Michael Schoeffling

Michael Schoeffling (born December 10, 1960) is an American former actor, and male model, best known for playing Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles, Kuch in Vision Quest and Joe in Mermaids.

Biography

Early life & education

Schoeffling was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in South Jersey. He graduated from Cherokee High School in New Jersey, and majored in Liberal Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia. In the mid-1980s he began modeling for GQ, and star photographer Bruce Weber paid for his acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Manhattan.^[1]

Wrestling

An accomplished youth and collegiate wrestler, Michael has won medals in various national and international tournaments. He won a gold medal for the United States in freestyle wrestling, as a member of the National Junior Wrestling Team in the European Championships held in Munich, Germany in 1978.^[2] His considerable wrestling skills were downplayed as "Kuch" in Vision Quest, where he wrestled Matthew Modine, his teammate in the movie, and lost by fall in a wrestle off.

Career

Schoeffling is best known for his role as Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles, playing the popular yet sensitive high-school athlete Ringwald's character has a crush on. In 2004, twenty years after the film's American premiere, the Washington Post ran an article entitled "Real Men Can't Hold a Match to Jake Ryan of Sixteen Candles", which discussed the appeal of the character.^[3]

Schoeffling never duplicated the success of Sixteen Candles, and in various magazine and newspaper interviews stated the lack of roles and a family to feed were his reasons for retiring from acting. He now lives with his wife, Valerie Robinson, also a former model, and their two teenage children in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, producing handcrafted furniture as the owner of a woodworking shop.

Filmography

Movies

• Racing with the Moon (1984) as Amputee soldier (uncredited)
• Sixteen Candles (1984) as Jake Ryan
• Vision Quest (1985) as Kuch
• Sylvester (1985) as Matt
• Belizaire the Cajun (1986) as Hypolite Leger
• Let's Get Harry (1986) as Corey Burck
• Slaves of New York (1989) as Jan
• Longtime Companion (1990) as Michael
• Mermaids (1990) as Joe Porretti
• Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (1991) as Al Carver

Television

• The Hitchhiker (1986) "Dead Man's Curve" episode, as Lance

See also

Philadelphia portal

References

External links

• Michael Schoeffling at the Internet Movie Database
• Real Men Can't Hold a Match to Jake Ryan of 'Sixteen Candles' article
• Sixteen Candles press release