7. Anthony Michael Hall
If Molly was the queen the Anthony was the king. Another Hughes prodigy, Michael Hall lucked out when his natural exuberance and effortless charm won Hughes over when he auditioned for (and won) the role of The Geek in
Sixteen Candles and ensured he was specifically written for in both
The Breakfast Club and
Weird Science. Hughes also wanted him to play Duckie in
Pretty in Pink but, like Ringwald, Hall wanted to go in a different direction. But just like Molly, he found the post-Hughes Hollywood brutal.
Johnny Be Good tried to capitalise on his effervescence and likeability but it didn't know whether it was a comedy or a drama. And it certainly didn't know that it was flaming ball of total crap. And so, along with everyone else on this list, he was trapped in limbo, with everybody talking about him in the past tense, even though he was still in his early twenties. But, just as every cloud has an American spy plane hiding behind it, fortune was to smile on Anthony once again twenty years later when he won the lead role in a TV adaptation of Stephen King's
The Dead Zone. The show was very popular and ran for five seasons culminating in his returning to the big screen in the Batman behemoth
The Dark Knight.