… These kids that they recruited to watch the movie were screaming, loving the movie, screaming. When asked about the initial reactions to the ending, director Howard Deutch told Den of Geek in June 2020, “I had a heart attack because it was my first movie and we were in the screening room.
However, early screenings of the film found that audiences wanted to see their leading lady get the guy she had been pining for all along, not her nerdy friend. Pretty in Pink originally ended with Andie choosing her bestie Phil “Duckie” Dale ( Jon Cryer) over Blane. Ringwald didn’t get to wear the dress of her dreams in the film’s big finale - but her character did get the man of hers. “And of course now I wish I could frame it!” “I kept all of the clothes except for that dress because I hated it so much,” the California native told Vogue. She even “burst into tears” when she first saw it. The costumes in the film were also inspired by Ringwald’s real wardrobe - but the former teen star hated Andie’s Pepto-Bismol-colored prom gown. “The prop people even took a collage from my personal bedroom and used it in the movie for Andie’s room, if that tells you anything.”
“At that point in my life I also just really liked pink - Andie’s room was basically modeled after my own,” Ringwald revealed to the magazine. However, Hughes, who passed away in 2009, was so enamored with the then 17-year-old redhead’s style that he wrote the script with her in mind. In the film, Ringwald played Andie Walsh, a high schooler whose thrift store wardrobe made her an outcast with her more affluent peers including her bully, Steff McKee ( James Spader), and her crush, Blane McDonough ( Andrew McCarthy).