John Hughes, Director of ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’ Dies at 59

Associated Press John Hughes in 1984

Update | 8:40 p.m.

John Hughes, the director and screenwriter who helped define a young generation with his ’80s films “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Pretty in Pink,” has died.

The cause was a heart attack, according to a statement from the publicists Paul Bloch and Michelle Bega.

Mr. Hughes first began as a screenwriter, gaining attention for his screenplay for “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” which became a popular franchise.

But his true success came with his directorial debut, “Sixteen Candles,” which made a star out of its young lead, Molly Ringwald.

Mr. Hughes was responsible for a slew of films in the 1980s that defined what it meant to be an American teenager, from the music to the fashion to the social faux pas. His universe of nerds and jocks, socialites and misfits, rockers and rebels – not to mention overbearing principals, clueless teachers and absentee parents – also influenced a generation of movie-goers and -makers, versing them in a common language of pop culture idioms that persists decades on. “Mess with the bull, get the horns.”

He made a star of quirky girls – as embodied by Ms. Ringwald in “Pretty in Pink” and “16 Candles” (and Ally Sheedy in “The Breakfast Club”) – and charmingly cocky, off-center boys, like Matthew Broderick’s character in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” (“Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?”)

Though Mr. Hughes graduated to more adult fare with films like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and had his biggest hits with explicitly family-oriented material like “Home Alone,” he remains associated with creating an ideal of American youth that allowed for idiosyncrasy and growth.

Cliques could reliably be broken down, the girl could get the guy, and parents would always go out of town so you could have a killer house party.

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John Hughes, Director of ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’ Dies at 59