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John Hughes, the writer and director behind such era-defining comedies as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, and Pretty in Pink, died today of a heart attack. Yes, he gave us Long Duk Dong, but he also gave us Duckie, and for that, almost all can be forgiven.
In honor of the man, tell us your favorite Hughes moments. Was it Ally Sheedy and her dandruff art? Molly Ringwald making that iconic pink prom dress? How about Cameron (Alan Ruck) pushing his dad’s Ferrari through the glass garage wall? Share your memories in the comment thread.
Publicity shot of Sixteen Candles movie poster courtesy of Channel Productions.
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Amidst the flood of John Hughes remembrances swirling about the Internet this morning—read Dana Stevens' excellent obituary for Slate here—one is generating more smiles and sighs than others. In "Sincerely, John Hughes," Alison Byrne Fields recounts the two years she spent corresponding with the writer-director after she saw The Breakfast Club and poured her heart out to him in a letter. (Hughes' people initially responded with a form letter and some TBC stickers; Alison got irate and badgered him into writing her a real letter. Gotta love that teen girl moxie.)
Hughes wrote Alison long letters from the set; encouraged her to keep writing, even when her English teacher wouldn't; and sent her a box of Ferris Bueller schwag as an apology for having skipped several months of correspondence. (Alison had written to his boss at Paramount when she hadn't heard from him—again, there's that moxie. When do we lose that, do you think?) The whole thing is incredibly moving, and well worth a read. I can't help but be happy to know that John Hughes, who created some of Hollywood's most memorable teen icons, cared about real teenagers, too.
(Side note: John Richards, the DJ who hosts KEXP in New York's morning's show, is currently spinning '80s classics in Hughes' honor; we just heard "Girls on Film" and are now being serenaded by the sweet sounds of Bow Wow Wow. Listen at 91.5 FM in New York or online.)
Photograph by Getty Images.
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Amidst the flood of John Hughes remembrances swirling about the Internet this morning—read Dana Stevens' excellent obituary for Slate here—one is generating more smiles and sighs than others. In "Sincerely, John Hughes," Alison Byrne Fields recounts the two years she spent corresponding with the writer-director after she saw The Breakfast Club and poured her heart out to him in a letter. (Hughes' people initially responded with a form letter and some TBC stickers; Alison got irate and badgered him into writing her a real letter. Gotta love that teen girl moxie.)
Hughes wrote Alison long letters from the set; encouraged her to keep writing, even when her English teacher wouldn't; and sent her a box of Ferris Bueller schwag as an apology for having skipped several months of correspondence. (Alison had written to his boss at Paramount when she hadn't heard from him—again, there's that moxie. When do we lose that, do you think?) The whole thing is incredibly moving, and well worth a read. I can't help but be happy to know that John Hughes, who created some of Hollywood's most memorable teen icons, cared about real teenagers, too.
(Side note: John Richards, the DJ who hosts KEXP in New York's morning's show, is currently spinning '80s classics in Hughes' honor; we just heard "Girls on Film" and are now being serenaded by the sweet sounds of Bow Wow Wow. Listen at 91.5 FM in New York or online.)
Photograph by Getty Images.
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Molly Ringwald's heartfelt farewell to John Hughes in the New York Times today makes a good companion piece to the blog post "Sincerely, John Hughes" that we wrote about last week. Whereas Alison Byrne Fields was a teenager who loved Hughes from afar, Ringwald was a teenager who loved him up close.
Unsurprisingly, given their intimacy, Ringwald's memories have a darker, more nuanced cast than Fields'. She describes Hughes, the director who "catapulted [her] from obscurity and planted [her] in the American consciousness," as a kind of Peter Pan who refused to grow up—and who resented her when she decided to. Ringwald hadn't spoken to Hughes for more than 20 years when he died; their relationship soured when she decided to work with other directors. "I wanted to grow up," she writes, "something I felt (rightly or wrongly) I couldn’t do while working with John."
Luckily, the two had a moment of reconciliation (thanks to François Truffaut, natch), though I can't help but be saddened by the thought that the two didn't stay friends. (She did, however, stay close with Anthony Michael Hall, which is a big relief.)
The whole thing is worth reading, but here's a taste:
Most everyone knows that John retreated from Hollywood and became a sort of J.D. Salinger for Generation X. But really, sometime before then, he had retreated from us and from the kinds of movies that he had made with us. I still believe that the Hughes films of which both [Anthony Michael Hall] and I were a part (specifically “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club”) were the most deeply personal expressions of John’s. In retrospect, I feel that we were sort of avatars for him, acting out the different parts of his life—improving upon it, perhaps. In those movies, he always got the last word. He always got the girl.
None of the films that he made subsequently had the same kind of personal feeling to me. They were funny, yes, wildly successful, to be sure, but I recognized very little of the John I knew in them, of his youthful, urgent, unmistakable vulnerability. It was like his heart had closed, or at least was no longer open for public view. A darker spin can be gleaned from the words John put into the mouth of Allison in “The Breakfast Club”: “When you grow up ... your heart dies.”
Photograph of Molly Ringwald by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI.
