What a shame - some of the best movies ever....
New York — The Associated Press Last updated on Thursday, Aug. 06, 2009
Writer-director John Hughes, Hollywood's youth impresario of the 1980s and '90s who captured and cornered the teen and preteen market with such favourites as Home Alone , The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off , 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 ad writer to comedy 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's 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 eight-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 .
Other actors who got early breaks from Hughes included John Cusack ( Sixteen Candles ), Judd Nelson ( The Breakfast Club ), Steve Carrell ( Curly Sue ) and Lili Taylor ( She's Having a Baby ).
As Hughes advanced into middle age, his commercial touch faded and, in Salinger style, he increasingly withdrew from public life. His last directing credit was in 1991, for Curly Sue , and he wrote just a handful of scripts over the past decade. He was rarely interviewed or photographed.
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OK - throw out your favourite John Hughes movie quote - Ferris Bueller, Breakfast Club, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Vacation, Sixteen Candles....the list goes on....
New York — The Associated Press Last updated on Thursday, Aug. 06, 2009
Writer-director John Hughes, Hollywood's youth impresario of the 1980s and '90s who captured and cornered the teen and preteen market with such favourites as Home Alone , The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off , 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 ad writer to comedy 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's 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 eight-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 .
Other actors who got early breaks from Hughes included John Cusack ( Sixteen Candles ), Judd Nelson ( The Breakfast Club ), Steve Carrell ( Curly Sue ) and Lili Taylor ( She's Having a Baby ).
As Hughes advanced into middle age, his commercial touch faded and, in Salinger style, he increasingly withdrew from public life. His last directing credit was in 1991, for Curly Sue , and he wrote just a handful of scripts over the past decade. He was rarely interviewed or photographed.
*************************************************
OK - throw out your favourite John Hughes movie quote - Ferris Bueller, Breakfast Club, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Vacation, Sixteen Candles....the list goes on....
