John Hughes, the seminal '80s teen movie director of such hits as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "The Breakfast Club," has died at the age of 59.
A spokesperson said Hughes had a heart attack in Manhattan while taking a morning walk. He was in New York to visit family.
Hughes roared on to the Hollywood scene with 1984's "Sixteen Candles," which helped turn Molly Ringwald into a star.
In 1987, with four hits about teenagers under his belt, Hughes decided to shake things up, and wrote and directed the John Candy vehicle, "Planes, Trains and Automobiles."
Actor Matthew Broderick became a star after playing the title character in "Ferris Bueller." He expressed his sorrow Thursday for the man who helped establish his career.
"I am truly shocked and saddened by the news about my old friend John Hughes. He was a wonderful, very talented guy and my heart goes out to his family," Broderick said.
The last film he directed was 1991's "Curly Sue."
In 1990, he achieved his greatest commercial success, writing the massively popular "Home Alone" which turned Macaulay Culkin into the United States' most famous child actor.
While he put the director's chair away for good in 1991, he continued to be a prolific comedy writer throughout the 1990s, typing out "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," "Dennis the Menace," and "Flubber."
Hughes' shadow over 1980s film culture continues to loom large. His quirky and often geeky characters and mix of comedy with sentimentality is the foundation that current comedy king, Judd Apatow, has built his empire on. (In fact, the last film Hughes' wrote, the widely-panned 'Drillbit Taylor" was produced by Apatow in 2008.)
But Hughes had largely been out of the public eye for more than a decade. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that he lived in a Chicago suburb and no longer gave interviews.
Hughes was a native of Lansing, Mich. and set much of his work in nearby Chicago, often writing about the implications of social class on teenagers.
