ANDREW McCARTHY ‘I WAS NEVER SUITED FOR FAME'

THE BELOVED ACTOR – AND AUTHOR OF A NEW MEMOIR – LOOKS BACK ON HIS ENDURING FILMS, SURVIVING HIS ’80S STARDOM AND HOW HIS AFFILIATION WITH THE SO-CALLED BRAT PACK WAS A MIXED BLESSING

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Perhaps not surprisingly, Andrew McCarthy’s younger kids – daughter Willow, 15, and son Rowen, 7 – have never seen Pretty in Pink, the iconic ’80s film that helped make him a star. “I’m their father. Why would they?” the actor says. “[Willow] watched the trailer, saw me kissing Molly [Ringwald] and said, ‘I am not watching a movie where you’re kissing another person.’ ”

More surprising is the fact that, in the 35 years since the movie came out, McCarthy himself hasn’t seen it either. “I would never sit down and watch one of my movies,” he says with a laugh. “I’m just not a nostalgic person in that way.”

Indeed, in his new memoir Brat: An ’80s Story, McCarthy reveals his discomfort with his tumultuous early years in Hollywood, including his reluctant membership in the so-called Brat Pack, a group of actors connected by a string of popular ensemble films, like McCarthy vehicles Pink and St Elmo’s Fire. Success “was something I wanted, but I was also terrified of it,” he says. “I tend to be an introverted person.”

Eventually, McCarthy, 58, would find fulfilling new careers – in addition to acting, he’s now an acclaimed travel writer and director – and make peace with his Hollywood past. “There are certain things I would have done differently,” he says. “But I’ve stopped wishing to be a different person than I am.”