Michael Schoeffling

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Michael Schoeffling

Birth name	Michael Schoeffling Giamundo
Born	December 10, 1960 (age 46) Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Notable roles	Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles

Michael Schoeffling was born December 10, 1960 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in South Jersey. He is a former actor, and male model, best known for his role as Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles.

1 Career
2 Education
3 Wrestling
4 Movies
5 TV
6 See also
7 Footnotes
8 External links

[edit] Career

Schoeffling is best known for his role as Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles, serving as a legendary lust object amongst generations of fans. On Valentine's Day of 2004 a full 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 celebrated Michael, and his character Jake's enduring popularity.^[1]

Michael has been unable to duplicate the same level of success he saw with his role in Sixteen Candles, stating that the lack of roles, and a family to feed served as his motivation to retire from acting.^{[citation needed]} He now lives with his wife Valerie Robinson, and their two teenaged children in Greentown, Pennsylvania, producing handcrafted furniture as the owner of a woodworking shop.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Education

Michael graduated from Cherokee High School in New Jersey, and majored in Liberal Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia.^{[citation needed]} In the mid-1980s he began modeling for GQ, and star photographer Bruce Weber to pay for his acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Manhattan.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] 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.^{[citation needed]} His considerable wrestling skills were downplayed as "Kuch" in Vision Quest, where he wrestled Matthew Modine his best friend in the movie, and lost by fall in a wrestle-off.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Movies

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (1991, by Steve Miner) - Al Carver
Mermaids (1990, by Richard Benjamin) - Joe Porretti
Longtime Companion (1990, by Norman René) - Michael
Slaves of New York (1989, by James Ivory) - Jan
Let's Get Harry (1986 by Alan Smithee) - Corey Burck
Belizaire the Cajun (1986) - Hypolite Leger
Sylvester (film)|Sylvester (1985, by Tim Hunter) - Matt
Vision Quest (1985, by Harold Becker) - Kuch
Sixteen Candles (1984, by John Hughes) - Jake Ryan
Racing with the Moon (1984, by Richard Benjamin) - Amputee soldier (uncredited)