John Wilden Hughes Jr. was an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. He began his career in 1970 as an author of humorous essays and stories for the National Lampoon magazine. He went on in Hollywood to write, produce, and direct some of the most successful live-action comedy films of the 1980s and 1990s. He directed, wrote or produced such films as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, She's Having a Baby, and Uncle Buck, and wrote the films National Lampoon's Vacation, Mr. Mom, Pretty in Pink, The Great Outdoors, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Dutch, and Beethoven.
Most of Hughes's works were set in Chicago at the fictional Shermer High School and were coming-of-age teen comedy films. Many of his most enduring characters from these years were written for Molly Ringwald. While out on a walk one morning in New York City in the summer of 2009, Hughes suffered a fatal heart attack.
After his death, his legacy was honored by many, including at the 82nd Academy Awards by actors he had worked with such as Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Anthony Michael Hall, Chevy Chase, and Macaulay Culkin among others. Actors whose careers Hughes helped launch include Michael Keaton, Hall, Bill Paxton, Broderick, Culkin, and members of the Brat Pack group.
