PRETTY IN PINK at 40 | A Memory of John Hughes

The standard promotional shot for the movie PRETTY IN PINK (dir., Howard Deutch, 1986). In photo from left to right: Andrew McCarthy, Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer. Paramount Pictures.

On February 21, 1986, the Chicago-area sneak preview, or, “premiere” of Pretty In Pink, written and executive-produced by John Hughes, took place at the (now razed) Old Orchard Theatre in Skokie, Illinois.

I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school, and attended with my friends Jenny and Tracy, both of whom were heavy into the punk scene and flipped over Annie Potts’ costumes and hairstyles.

Meanwhile, I flipped because Duckie (Jon Cryer) seemed more like me than any other teenage movie character I’d seen to that point.

When Cryer (as Duckie) did his insanely right dance and lip sync to Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness,” I about lost my mind. I can’t tell you how many times I’d done that exact sort of thing — albeit not in a record store, but a specific area of my high school when no one was around.

Duckie may have been a “zoid” but was concurrently cool. The sunglasses. The hats. The clothes. I wanted the suit he wore to the prom and to look just as terrific in it, Duckman Shoes, “despite his appearance at the function,” and all!

I didn’t identify when Duckie behaved like a jerk, and his romantic interest in Andie (Molly Ringwald) never quite added up, but his devotion and loyalty to Andie was significant.

Both Duckie and Andie are written as outcasts who get bullied and try as hard as they can not to let it get to them. I certainly related.

So, late in the movie, when Duckie decides he’s had enough, and rushes the school’s top arrogant asshole, Steff (James Spader), after overhearing Steff insult Andie, it was as if my every high school angst or payback fantasy was fulfilled for me onscreen.

After the credits rolled and we left the auditorium (which had been filled to capacity with over 1,000 people), a mass of folks were gathered around someone in the lobby. At a certain point, the mass “parted” and we could see…

John Hughes was on site!

It’s possible his presence was announced before the movie started, but I don’t remember. In any event, Jenny and Tracy decided they were not leaving until they got to talk to John and find out who handled all of Annie Potts’ styles.

The three of us had to figure out how to subtly “hang back” until everyone else cleared out. We managed to pull it off. Once the theatre lobby was completely empty, we found ourselves with John Hughes’ undivided attention.

I’m sure John must have told Jenny and Tracy about costume designer Marilyn Vance in terms of the choices for the clothes. I have no memory of that, nor anything I may have said or how I contributed to the conversation at all.

All I know is, at one point, John Hughes looked at Jenny and Tracy and asked, “He’s a Duckie, isn’t he?”

“Ohhhh yes!,” they answered, nearly in unison and with laughs.

He looked back at me and said, “Boy, I wish I’d known you before I made this movie!”

Now, in my lil’ fifteen-year-old-wanna-be-an-actor ego brain, when he made that comment, I thought it meant he would have cast me as Duckie! With age, I realize he was either being funny, or implying he would have found me valuable as “research.”

I can only laugh. Jon Cryer’s career was safe from moi.

Nevertheless, that John Hughes himself said I was “a Duckie” solidified in my mind that I was “the Duckman” in spirit. After that night, I tried to get people at school to call me Duckie, but there was already a girl with that nickname, so it didn’t take.

It’s now 40 years since Pretty In Pink opened, and the night I met John Hughes. I couldn’t have known that 1986 would turn out to be the most pivotal, memorable year of my teenage life, but I know the trend started that night.

Over the years, I’ve revisited the movie often, and while the sheen is certainly different because I am far from 15 years old, it’s always pleasant nostalgia. When I attended a movie FanExpo convention in August of 2023, I was thrilled to see and connect with a “Duckie” cosplayer!

Pretty In Pink pops up often in my social network feeds, and I love when it does.

It’s fascinating to read people argue about whether Duckie and Andie should have wound up together (the original filmed ending). Also, people’s takes on just how hideous the prom dress Andie sews is can be hilarious! Even Molly Ringwald hated it (per this interview she gave for the 35th anniversary)!

In that same interview, Ringwald also points out that time has been kinder to Pretty In Pink than either Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club, Hughes’ other “high school” centered classics. I have to agree. While the movie is certainly not without its issues, it’s far less problematic through today’s lens.

Despite the problems that have become more apparent with distance and hindsight, one thing that has not changed, and never will, is that John Hughes nailed a certain “universality” to being a teenager. Those aspects of his movies hold up best.

What may not be apparent to today’s teenagers as it was for us 80’s kids in real time, is that John Hughes didn’t just have his finger on the pulse of what resonated with teenage audiences.

His insights were so spot on, he was the pulse!

His musical taste in particular was a huge part of that pulse, and added much to my life. Two days after I met him, I had the Pretty In Pink soundtrack and got more interested in music I’d previously never been attuned to.

One of my favorite sections in Pretty In Pink plays out over a beautiful piece of music I assumed was film score. Usually short incidental pieces of music in a movie like Pretty In Pink were not released on vinyl or cassette.

So, I thought the only way I could hear this minute and a half section of music, even if the sound effects and dialogue bugged me, was to stick a tape recorder up to the TV speaker when the movie was first released on videocassette.

It wasn’t until I watched the first season of Stranger Things, 30 years later, and they used this same music cue that I learned it was never film score, but “Elegia” by New Order! I guess I never delved deep enough into the music credits to figure that out; I could have had the music back in 1986! Similar situation with “Thieves Like Us” by Joy Division and New Order, also used in the movie in instrumental form.

On Thursday, August 6, 2009, when I learned of John Hughes’ death, my brief moments with him were, of course, the first thing that popped into mind.

Four hours after hearing the news, I got in my car to drive home from work. I turned the ignition and started my iPod, which was set to “shuffle songs.”

At the time, I had over 6,200 songs on my iPod. The first one that played, completely randomly, was “Pretty In Pink” by The Psychedelic Furs.

I chuckled, pointed up and said, “Thanks, John!”

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The original version of this esssay was published at https://www.huffpost.com on August 8, 2009. This version has been revised, expanded and updated in 2026.

Here is a photo of the page from my 1985–86 Chandler’s (a school assignment notebook I also used as a mini-journal) where I notated meeting John Hughes.