Paul Dooley had been a character actor, a commercial pitchman, a Broadway thespian, and a stand-up comedian by the time writer-director John Hughes cast him as the father of Molly Ringwald in 1984’s “Sixteen Candles.”
After that? He was a dad, says Dooley, 94, as he talked recently about his new memoir, “Movie Dad.” “I got typed being a dad,” he says from his Los Angeles home. “So that’s why the multitude of things are being a dad.”
He’d been a movie dad before. Director Robert Altman, a frequent collaborator, cast him as the father of Mia Farrow in 1978’s “A Wedding.” A year later, he was dad again in the acclaimed coming-of-age film “Breaking Away.” Oddly enough, Dennis Christopher played his son in both those films.
