The celebrity grim reaper strikes again! While walking in New York City, 80'teen angst movie auteur John Hughes died of a heart attack at the age of 59.
Hughes was born in Lansing, Michigan, to a mother who volunteered in charity work and John Hughes, Sr., who worked in sales. A 1968 graduate of Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois, Hughes used Northbrook and the adjacent North Shore area for shooting locations and settings in many of his films, though he usually left the name of the town unsaid, or referred to it as "Shermer, Illinois", Shermerville being the original name of Northbrook. In high school, he met Nancy Ludwig, to whom he was married from 1970 until his death. They had two sons, John Hughes III, born in 1976, and James Hughes, born in 1979.
Hughes began his career as an ad copywriter in Chicago. During this time, he created what became the famous Edge "Credit Card Shaving Test" ad campaign.
His first attempt at comedy writing was selling jokes to well-established performers such as Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers. This led him to pen a story, inspired by his family trips as a child, that was to become his calling card and entry onto the staff of the National Lampoon Magazine. That story, "Vacation '58", became the basis for the film Vacation. Subsequent stories such as the April Fool's Day classics "My Vagina" and "My Penis" gave an early indication of Hughes' ear for the particular rhythm of teen speak, as well as the various indignities of teen life in general.
His first credited screenplay, Class Reunion, was written while still on staff at the magazine. The resulting film became the second disastrous attempt by the flagship to duplicate the runaway success of Animal House. It was Hughes' next screenplay for the imprint, National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), however, that would prove to be a major hit, putting the Lampoon back on the map. Although Hughes had no involvement in European Vacation (1985), he did write and co-produced Christmas Vacation (1989) based on another of his Lampoon stories.
His first directorial effort, Sixteen Candles, won almost unanimous praise when it was released in 1984, due in no small part to its more realistic depiction of middle-class high school life, which stood in stark contrast to the Porky's-inspired comedies being made at the time. It was also the first in a string of efforts set in or around high school, including The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's Day Off
To avoid being pigeonholed as a maker of teen comedies, Hughes branched out in 1987, directing Planes, Trains & Automobiles starring Steve Martin and John Candy. His later output would not be so critically well received, though films like Uncle Buck (one of the first films to display the change in teenager's choice of music from rock to rap) proved popular. Hughes's greatest commercial success came with Home Alone, a film he wrote and produced about a child accidentally left behind when his family goes away for Christmas, forcing him to protect himself and his house from a pair of inept burglars. Home Alone would be the top grossing film of 1990, and remains his most successful live-action comedy of all time. His last film as a director was 1991's Curly Sue.
He has been noted as an inspiration for many in the film industry. He also wrote screenplays using his pseudonym, Edmond Dantès (protagonist of Alexandre Dumas's novel The Count of Monte Cristo).
In 1994, Hughes retired from the public eye and moved to Wisconsin, rarely granting or giving interviews or photographs to the media save a select few interviews in 1999 to promote the soundtrack album to Reach the Rock, an independent film he wrote. The album was compiled by Hughes' son, John Hughes III, and released on his son's Chicago-based record label, Hefty Records. He also recorded an audio commentary for the 1999 DVD release of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. A photograph of him visiting his son on the set of his son's film in 2001 was the last photo taken of him in public. In the later years of his life, he was a farmer in Illinois.
In addition to his widow and sons, Hughes is survived by four grandchildren.
Sad loss! I'll be playing "Ferris Bueller's Day Off on my Blu-Ray Tonight in his memory!
Rock on Dude!
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1 comment:
The original Vacation (uncut... that thing they show in TV is so chopped it's barely funny) and the Breakfast Club are his two greatest creations, IMHO.
What's really sad was that he was just 59.
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