Movie writer producer, and director John Hughes who turned out a huge number of pictures about growing up in the 80s and 90s and being an out-of-place adult died at 59. Hughes’ work included Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, the original National Lampoon Vacation (and the Griswolds), Only the Lonely, and the Home Alone sequels.
Hughes was an incredibly prolific writer. Many of his movies were based in the Chicago suburbs. They starred Molly Ringwald, John Candy, Chevy Chase, Ally Sheedy, and Steve Martin among others. Over the last ten years, Hughes has been writing under another name (Edmund Dantes, IIRC) and the material has lacked some of the spark of his original fare.
From what I can tell, Hughes has been a recent donor to Democrats Barack Obama, Joe Biden (separately) and Dan Seals. At least a John Hughes “writer” from the Chicago suburbs was a donor. The same individual earlier gave money to Colorado Republicans Ben Nighthorse Campbell (after the party switch) and Tom Tancredo. In one of those entries he was listed as being associated with Castle Rock (presumably the movie company).
I’d imagine that the Castle Rock in question relates to the town of Castle Rock, CO, pop. 35,745, located at the heart of Tancredo’s former congressional district. For that reason, I doubt that it’s the same John Hughes.