Brat Pack (actors) - Membership

Membership

The term "Brat Pack", a play on the Rat Pack from the 1950s and 1960s, was first popularized in a 1985 New York magazine cover story, which described a group of highly successful film stars in their early twenties. Writer David Blum wrote the article after witnessing several young actors (Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson) being mobbed by groupies at Los Angeles' Hard Rock Cafe. The group has been characterized by the partying of core members such as Robert Downey, Jr., Estevez, Lowe, and Nelson. However, an appearance in one or both of the ensemble casts of John Hughes' The Breakfast Club and Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire is often considered the prerequisite for being a core Brat Pack member. With this criterion, the most commonly cited members include Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy. Absent from most lists is Mare Winningham, the only principal member of either cast who never starred in any other films with any other cast members. Estevez was cited as the "unofficial president" of the Brat Pack. McCarthy claimed that he was never a member of the group, saying, "The media made up this sort of tribe. I don't think I've seen any of these people since we finished St. Elmo's Fire."

The initial New York magazine article covered a group of actors much greater than the currently understood meaning of the term "Brat Pack". For example, most of the cast members of The Outsiders were mentioned, including Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, and Ralph Macchio, none of whom starred in any other 1980s movies with any "core" Brat Packers. Charlie Sheen appears in several lists - more for his family relationship to Brat Pack leader Emilio Estevez and his partying than for his collaborative film work with other members. James Spader and Robert Downey, Jr. have also been considered members and appeared in several films alongside other Brat Packers, most notably together with Andrew McCarthy in Less Than Zero (Downey was also in two eighties films with Anthony Michael Hall - Weird Science and Johnny Be Good, as well as The Pick-up Artist with Molly Ringwald). Other actors who have been linked with the group include Kevin Bacon, Matthew Broderick, Jon Cryer, John Cusack, Jami Gertz, Mary Stuart Masterson, Sean Penn, Lou Diamond Phillips, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lea Thompson. In her autobiography, Melissa Gilbert implies that she was a member of the Brat Pack. Although she was a television actor, her social life centered on Brat Pack members Estevez and Lowe (she was engaged to the latter). Through frequent collaborative work, actor Harry Dean Stanton, then in his late 50s, became a mentor for the group of young actors.