John Hughes

John Wilden Hughes Jr. (February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter.

Hughes was born on February 18, 1950, in Lansing, Michigan, to Marion Crawford, who volunteered in charity work, and John Hughes Sr., who worked in sales.

He was the only boy, and had three sisters.

He spent the first twelve years of his life in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where he was a fan of Detroit Red Wings right winger Gordie Howe.

In 1963, Hughes's family moved to Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

There, his father found work selling roofing materials.

Hughes attended Grove Middle School, later going on to Glenbrook North High School, which gave him inspiration for the films that eventually made his reputation.

He met Nancy Ludwig, a cheerleader and his future wife, in high school.

As a teenager, Hughes turned to movies as an escape.

According to childhood friend Jackson Peterson, "His mom and dad criticized him a lot (...) She [Marion] would be critical of what John would want to do".

Hughes was an avid fan of the Beatles, and according to several friends, he knew a lot about movies and the Rat Pack.

After dropping out of the University of Arizona, Hughes began selling jokes to well-established performers such as Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers.

He began his career in 1970 as an author of humorous essays and stories for the National Lampoon magazine.

Hughes used his jokes to get an entry-level job at Needham, Harper & Steers as an advertising copywriter in Chicago in 1970 and later in 1974 at Leo Burnett Worldwide.

During this period, he created what became the famous Edge "Credit Card Shaving Test" ad campaign.

Hughes's work on the Virginia Slims account frequently took him to the Philip Morris headquarters in New York City, which allowed him to visit the offices of National Lampoon magazine.

Soon thereafter, Hughes became a regular contributor; editor P. J. O'Rourke recalled that "John wrote so fast and so well that it was hard for a monthly magazine to keep up with him."

One of Hughes's first stories, inspired by his family trips as a child, was "Vacation '58", later to become the basis for the film National Lampoon's Vacation.

Among his other contributions to the Lampoon, the April Fools' Day stories "My Penis" and "My Vagina" gave an early indication of Hughes's ear for the particular rhythm of teenspeak, as well as for the various indignities of teenage life in general.

His first credited screenplay, National Lampoon's Class Reunion, was written while he was still on staff at the magazine.

The resulting film became the second disastrous attempt by the flagship to duplicate the runaway success of National Lampoon's Animal House.

He went on in Hollywood to write, produce and sometimes direct some of the most successful live-action comedy films of the 1980s.

He directed such films as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, She's Having a Baby, and Uncle Buck; and wrote the films National Lampoon's Vacation, Mr. Mom, Pretty in Pink, The Great Outdoors, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Dutch, and Beethoven.

Most of Hughes' works were set in Chicago.

He is best known for his coming-of-age teen comedy films with honest depictions of suburban teenage life.

Many of his most enduring characters from these years were written for Molly Ringwald.

His legacy after his death was honored by many, including at the 82nd Academy Awards by many actors he had worked with such as Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Anthony Michael Hall, Chevy Chase, and Macaulay Culkin, among others.

Actors whose careers Hughes helped launch include Michael Keaton, Hall, Bill Paxton, Broderick, Culkin, and members of the Brat Pack group.

Hughes's next screenplay for the imprint, however, National Lampoon's Vacation, would become a major hit in 1983.

This, along with the success of another Hughes script that same year, Mr. Mom, earned him a three-film deal with Universal Pictures.

Actor John Candy created many memorable roles in films written, directed or produced by Hughes, including National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), The Great Outdoors (1988), Uncle Buck (1989), Home Alone (1990), Career Opportunities and Only the Lonely (both 1991).

Hughes's directorial debut, Sixteen Candles (1984), won almost unanimous praise when it was released in 1984, due in no small part to its more honest depiction of navigating adolescence and the social dynamics of high school life in stark contrast to the Porky's-inspired comedies made at the time.

It was the first in a string of efforts about teenage life set in or around high school, including The Breakfast Club (1985), Weird Science (1985), and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), all of which he wrote and directed, and Pretty in Pink (1986) and Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), which he wrote and produced.

(One of Howe's #9 jerseys, sent by Howe himself, was later prominently featured in Hughes's 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. ) Hughes described himself as "kind of quiet" as a kid.

"'I grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly girls and old people. There weren't any boys my age, so I spent a lot of time by myself, imagining things. And every time we would get established somewhere, we would move. Life just started to get good in seventh grade, and then we moved to Chicago. I ended up in a really big high school, and I didn't know anybody. But then The Beatles came along (and) changed my whole life. And then Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home came out and really changed me. Thursday I was one person, and Friday I was another. My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on.'"

To avoid being pigeonholed as a maker of only teen movies, Hughes branched out in 1987 by writing, directing, and producing the hit comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles starring Steve Martin and John Candy.

His later output was not so well received critically, though films like Uncle Buck and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation proved popular.

His final film as a director was 1991's Curly Sue.

By that time, in 1991, his John Hughes Entertainment production company had signed various deals with 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.

While out on a walk one morning in New York City in the summer of 2009, Hughes suffered a fatal heart attack.