MOLLY RINGWALD- MY LIFE IN 10 Pictures

RAISED JUST outside of Sacramento, Calif., Molly Kathleen Ringwald had music "all around me from the time I was a baby.

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According to my mother, I sang before I spoke!" Before long, a 3-year-old Molly was even performing with her father, Bob, a noted jazz musician. But then, she's admitted, "acting took over and gobbled up everything else." But going from her first break, in the first West Coast production of Annie, to her days as an '80s teen icon almost gobbled her up and Molly wisely retreated from Hollywood for a time.

"Anytime you're successful at a thing, people want you to do it over and over, and I've never been interested in that." So, Molly, who turns 55 on Feb. 18, started new chapters in her life-as a wife, mother, author and, once again, singer. "I don't know if I ever will feel like I've 'made it' entirely," she's shared. "Every time I set a goal and achieve it, I just make up another one. I can't imagine that will ever stop."

1 1979 FACING FACTS “It was really hard and humiliating,” Molly said of being told she was being “booted” to a semi-regular role on The Facts of Life after one season. “My mom said, ‘Do you really want to do this?’ and I said, ‘No,’ and that was it. I wasn’t on the show anymore.”