John Hughes (filmmaker)

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.[6][7] 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 #9 Gordie Howe.[1] Hughes described himself as "kind of quiet" as a kid.[8]

"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."

Hughes as a junior at Glenbrook North High School (1967)

In 1963, Hughes's family moved to Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. There, his father found work selling roofing materials.[1] 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.[9] He met Nancy Ludwig, a cheerleader and his future wife, in high school.[10] As a teenager, Hughes found 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".[11] Hughes was an avid fan of the Beatles,[1] and according to several friends, he knew a lot about movies and the Rat Pack.[12]

After dropping out of the University of Arizona,[13] Hughes began selling jokes to well-established performers such as Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers.[14] Hughes used his jokes to get an entry-level job at Needham, Harper & Steers as an advertising copywriter in Chicago in 1970[15] 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.[1] 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".[16] One of Hughes's first stories, inspired by his family trips as a child,[14] 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 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. 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.[17]

In 1994, Hughes retired from the public eye and moved back to the Chicago area. The following year, Hughes and Ricardo Mestres, both of whom had production deals with Walt Disney Pictures, formed the short-lived joint venture production studio Great Oaks Entertainment.[32][33] Hughes worked in Chicago, while Mestres was based in Los Angeles.[34] The company produced the films Jack, 101 Dalmatians, and Flubber, but Hughes and Mestres ended their partnership in 1997.[35] The 1998 film Reach the Rock, which was produced as part of the partnership between Hughes and Mestres, was subsequently credited as "a Gramercy Pictures release of a John Hughes and Ricardo Mestres production".[36]

In the following years, Hughes rarely granted interviews to the media, save a select few in 1999 to promote the soundtrack album of Reach the Rock.[37] The album was compiled by Hughes's son, John Hughes III, and released on his son's Chicago-based record label Hefty Records.[38] He also recorded an audio commentary for the 1999 DVD release of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

In 1970, then-20-year old[16] Hughes married Nancy Ludwig, whom he had met in high school. Together they had two children: John Hughes III (born in 1976) and James Hughes (born in 1979). They were together until his death in 2009. Nancy Hughes died on September 15, 2019.[39]

Michael Weiss argued that Hughes' films expressed a Reagan Republican worldview. In response to this, PJ O'Rourke wrote that:

I have no idea how, or if, John voted ... John and I never bothered to talk much about our politics. What we did talk about was the 20th century’s dominant scrambled egghead bien pensant buttinski parlor pinko righty-tighty lefty-loosey nutfudge notion that middle-class American culture was junk, that middle-class Americans were passive dimbulbs, that America itself was a flop and that America's suburbs were a living hell almost beyond the power of John Cheever's words to describe ... We were becoming conservatives—in the most conservational sense. There were things that others before us had achieved and these were worth conserving ... Family was the most conservative thing about John. Walking across the family room in your stocking feet and stepping on a Lego (ouch!) was the fundamental building block of society.[16]

On August 5, 2009, Hughes and his wife traveled to New York City to visit their son James and their new grandson. James said his father appeared to be in good health that night and that the family had made plans for the next day. On the morning of August 6, Hughes was taking a walk near his hotel on West 55th Street in Manhattan when he suffered a heart attack.[1] He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at age 59.[40] Hughes's funeral was held on August 11 in Chicago; he was buried at Lake Forest Cemetery.[41] It was attended by his wife, two children, and his grandchildren.[13]

The pilot episode of the NBC comedy Community, broadcast on September 17, 2009, was dedicated to Hughes.[42] The episode included several references to The Breakfast Club and ended with a cover of "Don't You (Forget About Me)".[43] The One Tree Hill episode titled "Don't You Forget About Me", broadcast on February 1, 2010, ended with a scene similar to the ending scene of Sixteen Candles and included some other references to his movies such as Home Alone. The 2011 Bob's Burgers episode "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" also paid homage to Sixteen Candles.

After Hughes's death, many of those who knew him commented on the impact Hughes had on them and on the film industry. Molly Ringwald said, "I was stunned and incredibly sad to hear about the death of John Hughes. He was and will always be such an important part of my life. ... He will be missed – by me and by everyone that he has touched. My heart and all my thoughts are with his family now."[44] Matthew Broderick also released his own statement, saying, "I am truly shocked and saddened by the news about my old friend John Hughes. He was a wonderful, very talented guy and my heart goes out to his family."[44]

The 82nd Academy Awards (2010) included a tribute to Hughes's work. A retrospective of clips from Hughes's films was followed by cast members from several of them, including Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Macaulay Culkin, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall and Jon Cryer,[4] gathering on stage to commemorate Hughes and his contributions to the film industry.[5]

Films with scenes taking place in fictional high schools named after Hughes include: the 2001 satire Not Another Teen Movie, the 2010–2013 Disney Channel sitcom Shake It Up and the 2016 Hallmark film Date With Love.

Hughes's work has also influenced a new generation of millennial filmmakers,[45] including M. H. Murray of Teenagers fame, who has cited Hughes as one of his main influences in interviews,[46][47] once stating: "I loved how John Hughes wrote teens ... They were flawed in this genuine sort of way."[48] Kelly Fremon Craig, who wrote and directed The Edge of Seventeen, also cited Hughes as an influence.[49][50]

John Hughes is referenced in Jesu/Sun Kil Moon's song "Hello Chicago".[51] Mark Kozelek recalls a phone conversation with Hughes in which Kozelek asked him for $15,000 in order to release his album Songs for a Blue Guitar (released by his band The Red House Painters). Hughes agreed, stating "You're young and on the rise, and I'm just an old man living in Chicago".

British indie pop band the 1975 cites Hughes as an influence in the band's music.

Maisie Peters released a song called "John Hughes Movie" in 2021.[52]

The 2021 Ernest Cline novel Ready Player Two features a quest where the characters visit the planet Shermer which mashes up characters, actors, and sets from various John Hughes movies. The characters must visit a computer generated avatar of Hughes and change the ending of Pretty in Pink to complete the quest.

Don't You Forget About Me is a 2009 documentary about four Canadian filmmakers who go in search of Hughes after he dropped out of the spotlight in 1994. It features interviews with Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Matthew Broderick, and other actors from Hughes' films. The film is named after the Simple Minds song of the same name, which was the theme song for the film The Breakfast Club, which Hughes wrote, produced and directed.

Don't You Forget About Me is also the name of an anthology of contemporary writers writing about the films of John Hughes, edited by Jaime Clarke with a foreword by Ally Sheedy, published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment. Writers include Steve Almond, Julianna Baggott, Lisa Borders, Ryan Boudinot, T Cooper, Quinn Dalton, Emily Franklin, Lisa Gabriele, Tod Goldberg, Nina de Gramont, Tara Ison, Allison Lynn, John McNally, Dan Pope, Lewis Robinson, Ben Schrank, Elizabeth Searle, Mary Sullivan, Rebecca Wolff and Moon Unit Zappa.

• National Lampoon Sunday Newspaper Parody (1978) (with P. J. O'Rourke)

• John Hughes's unrealized projects

• Roberts, Soraya. "A Diamond and a Kiss: The Women of John Hughes". Hazlift.

• John Hughes at IMDb
• John Hughes collected coverage from The Guardian
• Times Topic: John Hughes collected coverage from The New York Times
• Guest Book for John Hughes from Legacy.com
• John Hughes at Curlie
• Part 1 Part 2 1985 interview podcast from the American Film Institute
• Vanity Fair Interview