Paul Gleason has died of lung cancer. He was 67. The actor, who played Principal Richard Vernon in The Breakfast Club in 1985, passed away in a Burbank, California, hospital on Saturday of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos.
I never knew he was the Principal – I thought he was a teacher stuck babysitting the Saturday detention group. The guy was a big dick (in the movie) – that’s why I always thought he was just a teacher pulling detention duty – like he pissed off the admin and they put him on it. That would be very ironic given the plot of the film.