Michael Schoeffling (born December 10, 1960) is an American former actor, and male model, known for playing Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles, Kuch in Vision Quest, and Joe in Mermaids. Schoeffling was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in South Jersey. He graduated from Cherokee High School in New Jersey, and majored in Liberal Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia. In the mid-1980s he began modeling for GQ, and photographer Bruce Weber paid for his acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Manhattan. An accomplished youth and collegiate wrestler, Michael has won medals in various national and international tournaments. He won a gold medal for the United States in freestyle wrestling, as a member of the National Junior Wrestling Team in a meet held in Munich, Germany in 1978. His considerable wrestling skills were downplayed as 'Kuch' in Vision Quest, where he wrestled Matthew Modine, his teammate in the movie, and lost by fall in a wrestle off. Schoeffling retired from acting in 1991; in various magazine and newspaper interviews, he stated that the lack of roles and a growing family to feed were his reasons for retiring[citation needed]. Since giving up acting, he has produced handcrafted furniture as the owner of a woodworking shop. Schoeffling lives with his wife, Valerie L. Robinson of Virginia, also a former model, in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. They have two children, Scarlet and Zane.
