One of the most important but largely unsung heroes of the Reagan Era was movie-maker John Hughes. A close friend of P. J. O’Rourke, Hughes wrote, directed, and/or produced a whole slew of movies, including Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, to name a few. Born in Lansing, Michigan, and raised during his teenage years in a suburb of northern Chicago, Hughes’s career began with writing jokes for famous comedians as well as writing regularly for National Lampoon. It would be no exaggeration to claim that Hughes introduced the world to the cinematic careers of Michael Keating, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, and Macaulay Culkin. Others, such as Kevin Bacon, John Candy, and Steve Martin, benefitted mightily as well. Hughes wrote a number of screenplays, too, under pseudonyms—especially under the name Edmond Dantes—and it would be impossible to exaggerate his influence on Hollywood from roughly 1982 through 1993. After 1993, Hughes became somewhat of a J. D. Salinger figure in his persona and focused almost exclusively on his role as husband and father. He died relatively young from a heart attack in 2009.
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