https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brat_Pack_(actors)

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 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. He and Demi Moore were once engaged. McCarthy said he was never a member of the group: "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 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, Patrick Swayze and Ralph Macchio, none of whom starred in any other 1980s movies with any "core" Brat Packers, besides Patrick Swayze. 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 performed alongside other Brat Packers: both of them with Andrew McCarthy in Less Than Zero, and Downey with Anthony Michael Hall – Weird Science and Johnny Be Good, and the cast of Saturday Night Live – and 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, Corey Feldman, Jami Gertz, Corey Haim, Mary Stuart Masterson, Sean Penn, Lou Diamond Phillips, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lea Thompson. In her autobiography, Melissa Gilbert connects herself with the Brat Pack, as her social life centered on Estevez and Lowe (both of whom she was engaged). Through frequent collaborative work, actor Harry Dean Stanton, then in his late 50s, became a mentor for the group of young actors.