John Hughes Is Dead

[cdnvic]

Unless you were in a coma throughout the 80's and 90s, you've seen many of his movies. Some were silly, some were classics, but you cannot deny his impact on the era.

RIP

Writer-director-producer John Hughes died of a heart attack Thursday in New York City. He was 59.

Hughes was the man behind some of the biggest films of the '80s — writing and directing The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off; and writing the screenplay for Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful and Mr. Mom.

He is credited for creating the teen angst genre in modern film. His movies were not only box office successes but critical ones as well, and often praised for their realistic approach into the lives of modern teenagers. Hughes' films served as a huge break for some of the biggest stars of the '80s including Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Matthew Broderick and Molly Ringwald, who appeared in three of his films including the lead role in Sixteen Candles — the first movie Hughes directed. A native of Illinois, Hughes set most of his films in the Chicago area.

He stepped away from the spotlight to spend time with his family and work on his farm in northern Illinois, but still continued to work in film with his last directorial effort being 1991's Curly Sue, the then went on to produce the blockbuster Home Alone franchise.

Hughes got his start selling jokes to veteran comedians Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers. A story he wrote for the humour magazine National Lampoon chronicled summer trips with his family as a teenager. That story inspired his screenplay of another '80s hit, National Lampoon's Vacation.

In a 1986 interview conducted by Molly Ringwald for Seventeen magazine, Hughes said that growing up he was a lot like the characters from his movies, specifically Samantha (Sixteen Candles), Allison (The Breakfast Club) and Ferris Bueller.

The iconic filmmaker also cited Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso as his heroes because "they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on."

Hughes suffered a heart attack after a morning walk in Manhattan where he was visiting family.

He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy, two sons, John and James, and four grandchildren.

© Copyright © Reuters

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Odds are you didn't go to high school with John Hughes. Odds are it sure seemed like you did.

Hughes, the popular, almost-mythical filmmaker who made teen angst hurt so good in biting comedies such as Sixteen Candles, only to leave Generation Xers largely on their own as the Molly Ringwald-ruled 1980s ended, died after suffering a sudden heart attack during a walk this morning in Manhattan. He was 59.

"John Hughes wrote some of the great outsider characters of all time," Judd Apatow, the presently hot filmmaker from the Hughes mold, told the Los Angeles Times last year.

It probably would be quicker to list the 1980s movies Hughes wasn't responsible for as either a writer, director or producer.

His credits included: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, all starring Ringwald; Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful and She's Having a Baby, all quotable—and quoted—in their own right; and, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the signature Matthew Broderick, if not Hughes, comedy.

Though most associated with the 1980s, the 1990s brought Hughes his biggest box-office hits via the Home Alone franchise.

Hughes' quick mind and evidently even quicker typing fingers also produced the Michael Keaton hit, Mr. Mom, the John Candy-Steve Martin hit, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, and the Chevy Chase blockbuster, National Lampoon's Vacation.

The secret to Hughes' success, especially in the 1980s, might have been as simple as his novel outlook on an oft-maligned species: the American teenager.

''I don't think of kids as a lower form of the human species,'' Hughes said in the New York Times in 1986.

Born in 1950 in Michigan, Hughes' writing career began in Chicago, the leafy suburbs of which served as future home to the Buellers, the detention gang at Shermer High—and nearly all his screenplay characters.

In 1979, the former ad copywriter and National Lampoon magazine staffer scored his first Hollywood credit on a short-lived sitcom version of Animal House. Within five years, Hughes was in the director's chair on Sixteen Candles.

''I stumbled into this business, I didn't train for it," Hughes told Entertainment Weekly in 1994. "I yelled 'Action!' on my first two movies before the camera was turned on."

E! News

List of films:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000455/

Edited August 6, 2009 by cdnvic

[Ijustwannateach]

RIP- the eighties were a pretty lost decade, but he made them more interesting.

[PeaceBlondie]

I still quote Ferris Buhler, and cringe thinking of that Ferrari crashing. My two oldest kids loved Breakfast Club. Ferris' twin sister nearly hooks up with gangster-hoodlum Emilio Estevez.....

[beerchang]

I still quote Ferris Buhler, and cringe thinking of that Ferrari crashing. My two oldest kids loved Breakfast Club. Ferris' twin sister nearly hooks up with gangster-hoodlum Emilio Estevez.....

Bueller....Bueller....Bueller...Anyone...anyone...anyone...classic!

Breakfast Club is one of the greatest films ever made...Judd, Emilio, Molly, Ally and Anthony, not forgetting Paul Gleason (dumbas*ed cop in DIE HARD) in detention on a Saturday. If you have never seen it, go find it and enjoy.

RIP John. Time waits for no man. You went to soon.

[Moonrakers]

S-WING batter batter batter batter S-WING batter.

Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy. S-WING batter.

An absolutely timeless classic, I may even watch it again tonight.

RIP John.

Edited August 8, 2009 by Moonrakers

[cdnvic]

Anyone else notice the influence The Breakfast Club had on The Simpsons?

Matt Groening was definitely a fan, he says he named the robot in Futurama after the character Bender.

"Eat my shorts!" also came from the movie.

I didn't put the double image below in... blame the software.

Edited August 8, 2009 by cdnvic

[cobra]

Good observation,

Yes original ideas rarily come out of no where.

[ianwuk]

On tuesday evening I watched both Uncle Buck and Planes. Trains and Automobiles

Amazing films, I really enjoy them.

John Candy and John Hughes were a definite winning combination.

Ian

[Blinky Bill]