A star from the age of 10 when she appeared in a Los Angeles production of Annie, Molly Ringwald has successfully combined her career as a TV and stage actress with her singing. The daughter of blind pianist Bob Ringwald, she was singing by the age of six in her father's Dixieland style group, the Fulton Street Jazz Band, recording the single I Wanna Be Loved By You. At 11 she won a part in the TV series Diff'rent Strokes and its spin-off Facts Of Life and in 1980 she was lead vocalist on two Disney albums, singing patriotic material like This Is My Country, God Bless America and Star-Spangled Banner. She became one of America's favourite teen actresses in top 1980s movies like The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles and Fresh Horses. Ringwald's acting career continued with prominent TV roles and Broadway plays but, in 2013, she returned to her original love of singing with the release of a jazz album Except Sometimes, produced by Peter Smith. Describing jazz as her equivalent of "comfort food", the album includes various jazz standards such as The Very Thought Of You and I'll Take Romance and also includes a cover of Simple Minds' Don't You Forget About Me, which she'd previously closely been associated with in the movie The Breakfast Club.
