'80s teen flick director John Hughes dies in NYC

[RRACY]

NEW YORK ? Writer-director John Hughes, Hollywood's youth impresario of the 1980s and '90s who captured and cornered the teen and pre-teen market with such favorites 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' 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 8-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.

___

Associated Press writer Amy Westfeldt contributed to this report.

[Fletch XXX]

The Breakfast Club was the shit!

[DefaultMan]

Man that sucks. He made some great 80's movies

[smutnut]

Holy Shit, I think this is true. At first I thought you were joking but I see a sidebar on imdb now. It took me a few to find anything

[baddog]

Back when I was doing telephone system and computer network installs I got a job out at his new estate. Pretty bad ass pad, but the guy was a little neurotic.

[LiveDose]

Geez what a loss... RIP

[Doctor Feelgood]

i thought walking was good for your heart

[GatorB]

search is your friend

[getmouthy]

sorry to hear, he had a nice catalog of fims

[Manowar]

loved home alone and ferris bueller, RIP

[RRACY]

Think Ill throw on the Breakfast Club DVD tonight, killer movie from the youth!

Especially when they get high! I think that movie made me wanna smoke dope before I was even old enough to know what weed was! Then I saw Fast Times At Ridgmont High and it was downhill ;)

When's the last time we had a cult classic that was a box office flop? The 80's anyone...

[Mutt]

damn that's sad - i wondered what became of him. he wrote the best teen comedies of all time and then just went dry. he had a great fucking ear for how kids of the 80's talked - i always wondered how he did that, whether he interviewed kids or hung out at mall food courts and just listened and took notes. there wasnt any Internet in those days to help.

Breakfast Club was a masterpiece of a teen movie - if anybody wants to see what being a teenager in an American suburb was like in the 80's, he represented it perfectly.

so many creative people do it all in a brief period of time where it all comes pouring out of them - then they're spent. that's all they may have had in them and Hughes probably felt that. might have been scared to write about anything else.

16 Candles was great - launched Molly Ringwald and they put her on the cover of Time Magazine as the next great American female movie star. And her career fizzled away just like most of the Brat Packers.