European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 24, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Profile John Hughes an adult who is at Home with teen films by Sean Mitchell King features Syndicate John Hughes insists he actually had some Good teachers in High school adults who were not altogether fools or stumbling tyrants. At the rate he s been destroying grown ups on the big screens of the nation Well have to take his word for this. Hughes the 36-year-old creator of such films As the breakfast club pretty in Pink weird science sixteen candles and most recently Ferris bueller s Day off has become the voice of a generation not his own generation but the next one the one now in High school. Some filmmakers aiming at the youth Market have even begun to pay Hughes a reverse homage describing their own projects by saying we re not going to make a John Hughes i Don t know what did i do i m sorry Hughes says in response to this. The More people say Why Don t you grow up the More i want to say wait a minute i Don t denigrate this genre because it deals with kids. I Don t discount human emotion based on Hughes dressed in Black from head to sock and wearing a tie is perched on one end of a soft leathery Couch in his sleek Gray and Black office on the Paramount lot. His Shock of Light Brown hair tapered Down his Nape in an English Rock Star Cut he looks like the hip Young teacher on the faculty that kids have always confided in. He is smoking a cigarette and talking easily about his critics. What i do with kids is to get inside their Heads. It is any writer s obligation to get inside the head of whatever his subject the kids apparently concur. Pretty in Pink Hughes movie about a Rocky Romance Between a poor High school girl Molly Ringwald and a Rich boy Andrew Mccarthy Drew 10,000 pieces of mail mostly from teen agers saying How much the film meant to them. I Don t agree that the adults Are always idiots Hughes says about his mounting High school oeuvre. Sometimes they re the antagonists. But the adult world has been treated differently in All of my in pretty in Pink he Points out he Drew a sympathetic portrait of a Down and out father played by Harry Dean Stanton. True but with Ferris bueller s Day off he has returned to a cartoon world where kids make mincemeat of their Klutzy elders. A beleaguered High school Dean of students Jeffrey Jones is outwitted and humiliated by a Crafty senior playing Hooky. The drubbing Jones takes in Ferris bueller seems like an escalation of the revenge taken on the dim study Hall instructor in the breakfast club a film Hughes says was modelled after a real teacher he once had. Take Ferris says Hughes. I mean if you take a Day off from school your adversary is going to be the Dean of students. This is a Guy who would be a pompous ass if he was in a school if he was in a factory if he was in an office setting. He s very comfortable with the Complete Power that you get being a High school administrator. He does t fare very Well when he s out from behind his desk out in the real skipping school is a subject Hughes knows something about. When he was growing up in the suburbs of Chicago he often found reasons to be absent from the classroom. Mainly they had to do with popular music. John Hughe has made career of bringing the world of teen attn to America Cinema. My dad brought Home a copy of the beatles first album the monday after they were on de Sullivan and the next Day i had to stay Home to listen to it. And i stayed Home when the who released their first the Young Hughes declared Many such unofficial holidays for himself. You know when the animals put out Boom Boom that John Lee Hooker song i stayed Home All Day and listened to the radio because i had to hear that song again. Which is probably one of the reasons i never graduated from when Hughes was in High school he wanted to be a Painter. He was obsessed with Picasso. I wanted to Camp out in Picasso s Back Yard. He was my Guy. When he died in 74,1 did t believe it. I thought he was immortal. He was my hero. But he says Molly Ringwald a starred in three Hughe film. She can be seen this summer in pretty in Pink laughing no Talent in that area. Did a couple Hundred paintings and threw them All away and went and did something that i could Hughes went to College for a while at the University of Arizona got married and dropped out returning to Chicago where he took a Job on a loading Dock while he Learned How to write. He sold some jokes that he sent to comics playing the hotels in Las vegas and then took a Job As a copywriter at a Chicago advertising Agency. When the humor Magazine National Lampoon came along in the Early 70s, he got a vision of the promised land. The first time i saw it i almost fainted because i thought. This is exactly what i want to do " with some difficulty he eventually found his Way into the Lampoon beginning As the Guy who wrote the letters to the editor column. He wrote a great Deal of the Lampoon s famous sunday newspaper parody and later the bulk of the National Lampoon s vacation Issue which was optioned by Warner Bros and led to his eventual migration to Hollywood. He was commissioned to write the screenplay for vacation and while remaining in Chicago wrote other screenplays As Well. Hughes attachment to Chicago is so Strong As witnessed by his use of the City As the setting for Ferris bueller and other of his films that Many people assume he still lives there. Actually he moved to los Angeles two years ago. I was always superstitious by afraid that if i left Chicago i would t be Able to write that something would happen. But . Is no different it in t. When i go Back to Chicago the questions Are is it of out there because they read in the press the most extreme things about los Angeles. I m Here now this is my Home and i get defensive about Hughes holds Early screenings of his films in Long Beach the galleria Woodland Hills and Fine tunes them according to audience reaction. It was after a screening of pretty in Pink in Long Beach that he decided to change the picture s ending. For research into the current state of adolescence he simply walks the length of Westwood. The thing about kids is i can just walk up to pm and Start talking. I get right in there. I ask pm whal re you listening to Why Are you listening to that where d you get those shoes " the move West has not made him feel a part of the film Industry. I probably could t identify most of the people in the Industry if i saw them. I Don t go to any parties. If i have any spare time i la write. The Only party i be been to was the mtg pretty in Pink thing and that was Hughes locked his jaw and gritted his Teeth. You could have driven a Nail into me and Hung me on the Wall. I m not real Good at one of the reasons Hughes has t had to do much socializing is Ned Tanen the Paramount president who has Given the Green Light to four of the five teen age pictures Hughes has written. His association with Tanen which started when Tanen was at Universal followed three years of being paid to write scripts that were not being produced. I did t like development deals at All. I did t like going to those meetings and have eight or nine people say Well you should do this " he does t have to listen to that kind of advice anymore. 20 i Ripe Magazine july 24,1986
