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Bob Ringwald, jazz ambassador and actor Molly Ringwald’s father, dead at 80

By Kelli Dugan, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Bob Ringwald dead at 80 In this May 26, 2012, file photo, Festival Emperor, Robert Ringwald, of the Fulton Street Jazz Band, rides with his daughter, actress Molly Ringwald, in the Sacramento Music Festival parade in Old Sacramento in Sacramento, Calif. Robert Ringwald, the pianist who played and promoted jazz in California for more than half a century, died Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, according to his daughter. He was 80. (Lezlie Sterling/The Sacramento Bee via AP, File) (Lezlie Sterling/The Sacramento Bee via AP)

By Kelli Dugan, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Accomplished musician and California jazz ambassador Robert “Bob” Ringwald died Tuesday at the age of 80, his daughter, actress and author Molly Ringwald, confirmed in an obituary provided to The Sacramento Bee.

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No cause of death was given.

Born visually impaired on Nov. 26, 1940, in Roseville, California, Ringwald was completely blind by adolescence, yet never allowed his disability to dampen his love of music or his zest for performing, his daughter wrote.

“... at the age of 17, he was able to grow enough of a beard to be able to pass for an adult to play in nightclubs as a professional musician, an occupation he held for the next six decades,” Molly Ringwald wrote.

Heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong, Ringwald held a lifelong passion for the performance and preservation of traditional New Orleans jazz, and he co-organized the inaugural Sacramento Jazz Festival in 1974. In 2012, the festival honored Ringwald as “The Emperor of Jazz.”

Molly Ringwald offered the following personal glimpse into her father’s professional music career:

“In 1961, he worked at one of his all-time favorite gigs, Capone’s Chicago Tea Room and Pizza Joint, a club on Fulton Avenue in Arden Arcade inspired by the ‘20s speak-easies. To enter the establishment, a customer had to go into a fake telephone booth, turn the crank on an old phone and push on the rear wall to reveal the club’s entrance. Bob and the other members of the band used to go outside on breaks just to observe customers trying to figure out how to get in.”

According to his daughter, Ringwald was also a ham radio enthusiast and an avid Los Angeles Dodgers fan, for whom he once served as a guest announcer, reading the lineup in Braille, The Associated Press reported.

“Anyone who knew Bob also knew his mischievous streak, and his ever-present, slightly ribald sense of humor. If you didn’t sufficiently beg to get off of his email joke list, you would have received one just a couple of days before he died,” Molly Ringwald wrote.

In addition to his daughter, Ringwald is survived by wife of 60 years, Adele; a sister, Renée Angus; another daughter, Beth Ringwald Carnes; a son, Kelly Ringwald; two grandsons; two granddaughters; two step-granddaughters; one great-grandson; and one step-great-grandson.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made either to the Foundation Fighting Blindness or to CURE Childhood Cancer.

- The Associated Press contributed to this report.

©2021 Cox Media Group

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