John Hughes, one of America’s great film directors and a man who through out the eighties imbued the American teen with heart and humanity has died recently of a heart attack while walking through Manhattan’s west side.

A great champion and sympathizer of all things youthful, irreverent, adolescent and bittersweet, Hughes helped the young people of their 80s understand themselves by casting teenagers in movie roles that were not just funny, but nuanced and dramatic.