Why John Hughes Left Public Life

John Hughes, center, with John Candy, left and Steve Martin

Following the death of John Hughes, a blogger by the name of Alison Byrne Fields has written about her time as a pen pal of John Hughes. The most fascinating tidbit from the writing stems from a phone conversation she had with Hughes in 1997. Fields sheds some light on why Hughes left public life at the peak of his career in the early 90s:

John told me about why he left Hollywood just a few years earlier. He was terrified of the impact it was having on his sons; he was scared it was going to cause them to lose perspective on what was important and what happiness meant. And he told me a sad story about how, a big reason behind his decision to give it all up was that "they" (Hollywood) had "killed" his friend, John Candy, by greedily working him too hard.

You can read the whole blog post here.