March 06, 2005
FLASH IN THE PAN BABES OF THE EIGHTIES
Next up in this soon-to-be award winning series: Ally Sheedy. This brat-packer's breakthrough flick was The Breakfast Club in 1984. The following year, she was in one of my favorites films, St. Elmo's Fire along with other notables such as Demi Moore, Angie McDowell, and Charlie's brother Emilio. St. Elmo's Fire is, IMHO, the definitive first-year-out-of-college classic--I could put names, faces, and places from my college days at W&L to every character and situation in the movie. My favorite: boyfriend and girlfriend date all through college and everyone is waiting for them to get married. Boyfriend cheats on girlfriend regularly, they have spectacular breakup, and she winds up in the sack with his best friend who has carried a crush on her since her first laid eyes on her. Ally's career hit the skids after St. Elmo's Fire, she made a pair of films involving a talking robot (e.g., "Stephanie, nice software!"), and has dropped off the radar scope. Kathy, Maximum Leader, Colossus, has anyone seen Ally? Anyone? Bueller?
Posted by LMC at March 6, 2005 07:27 AMActually, Sheedy wasn't in the sequel. The only character (other than the robot) that I remember before dozing off, was Ben, the Indian guy.
Okay, I may not be the best witness...
Posted by: McGehee at March 6, 2005 08:42 AMI stand corrected. I perused one of the fan sites and it appears Ally has been involved in a number of flicks since Short Circuit, none of which I have heard of and most seemed to have gone straight to video or the equivalent. She should take a page from Harrison Ford's playbook on managing a film career. His MO was to do carpentry between decent acting jobs. After "Star Wars" he did not do B-movie stuff.
Posted by: LMC at March 6, 2005 11:19 AMHigh Art was a very well regarded indie, and was supposed to kick off a comeback for Ally. There was talk of an Oscar nomination.
I think she should look to do a TV show.
Posted by: Eric at March 6, 2005 02:34 PMOf course, one can't blame Harrison Ford for later mistakes like Six Days Seven Nights, K-19, and (what should have been a career killer for most other actors) Hollywood Homicide; he was obviously too old to hammer, right?
Posted by: Misspent at March 6, 2005 04:07 PMAccording to IMDB she's averaged 2-3 roles a year for the last 10 years. Sounds like a living to me.
Posted by: Dave Schuler at March 6, 2005 04:33 PMI makes me feel old and gray to admit this but I knew her as the three year old daughter of an old colleague, Charlotte Sheedy, her mother, in London. She went on to films and her mother, because well she was a little nuts and became more so, went on to become a spokeswoman for some sort of feminist celebacy movement,
More than that I cannot tell.
Posted by: Vanderleun at March 6, 2005 06:14 PMHigh Art was terrific. And she also did a very successful run here in New York of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She's been doing quite a bit of stage work, actually. I see her name around town with regularity.
Ally Sheedy actually wrote and published a children's book about Queen Elizabeth I, entitled: She Was Nice to Mice. I think she wrote it when she was 16.
Posted by: Rae at March 7, 2005 11:18 AMHere are some suggestions (which I posted about earlier today): Kate Capshaw (aka Mrs. Steven Speilberg), Karen Allen, Rebecca DeMornay, and my fav, Elizabeth McGovern.
Posted by: The Maximum Leader at March 7, 2005 02:38 PM
