4 days ago
Sixteen Candles star who played Molly Ringwald's pretty sister still looks great... see her now at 68
This former model was in one of the most successful teen movies from the 1980s.
Blanche Baker played Molly Ringwald's pretty older sister whose wedding was such a big deal that everyone forgot about Molly's birthday in the cult favorite Sixteen Candles.
She was cast for her good looks and skill at playing a ditzy woman in the 1984 film.
And now Blanche - whose mother was 1950s movie star Carroll Baker, 94, who had the lead role in Baby Doll - looks completely different.
The actress has posted several images to her Instagram page with her partner as they enjoy life on the East Coast. The eighties wonder is still a beauty as she is slender with a winning smile.
And Blanche still works all the time in Hollywood projects though she seems to call New York home.
Sixteen Candles was from prolific film director John Hughes.
The plot was thin but had a winning formula.
With the occasion all but overshadowed by her sister's upcoming wedding, angst-ridden Samantha (Ringwald) faces her 16th birthday with typical adolescent dread.
Samantha pines for handsome older boy Jake (Michael Schoeffling), but worries that her chastity will be a turnoff for the popular senior.
Meanwhile, Samantha must constantly rebuff the affections of nerdy Ted (Anthony Michael Hall), the only boy in the school, unfortunately, who seems to take an interest in her.
Also in the film were eighties stalwarts John Cusack and Jami Gertz.
Blanche was already a star before she worked on Sixteen Candles.
She won an Emmy Award for her performance opposite Meryl Streep in NBC's 1978 miniseries Holocaust.
And the looker had the title role in playwright Edward Albee's 1981 adaptation of Lolita on Broadway.
In 1987, she returned to the stage, originating the role of Shelby (played by Julia Roberts in the 1989 film) in the first Off-Broadway production of Steel Magnolias.
After Sixteen Candles, she had a supporting role in the 1990 film version of The Handmaid's Tale opposite Natasha Richardson.
Then there she did a few popular TV shows such as In the Heat of the Night, Law & Order and Clarissa Explains It All.
Then she worked with Sixteen Candles star Molly Ringwald again. They both had roles in the Lifetime original Christmas movie Wishin' and Hopin' in 2014.
Baker has directed films too.
Her last project was Girl in a Glass Box from the 2023 novel.
The 67-year-old is the mother of four children, three with her first husband, director Bruce vanDusen, and a son with current husband Mark McGill.
Blanche is active on her Instagram page where she wrote: 'A life spent in the arts..' in her bio.
On Memorial Day she was seen on a boat with her spouse as they wore red, white and blue.
And the Hollywood vet is often seen with her better half on dates at fancy restaurants.
Her mother was a massive 1950s actress.
Carroll Baker, 94, played the lead in the adaptation of two Tennessee Williams plays into the film Baby Doll in 1956.
Her role in the film as a coquettish but sexually naïve Southern bride earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Baker had other early film roles in Giant (1956) and the romantic comedy But Not for Me (1959).
In 1961, she appeared in Something Wild, directed by her then-husband Jack Garfein, playing a rape victim.
She went on to star in several critically acclaimed Westerns in the 1950s and 1960s, such as The Big Country (1958), How the West Was Won (1962), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).
In the mid-1960s, Baker became a sex symbol in The Carpetbaggers (1964).
Then she had the role of Jean Harlow in the biopic Harlow (1965).
Caroll worked in Italy for years before starring in the Andy Warhol–produced dark comedy Bad (1977).
Next came Star 80 (1983), Native Son (1986) and Ironweed (1987).
Through the 1990s, Baker had guest roles in several television series, such as Murder, She Wrote; L.A. Law, and Roswell. She also had supporting parts in several big-budget films, such as Kindergarten Cop (1990) and the David Fincher–directed thriller The Game (1997). She retired from acting in 2003.
