today's Top 40; yet when she asks a companion, "What was it like back in the '60s?" he has to remember she was born during the Tet offensive. She's Valley Girl and flapper, trendsetter and Mom and Dad's unspoiled little girl.
Bored with the galleria, Molly drops off her day's escort, flashes a good- bye smile, and vrooms away toward--what? Molly's a night owl, but not always at nightclubs. She has a new video camera and loves to film improvised "talk shows" with friends (no special guy just now). Tonight maybe she'll take in a movie, or even stay home. There's no rush to experience everything this minute; plenty of time for an 18-year-old cresting on stardom and maturity. The night is as young as Molly, and as full of pleasures and promises.
Be well, princess. Stay swell.