The '80s favourite screen princess Molly Ringwald didn't jump straight into John Hughes-directed stardom. Like most actors, she worked a few jobs before Hollywood came calling, appearing on TV shows and smaller movies early in the decade before her 1984 role in Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club the following year.
We're going back to the days before Molly Ringwald was a household name and catching up with her TV castmates.
© NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesMolly Ringwald took on the part of another Molly, namely, keen photographer Molly Parker
Debut role
Molly Ringwald got her break as Molly Parker on Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life, the popular sitcom and its hit spin-off, between 1979 and 1980.
Parker is a student at Eastland Academy for Girls and friends with show regulars Kimberley Drummond and Tootie Ramsey. She loves photography, plays the guitar and is known to be a fast talker.
© NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesMolly Ringwald's character Molly Parker appeared in both Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life
Diff'rent Strokes & The Facts of Life
Molly appeared on both Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life in 1979 and 1980. Diff'rent Strokes follows the Drummond family, father Phillip and daughter Kimberley, their housekeeper Edna and two adopted pre-teens Arnold and Willis.
The Facts of Life followed the housemother and dietician of Eastland School as she teaches a group of students how to work through typical teenage problems.
© Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images'The Facts of Life' was a spin-off of popular sitcom 'Diff'rent Strokes'
Castmates
'80s hit Diff'rent Strokes featured well-known faces like Charlotte Rae as Edna Garrett, the Eastland Academy den-mother turned dietician, Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson and Dana Plato as Molly's friend Kimberly Drummond.
Diff'rent Strokes spin-off The Facts of Life also features Edna Garrett along with Lisa Whelchel's Blair Warner, Kim Fields' Tootie and Mindy Cohn's Natalie Green.
© Getty ImagesMolly Ringwald is one of the best-loved leading actresses of the '80s
Career highlights
Molly Ringwald is best known as part of the '80s acting in-crowd, nicknamed the 'Brat Pack'. She starred in several iconic John Hughes movies like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink.
She's since opened up about the effect of her '80s stardom, explaining: "Even though I was happy with the movies that I was doing and I loved the work of actually doing it, but all the fame and the notoriety outside of that, I found it really overwhelming and scary."
© Getty ImagesMolly Ringwald has come back onto our screens in a big way and is set to appear next to Callum Turner and Maya Hawke
What's she up to now
Following a brief break after her days of '80s stardom, Molly Ringwald has returned to our screens, appearing in all five seasons of The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008-2013). She took on the role of on-screen matriarch again in The Kissing Booth trilogy and flexed some serious acting muscles in Netflix’s Monster series.
This year, she's taking to the screen in rom-com One Night Only which stars Callum Turner as Ringwald's son, alongside well-known names like Maya Hawke, Julia Fox, Monica Barbaro and King Princess. The romantic drama follows two New Yorkers in their search for love on the one night of the year when sex is legal.
