John Hughes Dead at 59

[Compound]

Sad news.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Prolific film writer and director John Hughes, whose credits include the '80s teen films "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," died of a heart attack while walking in Manhattan on Thursday, his spokesman said. He was 59.

Hughes also made Macaulay Culkin a star, writing and producing the three "Home Alone" movies. His spokesman said Hughes was visiting friends in New York when he died.

In the last decade, Hughes had largely turned his back on Hollywood to run a farm in northern Illinois. He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy, two sons and four grandchildren.

I have fond memories of many of his films.

[mrbasehart]

Yeah, totally sucks.  He hadn't really done anything of note lately, but the films he made in the 80s are some of my most cherished childhood movies.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

"Where in the World is John Hughes?"

Ouch!

RIP.

[Tripe]

Very sad, he made some pretty important while seemingly light films.

RIP.

[Relaxing Dragon]

Yeah, totally sucks.  He hadn't really done anything of note lately, but the films he made in the 80s are some of my most cherished childhood movies.

He hadn't really done much of anything for a while. Stopped directing almost 20 years ago, hasn't done much heavy writing recently either.

All that same, it's a damn shame. He made some great comedies, especially his stuff with John Candy. I sure will miss him...

And it's weird, I was just looking up that "Where in the world is John Hughes?" doc a few days ago.

[Steve-O]

This one's truly a bummer.  The man wrote and/or directed more than his fair share of classics, and by all accounts was a real class act himself.

To wit, here's a little story about how the good ones interacted with their fans in the days before Twitter made it effortless (and largely meaningless.)

http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html

[MontyServo]

I remember reading years ago that he had toyed with the idea of making sequels to The Breakfast Club that would come out every ten years.  Revisiting the characters from that film ten years on in 1995, and then 20 years on in 2005, and so on.  Sort of like a fictional version of the Up series.  I guess he couldn't figure out a way to make it work so that it wouldn't tarnish the original.  Probably better off that way.

I am surprised that we never got a Ferris sequel.  That one seemed like it would lend itself the best to having one.  (Although we did get a lame Ferris TV series, and a halfway decent Weird Science TV series.  And I guess there was an Uncle Buck TV show too, but I don't remember too much about that one.)

It's too bad that he stopped making movies when he did.  He had a pretty good run when he was still directing films.

[Courtney]

Wrote my feelings on the matter for HoTrash for today:

http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2009/08/10/outside-of-the-in-crowd-john-hughes/

[Thrifty]

It's weird that on that same day, I was watching National Lampoon's Vacation.

Then I started to fantasize about the 4th Audrey, unquestionably the hottest one.

[carlobee]

sad news to know that we lost such a great, talented, artistic man...