''I wanted to work, and I felt rejected,'' she says. ''On the other hand, people didn't know where to place me. I wasn't a teenager anymore, but I didn't look quite like an adult yet. With all those things, it was good I went away for a while.''
Where she went was Paris, in 1991, to work on one of the many independent, low-budget films she has made and that few have seen. Always intrigued by French culture, and disliking Hollywood, she decided to stay. She says her agent laughed when she told him; her mother, Adele, cried. ''We were happy for her,'' says her father, jazz pianist Bob Ringwald, of her move. ''And she was away from the pressures of the business.''
Letting her hair grow out and return to its natural shade, Ringwald devised a plan: She would return to the States for a quick job, then scoot back with the cash to Paris and her beau, fledgling novelist Valery Lamiegnere. ''I thought, 'I'll just go back to America and it'll be like the cash register.''' The scheme worked financially, but not professionally. The films made during those years are, says Ringwald, ''nothing I am incredibly proud of.'' In 1995's Malicious, a college-set Fatal Attraction with Ringwald as the Glenn Close-style obsessive, she smoked constantly and wielded a knife. In this year's Baja, a lovers-on-the-lam flick, she smoked constantly and wielded a gun. Malicious, she says, is ''the one that made me wake up and say, 'I can't do this.''' This January, she came home.
Steven Levy, Ringwald's new agent, watches his client film a scene from the empty seats on the Townies soundstage. Young and eager, Levy — along with Jason Weinberg, Ringwald's manager — is on ''a mission to turn this girl's career around!''
''In the beginning, people said, 'Old news,''' recalls Levy. ''They felt her time had come and gone.'' His predecessors, particularly the William Morris Agency, had attempted to steer Ringwald into series TV but were rebuffed; Ringwald claims the implication was that her movie career was dead.
By the time Ringwald returned to the U.S. this year, that game plan had changed. Her first job was a guest role in the American Movie Classics cable series Remember WENN, for which she was paid scale ($1,800). ''When I told everyone that Molly would be on the show, they said: 'What happened to her? Is she still alive?''' recalls producer Howard Meltzer.
Since then, the hustling has paid off, at least in terms of exposure. Ringwald landed a role in Office Killer, a black-comedy horror film due next year; a cameo in David Schwimmer's directorial debut, Dogwater; and Townies. ''I think this series will do great things for her,'' Levy says, then stops to knock wood on the arm of his chair.
''We heard she had reached a point where she would do the right TV project,'' says Harvey Myman, one of the executive producers of Townies. Asked about Ringwald's career troubles, the amiable Myman questions whether there was a decline and grabs a list of Ringwald's credits.
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