Michael Schoeffling Biography

Michael Schoeffling was a talented individual as a youngster and also a collegiate wrestler. He participated in numerous tournaments, both at national and international level, and won medals in them. He became a part of National Junior Wrestling Team and bagged a gold medal in freestyle wrestling in the 1978 European Championships in Munich, Germany.

Not sure about his future career path, he spent the next year and a half travelling in Europe. Later he began modelling for GQ magazine in the early years of 1980s and spent a couple of years again travelling for his work.

In 1984, Michael Schoeffling made an uncredited film debut with the movie, ‘Racing with the Moon’. Later, in the same year his big break came with the coming-of-age comedy film, ‘Sixteen Candles’ in which he co-starred with Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. In the movie, which was directed by John Hughes, he played the role of Jake Ryan, the high school heartthrob who was the crush of Samantha Baker, or Sam. The movie which became extremely popular launched Michael Schoeffling as an actor. Interestingly, he was 23 years old when he played the role of a high school student.

He went on to do some commendable work in few more movies like ‘Vision Quest’ in 1985 and ‘Mermaids’ in 1990. His other movies include ‘Belizaire the Cajun’, ‘Slaves of New York’ and ‘Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken’. He also worked for a television series, ‘The Hitchhiker’.

His acting career was short lived and after working on ‘Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken’ in 1991, he bid adieu to the film industry. He cited lack of roles as his reason for quitting the job of an actor. He was married and had a family to look after due to which he decided to shift to making handcrafted furniture and opened a woodworking shop. He resides in Pennsylvania with his family and has a very private life.

Michael Earl Schoeffling was born on December 10th 1960 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and spent his early years in New Jersey. There he attended Cherokee High School and completed his graduation. Later, he moved to Philadelphia and joined the Temple University to major in Liberal Arts. Still later he took acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Manhattan. Bruce Weber, the photographer, paid his fees for these classes.

He wedded Valerie C. Robinson and has two kids, Scarlet and Zane. Valerie is a former model and actress who appeared in the movie ‘Patty Hearst’ and ‘One Shoe Makes It Murder’. She was a model with the same agency as Michael.