Read on to learn about Ringwald’s life today, from her acting career, to her family life, to her jazz singing and writing careers—that’s right, she does it all. RELATED: See Former Teen Idol Ally Sheedy Now at 59. Ringwald has continued acting ever since coming to fame in the ’80s, on the big and small screens and on the stage. Her theater credits include tick, tick… BOOM!, Cabaret, and Sweet Charity. Some of her more recent onscreen projects are The Secret Life of the American Teenager, the Kissing Booth movies, and Riverdale, which is based on Archie comics.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb “It’s Archie. I mean, I loved Archie growing up,” she told Entertainment Tonight in 2017. “I was always really interested, you know, ‘Am I more Betty or am I more Veronica? What am I gonna be like when I grow up?’ but it turns out I’m Archie’s mom.” Ringwald’s father was a jazz musician, and she’s followed in his footsteps. In 2013, she released a jazz album titled Except Sometimes. “I sang before I acted, because my father is a jazz musician and I performed with his band from the time I was three years old,” she told Seven Days in 2014. “Every creative endeavor does seem connected. I use my acting ability when I sing a song (ballad especially); I write in a musical way.” As she mentioned in the Seven Days interview, Ringwald also writes. She released a memoir, Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick, in 2010. Then, in 2012, she published a book titled When It Happens to You: A Novel in Stories. The actor has also written for other publications, including an essay about taking another look at her ’80s movies during the #MeToo era for The New Yorker and an advice series for The Guardian. RELATED: For more celebrity news delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. Ringwald, who is fluent in French, did the translation for the English version of the book Lie with Me by Philippe Besson. “For me it’s a bit like the difference between giving birth and being the midwife, she told Vanity Fair in 2019. “I was completely invested in the process and the health of the book was paramount, but I was always aware that it isn’t my book, it’s not my story, it is Philippe’s. I would say that I paid more attention to every single word in a way to a much more obsessive degree.” Ringwald has been married twice and has three children with her second husband, writer Panio Gianopoulos, to whom she has been married since 2007. Her daughter, Mathilda Gianopoulos, is 18, and her twins, Adele (pictured with her mom above) and Roman Gianopoulos, are 12. Ringwald has talked about how the movies she made with Hughes are very much of their time in terms of the elements of sexism, racism, and homophobia that were permitted to be included, which makes watching her early work with her children complicated. In her New Yorker essay, the star wrote about being somewhat uncomfortable watching The Breakfast Club with Mathilda. In 2021, she told Andy Cohen on Radio Andy, “My 12-year-old daughter, Adele, is the most woke individual that you’ve ever met, and I just don’t know how I’m gonna go through that, you know, watching it with her and [her] saying, ‘How could you do that? How could you be part of something that…’” But, she also said, “On the other hand, [the movies are] also about people that felt like outsiders. They speak to a lot of people. They’re complicated, and I feel like that’s what makes the movies really wonderful.” RELATED: See Former Teen Idol Judd Nelson Now at 62.
