Whatever Happened To This Breakfast Club Star?

The Breakfast Club made stars out of its young cast, including Judd Nelson as "criminal" and resident bad boy John Bender. Since his Brat Pack days, Nelson has been keeping plenty busy with film and television appearances. Here's what he's been up to throughout the years.

Many audiences might think that Nelson's first film appearance was in The Breakfast Club. But it wasn't. He appeared in three films before The Breakfast Club: Rock 'n' Roll Hotel, Making the Grade, and Fandango.

Rock 'n' Roll Hotel has largely been lost to time, but some '80s moviegoers may recognize Nelson from the second two titles. In 1984's Making the Grade, Nelson played a small-time con artist who must impersonate a rich prep-school kid to earn $10,000.

In 1985's Fandango, he played a nerdy member of a group of college friends who take one last trip before graduation. The cast also included a young Kevin Costner in his first starring role. The film, however, failed at the box office.

Though Nelson had yet to find much success in the film world, both Making the Grade and Fandango set him up perfectly for his next project.

Judd Nelson's big breakthrough came in 1985 with writer/director John Hughes' The Breakfast Club. The cast included Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, and Nelson as high school students stuck in Saturday detention.

The Breakfast Club was a smash hit, making instant stars out of each of the five main actors, including Nelson. Later that year, he rejoined many of his cast members in Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire. That film, about recent Georgetown University graduates, added Demi Moore and Rob Lowe to a cast that also included Sheedy and Estevez. Keep watching the video to learn what happened to this Breakfast Club star?


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Early movies | 0:00
The Brat Pack films | 1:05
The post-Brat Pack era | 2:06
A very busy '90s | 2:57
Suddenly Susan | 3:50
Cameos and the return of Bender | 4:24
Films in the 2000s | 5:16
Television arcs | 6:16

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