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Home Alone mystery solved as director dishes on parents' professions

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A posh mansion in the Chicago suburbs, first-class trips to France and Florida and paying the holiday freight not once but twice for a “cheapskate” brother’s family.

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Just how did the McCallisters afford such a luxurious life in Home Alone?

Consider the mystery solved.

Chris Columbus, who directed the holiday classic and the only other sequel that matters, Home Alone 2, spilled the eggnog on Peter (John Heard) and Kate (Catherine O’Hara) McCallister’s professions in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Awards Chatter podcast.

“Back then, (producer) John (Hughes) and I had a conversation about it and we decided on what the jobs were,” Columbus told THR, adding Kate was a “very successful fashion designer,” which is hinted at in the original movie with mannequins stashed in the McCallisters’ basement.

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As for Peter, you can rule out organized crime, Columbus said.

“The father could have, based on John Hughes’ own experience, worked in advertising, but I don’t remember what the father did,” said the veteran director, who also helmed the first two Harry Potter films and is a producer of the recently released Nosferatu.

The revelation came as reports surfaced that the real-life home used in the movie may finally be off the market after being listed in May for (US)$5.25 million. The five-bedroom, six-bathroom monstrosity in Winnetka, Ill., also comes with a three-car heated garage, fully equipped gym, indoor basketball court, wet bar and “state-of-the-art” movie theatre, according to a Coldwell Banker Realty listing.

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No wonder rumours have swirled on the internet that Peter was connected, something Columbus denied during the interview despite admitting “there was, at the time, a lot of organized crime in Chicago.”

And like little Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) pummelling hapless crooks Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), Columbus dropped a few other surprises during the interview.

He told THR that he had been tapped to direct another Hughes holiday classic, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, but decided to drop out after a pair of bizarre run-ins with the film’s star, Chevy Chase.

“I’m asking him all these questions, and he was just dead and not interested and distracted,” said Columbus, who initially jumped at the opportunity to direct the film after a pair of box-office duds. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is weird. For an actor who’s committing to this movie, he really doesn’t want to talk about it.’

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“Then, 40 minutes into the conversation, he says the most surreal thing I’ve ever heard in a meeting, before or since. He said to me, ‘Wait a second, you’re the director?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I thought you were a drummer.'”

Things didn’t get any better in a follow-up meeting that included Hughes as well, eventually leading to Columbus’s departure.

“It was even worse,” Columbus told THR. “(Chase) was ignoring me. It was like I wasn’t even involved in the film.”

Columbus, however, told THR his fortune changed a week later when Hughes, “being the ultimate mensch,” sent him the script for Home Alone. “Talk about dodging a bullet,” he said, though he wasn’t sold on casting Culkin for the lead role at first.

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“This is why John Hughes was a great producer for a director and I learned a lot from him,” Columbus told THR. “He said, ‘Will you take a look at meeting Macaulay?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’d like to meet Macaulay, but I’d like to meet everyone else, too.’

“I ended up meeting 300 other kids, too. Total colossal waste of time because then I met Macaulay again and it was magical.”

The rest is box-office history as Home Alone and Home Alone 2 stood for more than 25 years as the highest grossing Christmas films of all-time, according to IMDb, until the 2018 animated film The Grinch stole top spot.

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