Director John Hughes has passed away at 59

johnhughesrip
I am so sorry to report today that legendary 80s director and screenwriter John Hughes, responsible for such teen classics as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles, has passed away at the age of 59. Hughes died after suffering a heart attack while taking a walk in NY yesterday morning, where he was visiting family. For the past 15 years, Hughes has lived a reclusive life with his family on their farm in Harvard, Illinois outside of Chicago. He has not directed a film since 1991 and has not granted an interview since 1994. Last year, the LA Times ran a piece on Hughes in which directors Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow heaped praise on his work, and credited Hughes for introducing them to the outsider adolescent genre that characterizes their films. Smith called Hughes “our generation’s J.D. Salinger,” and said he’d love to sit down and talk to him at some point but that he’d never been able to find someone who knew how to get in touch with him:

Writer-director John Hughes, Hollywood’s youth impresario of the 1980s and ’90s who captured the teen and preteen market with such favorites as “The Breakfast Club,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Home Alone, died Thursday, a spokeswoman said. He was 59.

Hughes died of a heart attack during a morning walk in Manhattan, Michelle Bega said. He was in New York to visit family.

A native of Lansing, Mich., who later moved to suburban Chicago and set much of his work there, Hughes rose from comedy writer to ad writer to silver screen champ with his affectionate and idealized portraits of teens, whether the romantic and sexual insecurity of “Sixteen Candles,” or the J.D. Salinger-esque rebellion against conformity in “The Breakfast Club.”

Hughes’ ensemble comedies helped make stars out of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy and many other young performers. He also scripted the phenomenally popular “Home Alone,” which made little-known Macaulay Culkin a sensation as the 8-year-old accidentally abandoned by his vacationing family, and wrote or directed such hits as “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” and “Uncle Buck.”

“I was a fan of both his work and a fan of him as a person,” Culkin said. “The world has lost not only a quintessential filmmaker whose influence will be felt for generations, but a great and decent man.”

Other actors who got early breaks from Hughes included John Cusack (“Sixteen Candles”), Judd Nelson (“The Breakfast Club”), Steve Carell (“Curly Sue”) and Lili Taylor (“She’s Having a Baby”).

Actor and director Bill Paxton credited Hughes for launching his career by casting him as bullying older brother Chet in the 1985 film “Weird Science.”
“He took a tremendous chance on me,” Paxton said. “Like Orson Welles, he was a boy wonder, a director’s director, a writer’s writer, a filmmaker’s filmmaker. He was one of the giants.”

Hughes films, especially “Home Alone,” were among the most popular of their time and the director was openly involved in marketing them. But, with his ever-handy “idea books,” Hughes worked as much from personal life as from commercial instinct. His “National Lampoon” scripts were inspired by his own family’s vacations. “Sixteen Candles,” in which Ringwald plays a teen whose 16th birthday is forgotten, was based on a similar event in a friend’s life.

In a statement quoted on People.com, Ringwald said she was “stunned and incredibly sad” to hear about Hughes’ death.

“He will be missed — by me and by everyone that he has touched,” she said. “My heart and all my thoughts are with his family now.”

Tall and pale, with a high head of hair and owlish glasses, Hughes caught on just a couple of years after MTV was launched. MTV teens were drawn to his stories, innocent compared to the films and world events of the 1960s’ and ’70s. The conflicts were about self-discovery and fitting in rather than hard drugs, political protest or race.

[AP via News.google.com]

I don’t often admit this, but I’m 36 years old. Hughes’ films came out when I was in high school and I’ve easily seen some of them dozens of times, namely Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club. His movies characterized my adolescence and became part of my history. Hughes came into our lives and through deft storytelling and quirky characters he captured and helped define what we were going through. He slipped out before we really had a chance to thank him.

John Hughes is survived by his wife and high school sweetheart, Nancy, by two sons, John Hughes III, 33, and James Hughes, 30, and by four grandchildren.

The Sixteen Candles trailer:

The trailer for The Breakfast Club

And Weird Science. (NSFW boobies)

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15 Responses to “Director John Hughes has passed away at 59”

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  1. Gloaming says:

    He made some great movies, Uncle Buck and Planes Trains and Automobiles being a couple of my favorites.
    What would the 80’s have been like without this man.

    His influence will live on in film’s for years to come.

    This is so saddening 🙁

  2. Hieronymus Grex says:

    An 80’s Icon lost. I’ll always love The Breakfast Club, the seminal film of my generation.

  3. Praise St. Angie! says:

    Mr. Hughes, you will be missed.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Ou-iK2_kQ

  4. Firestarter says:

    Very sad. RIP John and thanks for all the great movies that pretty much summed up the 1980’s and early 1990’s.

  5. Deniz says:

    What’s sad is I was watching Pretty in Pink the night before he died. RIP John.

  6. Darlene says:

    a terrible, terrible loss. I remember each of his movies so clearly. Watching them takes me back to when I was in high school and all that was going on in my life then.

    RIP, John Hughes. You will be sorely missed.

  7. sandy says:

    we lost a good one.
    “vacation” and “sixteen candles” are two of the best comedies ever made.
    condolences to his high school sweetheart/wife and sons.

  8. Stephie says:

    “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” — “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

    I hope he didn’t miss a thing.
    Sad.

  9. ! says:

    The Breakfast Club should be required watching in every high school. And Ferris Bueller’s Day Off made an entire generation think Matthew Broderick was actually likeable and attractive. Sigh. John Hughes you shall be missed.

  10. Miss Wanderlust says:

    R.I.P. Mister Hughes and thank you for giving us a beautiful catalogue of film classics….what would the 80’s be without them…..Sixteen Candles is still the BOMB !!!

  11. wow says:

    This bugs. I was just watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off the other day.

    Sad. The end of an era in a way. He WAS the 80’s.

  12. I Choose Me says:

    RIP Good Sir. Sixteen Candles and the Breakfast Club are two of my favourite movies of all time. My adolescence was richer for having seen your films.

  13. Lovelee says:

    I loved John Hughes’ movies as a pre-teen and teen! I was thinking recently that I wanted to have an 80s movie weekend and his films would surely take primary position.

    Great filmmaker! He’s much too young to die.

  14. mae says:

    My little sister knew every word of the Breakfast Club.She drove us all nuts!The video store gave her the promotional things they got, she rented it so much. Now it’s one of 19 yr old daughters favorites! I grew up w/ all those movies & I’m in my 40’s & still like to watch them sometimes.RIP Mr. Hughes.God Bless & keep his family.

  15. CB Rawks says:

    And how cute was Robert Downey Jnr. in Weird Science? Love that movie.
    They were the films of my teen years also, and I still love to watch them today. A big favourite is Some Kind of Wonderful. Eric Stoltz made me weak in the knees.
    Thankyou Mr Hughes.