I always admired John Hughes greatly but never really worked with him. I heard that he could write a great screenplay in one weekend so I always revered (resented?) him for that. But I have no personal stories to tell. My only real connection was John Candy. They were friends and he spoke very highly of him. John would later go on to do a number of Hughes' movies including the classic, PLANES, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES (a movie I wish I had written -- more resentment).I'm sure you've seen and read a gazillion tributes by now. So I want to share something different. This is a blog post by a fan who wrote Hughes a letter and became a pen pal. In this touching account of that relationship you'll hear his own words and see his actual handwriting.
Thanks, Alison, for writing -- to him... and to us.
You can find her blog post here.
12 comments :
I came across that last night (via the Wash. Post, who also ran an interview with Alison) and have read her post a few times. It's a wonderful tribute. I just ordered six of his movies. Next weekend: John Hughes Film Festival at my place.
WOW!
I hope I can stop crying...
Hmm. If there's a screenplay in it, she should write it, no one else.
Their relationship is a screenplay waiting to be written. Get on that Ken!
Thank you for sharing this tribute. Her blog about him was wonderful. Some of my favorite movies are John Hughes movies and I really enjoyed reading what she had to say.
It's nice to find out that someone as talented as John Hughes was also a nice person.
I was a few years too late to be the target audience for the John Hughes teen films, but I went to see several of them nonetheless. His name on the credits was enough.
John Hughes respected the integrity and the intelligence of the teens in his movies, and that's a big part of his success. He didn't see young men and women as props for easy gags at their expense.
His movies had a common message, it seems, for teens: life seems too hard to understand or survive, but hang with it, there's a light at the end, it will get better even if you don't know what's going on. For kids who feel they've been thrown into a storm, that's an uplifting message, and a valid one.
Although it may not QUITE jibe with his film work, JH's work for National Lampoon in the late 1970s -- which, admittedly, may sometimes come off as jarring to our politically correct sensibilities -- is hysterical.
Blog posts tend to be glib and sarcastic. It's nice to read the words of someone so sincere. I felt her loss. Thank you for posting this. It's helped make his passing less a news event and more a part of life.
Aloha
Ken, a few days ago you were raging (justifiably) that writers are shut out of the Emmy show. Well, John Hughes has received a lot more attention than the screenwriter Budd Schulberg, who also died this week. Of course, "A Face In the Crowd" is no "Pretty In Pink."
Amen to the nod above to Budd Schulberg.
I think I can lay claim to being one of the earliest John Hughes fans of all. I used to subscribe to the old National Lampoon back in college, and I remember when a new issue would arrive, I'd immediately page through looking for anything written by Hughes so I could read it first. I actually remember paying for a ticket to see what I think was his first movie effort, "National Lampoon's Class Reunion," entirely because the script was by John Hughes. You could probably only say that of me and his parents. In fact, we might have been the only people to buy tickets to that for any reason.
If you want to see what I saw in him before he became known as the "Pretty in Pink" guy, here's a link to his original short story that inspired Nat Lamp's "Vacation":
http://www.bizbag.com/Vacation/Vacation%2058.htm
VW: "washe" - The Dan Quayle spelling of "wash."
Hey, Ken, I'm late in saying this, but I wanted to thank you for sending folks my way and for your appreciation of the blog post. It means a great deal to me.
Alison Byrne Fields
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