Brat Pack Documentary — Andrew McCarthy & the June 1985 New York Magazine Article's Impact on Careers

[00:00:08] From Los Angeles, California, the entertainment capital of the world. It's the 80s Movie Podcast. I'm your host Edward Havens Thank you for listening today At the end of last week's episode. I mentioned this episode was going to continue our series on the 1980s movies of director Susan Sidelman

[00:00:25] talking about her biggest hit film 1985's desperately seeking Susan But then a new movie about a 1980s phenomenon started streaming on Hulu this past Friday And let's face it a podcast about 80s movies is not going to let a documentary about the brat pack

[00:00:42] Just go without talking about it. I mean our very first episode in 2019 was about the teen movies of John Hughes As I write record and upload this episode Bratz has been streaming for a week And the main consensus about the movie falls into two camps

[00:00:58] People are there loved seeing many of their teen obsessions once again Or people hated it because it seemed like little more than an Andrew McCarthy group therapy session Where a bunch of his co-stars and a few brat pack adjacent actors McCarthy never worked with

[00:01:14] Complain about how their careers were stifled by a single article in New York magazine 39 years earlier and Demi Moore And while I can admit that it's always nice to see Leia Thompson, Ali Sheedy, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe

[00:01:29] And especially Emilio Estevez and hear them talk about their experiences in Hollywood in their younger days McCarthy is only asking questions that seem to pertain to himself and himself only and Just maybe poor fully the others

[00:01:45] If you have yet to see it and I would recommend watching it if you're a fan of 80s movies There is a bit to unpack here But before we get to the movie, let's take a look back at the early life of young Andrew McCarthy

[00:01:58] He was born in New York City in November of 1962 and he grew up in Westfield, New Jersey About 25 miles west of the Big Apple He attended Pingree School the top private prep school in New Jersey

[00:02:11] Where welcome to the dollhouse filmmaker Todd Solans was three years ahead of him And he would make the big move to Manhattan after graduating in 1980 Where he would attend New York University for two years before being expelled for not attending classes Young Andrew McCarthy would not suffer long

[00:02:31] Before the end of that month you would end up booking his first professional acting gig playing Rob Lowe's roommate in the 1983 teen sex comedy class a few months later

[00:02:42] He'd book another role in the drama the Benekir Gang and soon thereafter another role in the Catholic school comedy Heaven Help Us His fourth film would be the one that would bring him his first taste of fame

[00:02:56] St. Elmo's fire would feature several up-and-coming actors who would play friends and recent Georgetown University graduates Who struggle with what their lives really mean now that they are out of school and in the real world? McCarthy placed Kevin a low-level writer for the Washington Post

[00:03:12] Who shares an apartment with Emilio Estevez's Kirby and is not so secretly in love with Ali Sheedy's Leslie Who was engaged to be married to Judd Nelson's Alec St. Elmo's fire would be released in theaters on June 28th 1985 and

[00:03:27] Columbia Pictures the distributor of the movie would get New York magazine to assign one of its writers David Bloom To do a cover story on Emilio Estevez as part of a promotional push for the movie

[00:03:39] And that's exactly what Bloom planned on writing a harmless off-piece on one of Hollywood's most charming and up-and-coming young actors But fate would intervene One night while Bloom was in Los Angeles for the article

[00:03:54] Estevez would invite the writer to join him on a night on the town with his buddies like Tom Cruise Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson Over that course in the next few nights Bloom would witness if stevez and his friends

[00:04:06] Party at the Hard Rock Cafe at the Beverly Center at the time one of the hippest places in all of Los Angeles Get themselves invited in to watch a movie at one of Westwood Village's then numerous movie theaters because Estevez knew one of the

[00:04:19] Usher's who usually let him in for free and Ditch Brightlight's big city author Jay McInerney who was in town from New York to talk to Cruz about a possible movie adaptation of the novel at a local disco

[00:04:32] It would be Bloom who would coin the phrase the brat pack for the article a play on the rat pack Monica used by Frank Sinatra and his friends a generation earlier as well as a playful jab at their youth

[00:04:44] The cover story about the brat pack would arrive on newsstands two and a half weeks before St. Elmose fire was released and upon reading the article a Number of the actors who gave Bloom access to a moment in their lives felt betrayed

[00:04:59] None more so than immediately. Oh, Estevez Fast forward to 2021 Andrew McCarthy releases the book brat which chronic lies is his life as an actor and how his Association with the brat pack seemed to derail his career

[00:05:15] It was a minor bestseller but enough for him to be able to get ABC news studios to pony up funds For him to make a documentary about what it was like to be a part of the brat pack from the inside and

[00:05:26] Here are my takeaways from the film First McCarthy believes that the brat pack article killed most every brat packers career including his own except that's not true If you actually read the article and I have read it many times over the years from the week

[00:05:43] It was published to numerous occasions as background research for various episodes of this podcast Andrew McCarthy is not only not named as one of the members of the brat pack He's not even mentioned in the article until the very end and not even by the author himself

[00:06:00] And here is that mention from the article quote and of Andrew McCarthy one of the New York base actors in St. Elmo's fire a co-star says he plays all his roles with too much of the same intensity I don't think he'll make it unquote

[00:06:21] Clayton roner a young actor who was kind of hot at the moment for appearing in the surprise 1985 hit just one of the guys gets more column inches in the article to McCarthy And then let's actually look at the list of members of the brat packers from the article

[00:06:37] There's a me leo estive as listed as the unofficial president of the brat pack But it was well known even then Emilio wanted to leave acting behind become a writer and director

[00:06:47] Which she kind of did and then there's Tom Cruz his career didn't seem too impacted by the article Rob Lowe he's still working pretty steadily Judd Nelson listed as the overrated one

[00:07:03] Which might be fair, but when he got the right roles. He was pretty damn good and he's still working quite regularly Timothy Hutton the one with the Oscar

[00:07:14] He might not be as famous as he once was but he's still working in movies and on television to this day Matt Dylan the one least likely to replace Marlon Brando an unfair assessment as Dylan

[00:07:29] Was a damn good actor then and is still a damn good actor now and he is also still working quite regularly Nicholas Cage his career didn't seem too impacted by the article Sean Penn his career didn't seem too impacted by the article either

[00:07:47] The article also lists Matthew Broderick Matthew Moatting and Kevin Bacon as three actors the brat packers like but do not know You know who is not mentioned even once in the article Molly Ringwald or Anthony Michael Hall

[00:08:02] One who never responded to McCarthy's call to appear in the documentary the other apparently never even asked to appear Nor Ali Sheedy Demi Moore Leia Thompson or John Crier who all appear to tell McCarthy that yes indeed that mean old reporter put a hit job out on you

[00:08:19] and or McCarthy One recurring gag through the first part of the movie is how McCarthy hasn't seen any of these people in over 35 years and how he needed to get phone numbers for some of his former costars from other people

[00:08:33] One strange encounter comes towards the end of the film when McCarthy interviews David Bloom himself the writer of the article Talk about the article To Bloom's credit. He takes McCarthy's questions in full stride It being the article was not what he originally intended to write

[00:08:48] But kind of happened based on his observations while not apologizing for writing it and then for me There's the kicker that does not appear in the movie at all Andrew McCarthy's career was not that affected by the article either

[00:09:04] Between his debut as Rob Lowe's roommate in class to Bratz 41 years later There is not a single year where McCarthy didn't work either as an actor and or director on such shows as gossip girl Grayson Frankie blacklist Halten catch fire new Amsterdam

[00:09:23] Orange is the new black or good girls just to name a few and then of course there's his secondary careers of writer First for National Geographic Traveler and then several books all of which likely happened in part due to his association with the Brad Pack

[00:09:38] Sure, he might not have stayed the leading man He wanted to be but maybe that's because he started a number of middling to unsuccessful films like less than zero Kansas and the two weekend at Bernie films And as an added postscript also not appearing in the film

[00:09:55] He neglects to mention that in an interview with People magazine in 1999 He very much tried to distance himself from the whole thing From the article quote Andrew McCarthy 36 wants to set the record straight. He was never a brat The media made up this sort of tribe

[00:10:14] He declares waiting to go on stage with Ellen Burston in a Hartford Connecticut production of a long day's journey and tonight I don't think I've seen any of those people since we finished St. Elmo's fire and he adds I've never met Anthony Michael Hall unquote

[00:10:30] So in the end you have an unreliable narrator driving the narrative of his own movie Based on embracing a label he spent years denying he was ever a part of Then trying to solicit sympathy from his audience and his former co-stars for feeling betrayed by an article

[00:10:46] He's barely mentioned in There was likely a much better movie that could have been made about the brat pack which will now never get made because of this film We know that Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson have no problems talking about their

[00:11:01] Experiences working with John Hughes in the breakfast club. They've been regulars on the convention circuit for years now including in 2024 Talking about the film to anyone who will pay to get a ticket for their symposiums This and the fact that again

[00:11:16] He needed so many other people's help just to get in contact with some of his former co-star and that maybe There's some personal problems between them and McCarthy Maybe an outsider not me but someone with Prisman camera presence could have asked better questions that fans of 80 movies

[00:11:33] Would have been more interested in It's not a bad movie, but it's not a good movie. It's still worth watching Like for joining us. We'll talk again in a couple days when I promise we'll go into the history of desperately seeking Susan

[00:11:50] Remember to visit this episode's page on our website the 80s movie podcast For extra materials about Bratz Andrew McCarthy and the movies and actors we covered on this episode The 80s movie podcast has been researched written Narrated and edited by Edward Havens for idiosyncratic entertainment Thank you again

[00:12:12] Good night