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Valerie Macon/Getty ImagesAs diehard fans of the 1986 teen flick "Pretty in Pink" know, the movie was originally supposed to end with Molly Ringwald's other-side-of-the-tracks character, Andie, in the arms of her quirky friend Duckie, played by Jon Cryer. However, the story goes that early audiences disliked that ending so much that writer and producer John Hughes was forced to change it. The movie's actual ending features Andie and rich guy Blaine, played by Andrew McCarthy, as the ones kissing in the parking lot after the prom, while the song "If You Leave" plays in the background and the credits roll. Ringwald, who's now 44 and stars in ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," has often said she prefers Andie and Blaine together, and several times in the last few years she's gone as far as saying that Duckie was gay. On Monday, Ringwald explained her stance once again. "Duckie doesn't know he's gay," Ringwald told Out magazine. "I think he loves Andie in the way that [my gay best friend] always loved me." She added, "[The Andie and Duckie] ending fell so flat -- it bombed at all the screenings. I didn't realize it then -- I just knew that my character shouldn't end up with him, because we didn't have that sort of chemistry. If John [Hughes] was here now, and I could talk to him, I think that he would completely acknowledge that." Ringwald went on to say that Duckie wasn't the only gay character in Hughes' famous collection of '80s teen films. "John wrote a lot of gay characters," she revealed. "But it was something that we never talked about. I would say in just about every movie he did, he had a character that easily could have been gay." (Hughes died of a heart attack at 59 in 2009.)
The other Jon, who's now 47 and stars in the CBS mega-hit "Two and a Half Men," obviously has a different opinion. "No, [Molly] actually said that if one projected beyond the movie, that Duckie would be out by now. And I respectfully disagree," he told Zap2it this week. "I want to stand up for all the slightly effeminate dorks that are actually heterosexual. Just cause the gaydar is going off, doesn't mean your instruments aren't faulty. I've had to live with that, and that's okay."
But the two seemed to agree on Duckie's sexuality in a 2010 reunion interview with Entertainment Weekly. When asked where their characters ended up years later, Ringwald responded, "I'm sure that Duckie came out by now." Cryer joked, "Yes. He's in Gay Pride. He's the guy with no shirt and the suspenders. That's him. I never quite saw him that way, but perhaps that's because I'm married now."
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Ringwald also spoke about Duckie's sexuality at a 2010 screening of the film in NYC. "I have a really good friend who was the production assistant on 'Pretty in Pink' and John [Hughes] used to come up and say to him, 'you know you're really Duckie, you're her Duckie.' And, you know, he happens to be gay. And whenever I see this movie, all I can think about is that Duckie's really gay and he just doesn't know it yet. Jon Cryer is not gay, but Duckie is gay. I think he loves her in a way that a young man absolutely idolizes his female friends," she explained. "You can't have a Cinderella story and not have her end up with the Prince. We just didn't belong together."
The actress, whose "Secret Life" character incidentally is set to have a lesbian relationship this season, added that she might have rooted more for the Andie and Duckie ending if a different actor had been cast as the bike-riding, "Try a Little Tenderness"-loving Duckie. "In the original casting, Robert Downey Jr. was lined up for Duckie, and he is originally who I wanted," Ringwald said. "John Hughes wanted Michael J. Fox, but he got stuck on 'Back to the Future.' And then [director Howard Deutch] went after Jon Cryer, and I think Cryer is outstanding in the movie, and I can't imagine anyone else playing the part now. But it did really change the dynamic of the relationship, and we really just seem like friends."
Do you think Duckie was gay? Should he have been the one to end up with Andie?
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