wood during his lifetime: He dated women, married
Phyllis Gates in 1955, and kept his private life out of
the press. He believed that if knowledge of his sexu-
ality became public, his career would end. After
Hudson’s death, however, more celebrities began to
challenge the studio-mandated Hollywood closet
and to come out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Further Reading
Hudson, Rock, and Sara Davidson.Rock Hudson: His
Stor y.New York: William Morrow, 1986.
Kashner, San, and Jennifer MacNair.The Bad and the
Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties.New York: W. W.
Norton, 2002.
Daniel-Raymond Nadon
See also ACT UP; AIDS epidemic; AIDS Memorial
Quilt; Film in the United States; Homosexuality and
gay rights; Television; White, Ryan.
Hughes, John
Identification American screenwriter, director,
and producer
Born February 18, 1950; Lansing, Michigan
Hughes, a screenplay writer, director, and film producer,
was the creative force behind some of the greatest teen come-
dies in film histor y. He was involved in the production of
sixteen movies during the 1980’s.
John Hughes was born in Michigan in 1950 and
moved to the Chicago suburbs with his family in
- Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook,
Illinois, from which he graduated in 1968, was the
model for the schools in most of his films. A college
dropout, Hughes left school for advertising. His first
screenplay,National Lampoon’s Class Reunion(1982),
resulted from Hughes’s position as editor atNational
Lampoonmagazine. He went on to write three highly
successfulNational Lampoon’s Vacationmovies (1983-
1989). However, it was the genre of teen angst come-
dies that made Hughes one of the most famous
and successful filmmakers of the 1980’s. Named the
“philosopher of adolescence” by Chicago film critic
Roger Ebert, Hughes became synonymous with teen-
age comedies beginning with 1984’sSixteen Candles,
which was followed byThe Breakfast Club(1985),
Weird Science(1985), and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
(1986). In addition to those films, which he both
wrote and directed, Hughes wrote two teen films for
director Howard Deutch:Pretty in Pink(1986) and
Some Kind of Wonderful(1987), the latter of which was
not primarily a comedy. All of these films treated ad-
olescence with dignity and understanding; they also
featured New Wave sound tracks, grounding them
in the teen culture of the 1980’s. Hughes is credited
with establishing the Brat Pack, a group of young ac-
tors, all of whom went on to adult success in the en-
tertainment industry. In 1988, Hughes shifted to
making films about adults, including the very popu-
larPlanes, Trains, and Automobiles(1987) andUncle
Buck(1989). These films were not as well received
by critics as were his earlier films, however. Shortly
after the 1980’s ended, Hughes ceased to direct494 Hughes, John The Eighties in America
Screenwriter and director John Hughes in 1984.(AP/Wide
World Photos)