Odds are you didn’t go to high school with John Hughes but it seemed like you did

John Hughes, the popular, cult filmmaker who defined the 80’s and made teen angst hurt so good in comedies such as “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club” has left Generation Xers on their own. Hughes died today after suffering a sudden heart attack during a walk this morning in Manhattan. He was 59 and was in New York to visit family. He is survived by Nancy, his wife of 39 years, sons John and James, and four grandchildren.

“Bueller? Bueller?…Anyone? Anyone?”
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

“I can’t believe I gave my panties to a geek.”

- Sixteen Candles

“Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?”

- The Breakfast Club

“A terrible day for gen x”

- Bob Boland

One particular posting on Facebook made me smile because I believe so many people felt the EXACT same way: “Oh, John Hughes you made jr. high so much easier with Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful and thanks for introducing me to The Smiths in seventh grade.”

“John Hughes wrote some of the great outsider characters of all time,” Judd Apatow told the Los Angeles Times last year. Lets face it, Hughes created every iconic movie character in the 80’s and provided a soundtrack that set the tone for Gen X. While he wrote a ton of classics such as National Lampoon’s Vacation and Home Alone he was at his best putting the heartbreak, style and culture of American teenagers on film.

His credits included: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, all starring Molly Ringwald; Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful and She’s Having a Baby, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Hughes also produced Mr. Mom, Planes, Trains & Automobiles and National Lampoon’s Vacation. Even though John Hughes was most associated with the 80s, the 90s brought Hughes his biggest box-office hits via the Home Alone franchise.

A native of Lansing, Michigan, who later moved to suburban Chicago and set much of his work there, Hughes rose from ad writer to comedy writer to silver screen. Hughes began his film career as a screenwriter, penning many of the early National Lampoon franchise comedies, some based on autobiographical stories he originally wrote while a staffer on the National Lampoon magazine (1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation was based on a story called “Vacation 58”). John Hughes was 34 years old when he released his first feature, Sixteen Candles, but no director before or since was ever more in touch with his inner teenager. The next four films he would make – writing and directing The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and writing and producing Pretty in Pink – defined what it was to be adolescent in the age of Reagan. The kids in his films weren’t merely mindless horn dogs peeking through peep holes into the girl’s locker-room shower; they were funny, smart, and troubled and he presented teens as more than bundles of hormones.

Hughes’ ensemble comedies helped make stars out of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy and many other young performers. “It’s a great honor to make a little dent in the culture,” Hall ruminated over his Hughes years with EW in 2006. “That [the movies] get mentioned with seminal films like Rebel Without a Cause or American Graffiti – that just blows my mind.” 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”). He also scripted the hugely successful “Home Alone,” which made little-known Macaulay Culkin a sensation as the 8-year-old accidentally abandoned by his vacationing family.

Later in his career, after the success of his high school films, he tried directing more grown up comedies, like 1987’s Trains, Plains, and Automobiles, and 1988’s She’s Having a Baby, but they never matched the success of his “brat pack” pictures.

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.

When he first screened The Breakfast Club for Universal executives, the studio hated it: “They said, ‘Kids won’t sit through it. There’s no action. There’s no party. There’s no nudity,’” Hughes told Premiere magazine in 1999. “But they were missing the one really key element of teendom, and that is that it feels as good to feel bad as it does to feel good. At that age, I remember, many times, staring out the window and feeling sorry for myself. ‘The whole world is against me. Nobody understands me.’ It’s a lot of fun. One of the great wonders of that age is that your emotions are open and fresh and raw. That’s why I stuck around that genre for so long.”

Colleagues and friends of John Hughes are paying respects about the beloved movie icon

Molly Ringwald, the poster girl for the 80s suburban teen  was “stunned and incredibly sad” to learn of Hughes’ sudden death today. “He was and will always be such an important part of my life,” she said of the man who directed her in Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. “He will be missed—by me and by everyone that he has touched. My heart and all my thoughts are with his family now.”

Jon Cryer, who doted on Ringwald and played her sidekick in Pretty in Pink, called Hughes’ passing “a horrible tragedy.” “He was an amazing man to work for and with,” the Two and a Half Men star, who was barely 21 when he played the penniless yet adorable outcast Duckie, said. He respected young actors in a way that made you realize you had to step up your game because you were playing in the big leagues now. That’s why he got such great performances out of his actors.  My heart goes out to his wife Nancy and their children.”

Macaulay Culkin who starred in the Hughes-directed Uncle Buck and Hughes blockbuster Home Alone said: “I was a fan of both his work and a fan of him as a person,” he said in a statement. “The world has lost not only a quintessential filmmaker whose influence will be felt for generations, but a great and decent man.”

“John Hughes’ iconic films gave a powerful voice to a generation. He will be missed but never forgotten!,” tweeted Brat Packer, Demi Moore, who joined Hughes minions such as Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez in the Joel Schumacher-directed St. Elmo’s Fire.

Matthew Broderick, who twisted and shouted into teen-idol history in 1986 classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, said: “I am truly shocked and saddened by the news about my old friend John Hughes,” said Broderick. “He was a wonderful, very talented guy and my heart goes out to his family.”

Chris Columbus (director of Home Alone): “John’s films — although they were a product of the ’80s — I still truly believe that the reason people watch those films over and over again, and will continue to watch them for the next several decades is because they deal with feelings and emotions that are never going to change between human beings. And I think those are the cornerstones of movies that last forever. And I think that’s what John’s done. He’s created a body of work that people are going to watch again and again and again. And that is a true legacy.”

Jeffrey Jones (played Dean Edward R. Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off): “I’m just shocked and surprised and really sad that John is gone, because I know that he had more in him.”