John Candy: I Like Me (2025)

[bunniefuu]

[crew chattering indistinctly]

Be care... Hey, be

careful with that thing.

[crew member 1] Take one.

[crew member 2] Thank you.

[clears throat]

Well, I don't really know the

meaning of the word "vulnerability."

I just don't.

Uh, but there was... I can't tell

you what was right about John Candy

or what was wrong.

I have no... I-I'm not really

sure what was going on there.

[clears throat] But

he was my friend,

and when you see him,

when you see his face... I mean,

I don't want to cry, but

wh-when I see his face,

I really miss him, you know,

'cause we were together,

really together,

and then we both sort of spun

off and went our... went...

You know, we both carved out a little

space up there in the world for ourselves,

and, and then he was taken,

you know, he was gone.

Quickly, you know?

And he was smart and he was...

you know, he loved music

and he was good to people.

You can always judge someone by how they

treat a waiter or waitress, you know.

He always was, like...

he always was kind

to people that were working,

that were working, you know,

'cause we were starving once.

You know, you... uh...

I wish I had some more bad

things to say about him.

B-But that's the problem

when you talk about John.

People don't really have a lot of

negative things to say about him,

and I hope that what you're

producing here turns up some people

that have got some

dirt on him, because...

I did do a play once, I

did a stage reading, um...

See, this is a bad

thing to say about him.

Good, I'm glad I

thought of something.

[static crackling]

[singers vocalizing]

[indistinct chatter]

[cameraman laughs]

[John and cameraman

speak indistinctly]

[vocalizing continues]

[young Jennifer

Candy] Hi, Daddy.

Hi, Jennifer, how you doing?

-Hi.

-Can you see me in here?

-Yes.

-Okay.



[Mary Margaret O'Hara sings "Dark Dear

Heart"] -Oh, when will I, when will I

ever know I'll be

leaving my story?

You told me so

Brave and alone,

a bird will fly

and will fly once again

and will never die

So alone, not afraid

Hear the bird sing

with the promise of glory

your stories bring

[Dan Aykroyd] I'm gonna give

it out today in the manner

in which he would

have wanted it.

[uplifting music playing]

You have been accorded

a great honor.

You stand up and walk

to the front of the room

and, without grief or

weeping, deliver loudly,

clearly, short and straight

to the salient points,

the best tribute and oratory

possible from the heart

of an allied professional, a creative

brother, and a fellow Canadian

who loved this boy from the

Donlands like we had the same blood.

We salute first a patriot who

always professed and promoted

the positive

interests of the North

but who also welcomed

into his fold Americans

and was enfolded,

in turn, by them.

Like all on our planet, they eventually

came to see his indistillable value.



This is no meager life

we reflect on today.

This is as full a life

as any human can live.

Joy, emotional abundance

of spirit, infectious rage,

a tinge of Lugosi-like madness with his

bottom reverse-vampire teeth and all.

A titan of a gentle, golden man.

Magnificent of visage,

eyes, and frame.

Let none be deceived by what the less

enlightened would label as "girth,"

for there are many witnesses to

the clamping power of his mitts

and the steel in his forearms,

the quickness and

lightness of foot and leg.

Challenge him, and you would

be hurled away like a toy.

There's a word in our language

we don't hear much anymore,

but it applies to Candy.

The word is "grand."

He was a grand man.

John Franklin Candy,

devoted son, brother, altar

boy, student, salesman,

stage, radio, and television

writer and performer,

world-famous comedy ambassador,

farce and dramatic actor.

International feature film star, director,

businessman, connoisseur, percussionist,

charitable benefactor,

husband, father,

and the sweetest, most generous

person ever known to me.

I loved him from the

instant I laid eyes on him

in his first impeccable suit...

...and I will never stop.

[jaunty music playing]

[announcer] News on the March.

Okay, hold it, we'll

roll it again in a sec.

[overlapping chatter]

Well, that's it.

That's it. What do

you think, boys?

Pretty damn good documentary,

if I do say so myself.

Only one thing bothers me.

What about the man?

Well, what do we know

about him, his motivations?

Why did he do the things he did?

Where's he from?

Where was he born?

Yeah, yeah, where was he born?

Go to Jupiter, go to Venus,

go to Pluto, I don't care.

Get the story,

that's what we need.

So that this man sits

down and sees it,

and we tell him more about him

than he knows about himself.

I like it.

[children laughing]

[indistinct chatter]

[cameraman] Mr. Candy,

is this your, uh,

-first birthday production?

-This is... yes.

It is indeed my first production, yes,

and we're, we're hoping it goes well.

We're a little nervous...

and everybody's tense, but, uh, we've

rehearsed as much as we could... we can,

-and, uh, well, we'll see what happens.

-[chuckles]

[cameraman] Okay. Christopher.

Christopher, how's the party?

Fine, I got to go eat pizza.

[cameraman] Okay.

[Christopher] People will often

come up and ask the questions.

"What character was

your father most like?"

[intriguing music playing]

You know, I'm someone who's grown

up primarily without a father.

And feels a bit like

being a detective of

your own father's life.

You're kind of going back and looking

over at who he was, who he knew...

and then also your

experiences with him.

[Rose Candy] When I zoom in...

[John] Then you

got to adjust this.

[Rose] Oh, what an

ugly beard. [laughs]

[John] This is

your close-up here.

-[child] Can I see?

-[Rose] See, now you're,

you're perfect,

you're clear. [laughs]

[John] And now adjust it. See?

[Christopher] On the lighter

side of things, he was super fun.

You know, I think my father was

someone who, um, was a big kid,

so he knew how to be a kid

with me.

Hi, Daddy.

[indistinct chatter]

[giggles]

[Jennifer] Everyone wants

to make it to the top.

[young Jennifer] Big giant...

[Jennifer] And

it's a lot of work.

And sometimes you're so focused

that you have blinders on

and you don't see anything else

or you forget people

or you forget yourself.

[Rose] Hi, Jennifer.

Come to me.

[Jennifer] He knew that

putting in the hard work,

taking care of your team,

taking care of your family,

that's what's most important,

and our dad always did.

He took care of everyone.

He touched so many

aspects of the world,

I think that it's left

a lasting impression.

[videotape rewinding]

[jazz playing]

[interviewer] How old were you

when you got your first laugh

and decided you liked it?

I guess at a young age.

I mean, uh, much like most kids,

you know, we were always

just fooling around, playing.

I loved play... I played a lot.

Had a great

imagination as a kid.

You're always, uh,

playing pretend games

and putting little stage shows on

in garages or in someone's basement.

[Jennifer] So, my dad was born on

Halloween in Newmarket in Canada.

Just north of Toronto.

They were only there

for about a year or so.

They moved into the

city to East York

with his brother

Jim and his mom Van.

My grandfather's

name was Sidney.

[Steve Aker] Sid was

in the Canadian Army.

He was a sergeant and

a World w*r II vet.

He passed away from

a major heart attack

in, uh, 1955 on

John's fifth birthday.

[atmospheric music playing]

[Jennifer] My grandfather

passed away at 35.

And you're like, "Wait,

35, that's way too young."

They never talked about it.

[Christopher] My

father was five.

You know, he was a little kid.

There's something that

can happen to a child

who goes through loss

at that early of an age.

They don't know what

to do with that trauma.

So, if my father at

five loses his father

and no one wants

to deal with it...

they go ahead and

have his birthday...

...he doesn't really know what to

do and he grows up looking for help.

[Rose] John took

over being the dad.

He was the child that

made everyone happy.

And he was the

adult that did that.

He continued that.

He very rarely talked about it.

There was just this connection

with his birth and his dad's

death that is too confusing.

Van carried him,

John did, Jim did.

His memory was there forever.

[Steve] They moved into my grandparents'

home, into the basement down there.

The bunker, as they called it.

[Christopher] They

moved into that house,

which was actually my

great-grandmother's house,

and that was a survival

place for them.

They needed a place to live.

My grandmother, she

lived with her sister.

Aunt Fran.

My dad and his brother

lived in the downstairs area.

Everyone else lived upstairs.

They were packed. It was

kind of sardines in there.

[Steve] The house was always open, and

I think that is part of John's makeup,

how receptive he was to people.

[Rose] He loved his

family, they laughed a lot.

They always laughed.

[Steve] People could walk in there

any time of the day and night,

and there'd be food.

She'd be making and making and

telling John and I, "Eat, eat, eat,"

and then she'd turn around and

go, "You guys are getting fat."

[laughs]

You know? It's like, "Yeah,

okay, thanks, Granny."

We've talked to some people who

knew you in your early childhood

-and your teen years.

-[chuckles]

And they remember you

as being down-to-earth

and an absolutely

reliable friend.

Have you changed?

Has stardom changed any of that?

Well, I hope not, I hope not.

I-I'm pretty loyal.

I'm like a dog, I

guess, in a way.

You really got to beat

me bad to get me away.

[jazz drumming playing]

[Pat Kelly] The John

Candy in your world is

different than the

John Candy in my world.

In the very beginning, he was,

like, very shy and introverted.

It's hard to believe.

He wasn't, like, walking into

a room and taking it over.

He had a drum set set

up in his basement.

He had this record

collection that was monstrous

and was all sorted in

alphabetical order.

[Terry Enright] John and

Jim bought comedy albums.

But the ones that we listened to was

a group called the Firesign Theatre,

and they had a radio

show in the mid-'60s.

And they did sketch comedy

and they were fantastic.

And we'd listen to

that over and over.

[comedian 1] Hey,

you guys holding?

[comedian 2] Oh, gosh no.

The means of production

-are held by all the people.

-[comedian 3] That's right!

[comedian 1] No, man, you know

got any uppers?

[Ennio Gregoris] He was

a big fan of movies,

and there was a movie theater

right on Donlands there.

[Pat] He would just nonstop talk about the

movie that he'd seen or the characters.

They never make these

cars big enough, do they?

[Christopher] He loved it.

Laurel and Hardy and It's a Mad,

Mad, Mad, Mad World, film noir.

Just a big fan of cinema.

[Rose] He always talked

about Humphrey Bogart.

Here's looking at you, kid.

He knew that he

wanted to be that guy.

He wanted to be Jackie Gleason.

[John] The one thing

I really enjoyed doing

was being part of

the drama department.

I had no idea whether it was gonna

lead anywhere or do anything.

I mean, I was lost, but,

uh, this was mid-'60s.

What do you do? It was that

whole turbulent time anyway.

I tried a number of different

things, but I kept going back

to performing.

[Rose] I always

thought that his world

and the way he lived his life

was very much like the movies.

He was a dreamer.

[interviewer] At what point did

the funny part of John Candy

develop?

In high school.

It was probably... It

was more out of, I think,

defensive posture, really.

I tried, but I don't think

I was a very good student.

I think I was, I was

probably still in shock,

I think, from my, uh...

from all the tragedies, I

think, that we had dealt with.

[The Creation

plays "Making Time"]

[Jennifer] Going to school, I think,

might have been an escape for him.

[Terry] It was a

Catholic high school.

I grew up as a

rebellious Catholic.

[laughs]

He grew up as "I'm Catholic."

[Pat] Yeah, no, the teachers

were, like, all priests.

There were no women.

It was almost army-like.

It was pretty

intimidating at first,

but in his second year something

happened over the summer.

He, uh, came out a little bit.

Everybody leavin'...

For a big guy, he

had unlimited energy.

He was a goer, he wanted to

go, he wanted to do stuff.

"Let's try this, let's do this."

His popularity was growing.

[Jennifer] Growing up as a male

in Toronto, sports was your thing.

You were either going to hockey

or you're going into football.

[Pat] He actually loved

football more than hockey.

I think, as a kid,

he probably hoped

that one day he might

be able to do that.

[Steve] In high school

he played till he...

blew up his knee.

[Jennifer] He had to have his kneecap

removed and never replaced again, just...

no kneecap on his left leg.

Actin' the fool...

That was soul-crushing, and I think he

needed to figure out what he wanted to do.

[newsman] These student demonstrations

were the same as last year,

except that now the signs read

"Nixon" instead of "Johnson."

[Tom Davidson] He was

about, uh, 17, 18.

The Vietnam w*r was at its peak.

He really wanted to enlist

in the American Army.

[Pat] I don't know what the age was

to enlist at that particular time,

but the Canadian government said,

"No way, you guys can't do that,"

but a lot of Canadian guys did,

and he was hot to do that.

We all said, "You're nuts,"

but, I mean, he just felt like

he wanted to be part of it

and protect the world or

something, I don't know.

I was shocked myself.

I guess he wanted a,

uh, he wanted a purpose.

[Pat] He did actually make a few visits

down to Buffalo to see if he was eligible,

but as it turns out, I think it

was because of his knee injury

that they wouldn't accept him.

[Christopher] I think my father's everyman

qualities came from his upbringing.

He understood the plight

of the working person.

[Ennio] John had a variety of jobs,

even through his teenage years.

Make each moment

a special moment

Got a lot of Christmas

shopping to do...

[Jennifer] So, everyone

worked at Eaton's.

The Eaton Centre is the big

department store in Canada.

Fran worked there, she

was in the toy department.

[Steve] And they got John a

job there in sporting goods.

[Jennifer] My dad was there

with Tom and Rita Davidson.

[Tom] I was working at Eaton's

department store, and I just got hired

into the sporting goods department,

and we connected right away.

[Jennifer] My mom

also worked there.

Tom was good

friends with my dad.

Rita was good

friends with my mom.

We went on a coffee

break together.

I remember us sauntering by

and her trying to get a look...

casually look... at John.

[laughs]

[Jennifer] They set my mom

and dad up on a blind date.

[interviewer] When you took your wife

on the first date, where did you go?

I think we went to a movie.

Was our first date.

Yeah, we didn't get

along on our first date.

It was a blind date, too.

And I don't think we

got along that well.

But I wasn't going to show her.

I was going to show her, you

know, "How dare you not like me?"

[John and interviewer laugh]

[Rose] He was very

kind, very sweet.

He had a vulnerability

about him.

He was funny and he

had a beautiful voice.

He had a,

just a way about him,

you know, sweet man.

[sentimental music playing]

He was focused on his direction

in life and he said, "If I'm going

to have a girlfriend, I

need to get a real job."

Yeah, he asked me whether he should

be an actor or stay in business,

and I certainly told him

he should stay in business.

He had a,

a car given to him to-to use as a

perk and he had a regular paycheck.

And so why would you ever leave

that for a, an acting job?

He got a suit on and he said to

me, "Well, what do you think?"

And I said, "Well, that's okay if you

want to, you know, that's all right."

But I panicked

for him because...

...John was creative,

he was a force.

He really liked acting and

he was really good at it.

He did do stand-up

and he did improv.

[Rita] Improv... he

just was born to that.

He could spontaneously ignite.

[Terry] He didn't seem to

have a-a fear of failure.

He didn't seem to know his

limitations, if he had any, but he,

he had to try it.

It was a blessing when Catherine McCartney

said, "Hey, you'd be a good actor."

That was from Eaton's going

across the street to a restaurant.

The agent saw him and just

looked at his face and said,

"I think you'd be

good in the industry."

That very first time

we spoke, he said,

"Well, I really want to be a

football player, but I also want

to act."

And that was how it happened.

Whether it's cloudy

or whether it's clear

Whether it's thunder

or wind that you hear

[Rose] Children's theater, he met

Dan Aykroyd and Valri Bromfield.

And I'm going, "You're

doing children's theater?

Okay."

[Dan] I'd just come from

Ottawa with Valri Bromfield,

my old partner there in comedy.

She had done a children's

theater play, I think, with YPT or one of

these groups, and where they'd, you know,

go up to Bala Bay and,

uh, you know, tour around

and, you know, dress

as squirrels and stuff.

And she said she'd met a guy there who

was... she said, "He's just like you,"

she said, you know, "Y-You're

the same, you guys," you know.

I see this brown Pontiac

Laurentian four-door pull up

and this magnificent

man step out.

-[LaVern Baker sings "Tweedle Dee"]

-Tweedlee dee...

He matched the car completely.

He was so presentable

and gentlemanly and so Canadian.

I said, "No, I'm sorry, you

can't park." He said, "Why not?"

"Well, because I'll give

you a ticket," I said.

And, you know, "No, I,

no, I can park anywhere."

I said, "Are you a doctor?"

He says, "Sometimes."

And then we start off

like that, so immediately

we get going.

Tweedlee, tweedlee...

[Dave Thomas] This

is a lovable guy.

This is a guy who, the minute you

see his face, you're going to smile.

We met at Godspell, and

instantly loved the guy.

Godspell preceded Second City.

[Martin Short] And it was Gilda Radner

and Andrea Martin and Victor Garber

and Paul Shaffer, Eugene Levy.

And John always maintained

he hated Godspell because

he just got tired of us

always talking about it.

[laughs]

[Eugene Levy] Godspell

was a big show.

In Toronto, 1972,

it was just fun.

We had fun working

because we were working.

[newsman] In 1972,

Chicago's renowned

Second City comedy theater arrived

in Toronto to conduct auditions.

[Andrea Martin] Toronto had

enough of a cultural scene,

so we had lots of

opportunities to grow.

We could

cultivate our talents

because it was

a safe place in which to do it.

And we had friends amongst us,

like-minded people that

we didn't compete with,

and everybody's personality

and skill set grew.

And that's what it gave

John, huge opportunities.

[Dave] Danny got

into Second City.

Dan Aykroyd and Valri Bromfield

got John to come with him

because John was a perfect

candidate for Second City.

[John] Oh, they did

trick me into it.

They were already

in Second City.

They said, "You should join this, you

should join this, should get involved,

they'll love you, you're

funny, you'll do it."

I said, "No, no, no, I can fool around

with you guys, but I can't do that stuff."

They said, "Well, we've got

to be down there anyway.

Meet us down there for lunch."

I went down there, I

was waiting around,

I was looking at everybody kind of in

awe, seeing everybody from Godspell.

And I hear John

Candy being paged.

And Valri's, "Come on, come

on, come on, you're going,

come on, we put your name down."

I was like, "Oh, I'll k*ll you,

I'll k*ll you for doing this to me."

[Robin Duke] When

John was auditioning,

the guy he was with

did not stop talking.

John just listened.

Heard every word he

said, nodded, agreed.

And John got the

job because of that.

[pensive music playing]

[Andrew Alexander] One thing

I did notice about John,

his confidence level was shaky

and he would literally

disappear, you know, onstage.

He'd stick to the back wall, you know,

when there was an improvisation going on.

[Rose] He's with a lot of very

talented, educated comedians.

He kept always questioning

his not feeling that he was

capable to be as funny and

as talented as they were.

[Bill] We started at the same

time, and we were the worst.

We jumped into a show,

and they gave us stuff to

do, but then you'd have to...

The second part of the show was

you had to improvise, and no one...

wanted to work with us 'cause we

didn't know what we were doing,

so we'd only work

with each other.

But we were confident, we

had a lot of confidence.

I don't think people today

realize how bad you have to be

in order to be a perfectionist.

You have to be bad

and know you're bad

'cause there's nothing like being really

bad to make you want to be better.

[Andrew] The evolution of John

was interesting to watch onstage,

just sort of how eventually, you

know, his confidence started to build.

[Catherine O'Hara] He is so

talented and so strong, but...

not in a way that would

intimidate you. [laughs]

Even though John did distinctly

different characters,

John was always there.

[Dan] It was so vibrant

and so spectacular

to see his work and to

see the characters evolve.

[Martin] It was just

an ease that you felt,

and then everything he said was

kind of brilliant or sincere.

See, he wasn't always

going for the joke.

That wasn't a successful

Second City member.

[John] Second City started

in Chicago in 1959.

Uh, the University of

Chicago didn't have

a theater department, and

they created their own.

Uh, they being Elaine May, Mike Nichols,

Severn Darden, Del Close, Bernie Sahlins.

-[Joe Flaherty] Harry Truman.

-Harry Truman was part of that.

-[audience laughs]

-[David Letterman] Uh, what was your...?

In fact, some said that you were

the next Harry Truman for a while.

Yes, they did for a long time, and,

uh, it's been a curse on my back.

-[Joe] Yeah, yeah.

-[David laughs]

[John] Second City really

did it for me, you know.

Uh, I really grew up when I

went there in a lot of ways.

I, uh, I was learning my craft, which

I never understood at that point.

I'm just now understanding

what I was learning then.

[Eugene] He was

funny, he was adept

at improvising, and he was just

a good guy.

[Robin] Not only is he taking care

of the other person as the character,

but he's always taking care

of the person as the person.

You know, you reminded me of

his nickname Johnny Toronto.

[mysterious music playing]

[Dave] Johnny Toronto.

It came from John's ego.

"One day I'm gonna

own this town."

[Eugene] "You want something

done, I can get it done.

You know, listen to me, I've

got the answers to everything."

How that came about, I

don't know, I don't...

People started calling

him Johnny Toronto.

Do you know how many

people wanted to be

Johnny Toronto?

A lot of them.

-[camera shutter clicks]

-[Dan] We all, you know, we would do it

over the line with

alcohol sometimes,

and, uh, he was very funny

because he would get physical.

"Dan, Dan!"

He'd go and he'd just

grab you and... "Oh!"

He would, you know,

embrace and, you know,

and he could toss you

around like a doll, I swear.

He could grab your bicep and pinch it and

press your flesh all the way to the bone.

[Dave] It was kind of assumed

that John was gonna be the star

'cause he looked like a star,

'cause he acted like a star,

'cause he drove around in

limos when he had no money,

going, "This is who I am.

Everybody's got to catch up."

[Bill] I ended up a lot

in John's apartment,

and he had a Barcalounger

and Rothmans, which was an

elegant cigarette to our mind.

There was just an ad for a

place called Lincoln Carpeting.

Any three rooms,

$199.

John engaged Lincoln Carpeting

to come to his house.

It turned out that once they

get in your house, they sell you

more than the $199,

and his was $1,200,

which he didn't have.

And it was lime-green

carpeting, had to be a closeout.

But to go with it, he had some

magnificent golden drapes.

[chuckles] And, and as he

settled back into his Barca

with that Rothmans and said...

[inhales] "Yeah, wow, look

at all I have achieved here."

[Martin] Isn't it amazing, every time

there's a dinner, John picks up the tab?

And yet he's making

the same money we have.

But there was a kind of a...

"I'll pay for it"

quality to John.

And then, before you know it,

we were doing SCTV together.

[videotape rewinding]

-[lighthearted music playing]

-[announcer] There were six people

who loved to watch television,

but they didn't

like what they saw,

so they decided to do

something about it.

[Tom Hanks] It was the fall.

I was on a tour with the Great

Lakes Shakespeare Festival.

The local television station,

for some reason, was running

these kind of, like,

syndicated shows,

like between 5:00 and 7:00.

And I came up on this thing.

Uh, it-it was, it

was sort of the...

It was like the Leave

It to Beaver show.

[announcer] It's Leave It to

Beaver: The 25th Anniversary Party.

[Tom H.] And what

I had lucked into

was an episode of SCTV,

and it was John

Candy as the Beaver,

Flaherty as Ward Cleaver,

and Catherine O'Hara

as June Cleaver,

and Eugene Levy was

his-his brother Wally.

And I did not know what it was,

but it was k*lling me.

-Hey, squirt.

-Hi, Eddie.

I hear your old lady's having

an affair with Fred Rutherford.

Oh, hello, Mrs. Cleaver.

I was just telling

Wallace and Theodore

that you're looking younger

and younger as years go by.

Oh, thank you, Eddie.

Oh, I brought this

over for Mr. Cleaver.

Uh, he had a pretty bad case of

the shakes last time I saw him.

I hope he's feeling better.

Oh, I'm sure he is, Eddie.

Thank you for asking.

Come on and get

your lunch, Beaver.

Okay, Mom.

It was kind of like the promise of

that very first time that I saw him.

This subtle, big, grown-up guy

dressed up as Jerry Mathers,

saying, "I don't

know, gee, Wally."

That Eddie Haskell, he

really makes me mad.

Why don't you k*ll him?

Nah, I could go to jail.

Besides, it's against the law.

But, Beaver, no one would

have to know that you did it.

I don't know, Whitey, I

don't even have a g*n.

Come on, Beaver.

[Tom H.] For students of

comedy, and by that I mean...

What are you, chicken?

...this is like when comedians

see something that's funny,

they don't laugh, they

go, "Ah, that's funny."

-[Tone-Loc sings "Wild Thing"]

-Let's do it

Hi, I'm Gil Fisher,

the Fishin' Musician.

I guess my secret to

acting, uh, would be:

I pretend real hard.

[Catherine] At that moment in

time, we happened to be the cast

in Second City Toronto when they

decided to do a television show,

and they brought in

Harold as our head writer.

[Dave] Our show

was the poor cousin

-of SNL.

-It's Saturday Night!

[Harold] Well, we had no sponsors,

no one to tell us what to do.

It was like being turned

loose in a TV studio,

and, uh, w-we-we never knew when the

show would run, so we couldn't do

topical material.

So we were forced into the really

dark parts of our imaginations.

[Andrea] John's performance

style was extroverted,

and he had a great

need to connect.

Hello, I'm Mr. Mambo...

If you think of Monty Python,

you think of Second City,

you think of

Saturday Night Live,

he was one of the top

performers out of all of them.

[Tom H.] And John, who

could not hide his frame

when he would be doing Julia Child

or he would be doing Pavarotti,

the only time you saw a big man doing

stuff like that was, like, Jackie Gleason

or Lou Costello.

It had to be like, literally, a

guy making jokes about his size,

and he simply didn't.

Bruno!

[grunts]

[Catherine] He and Eugene

doing Doctor Tongue and Bruno,

oh, it's the best.

[Eugene] They were scary movies

that ended up not being that scary,

and they were all

kind of 3D-based.

But the idea of creating

a very cheap 3D effect...

...was a really funny idea.

[audience laughing]

[announcer] That's right, why wait for

hours for those martinis to take effect

when speed-drinking can make you

the instant life of the party?

Let's mambo.

[Conan O'Brien] I'm at

that impressionable age.

I'm a comedy freak, and

here comes John Candy,

and I'm like, "Who is that guy?"

You calling me a drunk?

I got you this job.

[Conan] One of the things that

Johnny would do that I would love is

immediate turns that

were almost cartoonish.

-Yeah, you know they're, um...

-Lesbians?

And I mean that in the

good sense, I-I do.

[laughter]

No letters.

[Conan] He could go from absolute

sort of childish, avuncular...

[laughs heartily]

"What are you talking about?"

And it's... it's insane.

Yellow, yellow belly...

He did a character in a

sketch called "Yellowbelly."

It's a promo for a television

show about a cowardly

soldier in the Old West.

It's kind of like the

Oppenheimer blast for me.

[announcer] Ostracized by the North

and South during the Civil w*r

for his double-dealing

treachery,

he's the biggest

coward in the West.

He's Yellowbelly.

[shudders]

And he's there and he's shaking

and he's scared and he's...

And then a woman

and her son walk by,

and I think the boy says,

"Is that Yellowbelly?"

And she goes, "Shh, quiet."

[boy] Hey, Mommy,

that's Yellowbelly.

[mother screams]

[Conan] And Yellowbelly

turns and shoots them...

[laughs]

...in the back.

And you have to remember,

this is, I don't know, 1980?

It was just unheard of.

-You sh-shot my child!

-[shuddering]

You yellow belly!

Help, help, the yellow be...

[screams]

Yellow...

[Conan] That wiped my mind

clean, that you could do a sketch

where someone shoots

a mother and a child

in the back while

a fun song plays.

[polka playing]

Hello, I'm Yosh Shmenge.

And I'm Stan Shmenge.

And we are the Happy Wanderers.

[Robin] On the Shmenges, the

minute his costume went on,

that's who he was.

You got to be a Shmenge to

make an offer like that.

[Catherine] Just...

[speaks gibberish

with Shmenge accent]

[laughs]

[Eugene] When you get to that

comfort level and that trust level

knowing each other and hanging around

each other, chemistry is crazy good.

[song ends]

-[Shmenge exclaims]

-[applause]

[Andrew] But in that first

season, John got really upset.

You know, it was about

who was contributing to

the writing and who wasn't.

We were being paid as actors and writers,

but John was only paid as an actor.

He wasn't too happy about it.

So John actually, I

guess, saw a check

and then said, "Well, wait a

second, why am I getting paid less?"

That was where there was

a real schism started.

He would take those grudges and

never dispense with them, right?

They were still there.

And John could carry those

hurts for a long time.

You know, John must have had a

thousand of them during his career.

[ominous music playing]

[Rose] Jim worked, I

believe, on Second City.

John got him a job.

[Andrew] He was part of the crew, John's

brother, and so he's pulling cable.

Jim had a heart attack

in his dressing room,

and, uh, that wasn't

pleasant for John.

Do you know what I mean?

[Christopher] Jim was not

taking care of himself.

That just really

shook my father,

terrified him, because

it's happening again.

[Rose] He was

fine, Jim was fine.

But we went in the

car to the hospital.

John said, "Stay here."

And he was really angry.

[Andrew] So John comes back, and at

that studio we had this tiki bar.

John is

sitting at the bar, having

a drink, having a cigarette.

He said, "You know, my

g*dd*mn brother, you know",

"he's just not taking

care of himself." [laughs]

That was the

inconsistency... of John.

[Dave] Nobody had bigger

expectations for himself than John,

so when things happened,

setbacks, they were devastating.

So, SCTV started in '76.

About three years later, it

kind of ran out of money.

It was syndicated.

And then it stopped.

Then it started again

a year later in

Edmonton, Alberta.

They started with

30-minute shows, and then,

by '81, it extended to

90 minutes, and it became

massive.

[Dave] But John was the key to

turning that thing that tanked

into something that was

successful and funny.

[Rose] It's a moment in time.

It was like his second family

but became his first family.

You know, became my family.

He loved it.

It was really hard for

him to let go of it, too,

'cause he was so

emotionally wrought.

But he knew he had to move on.

And movies came up.

[rousing music playing]

[Catherine] John's first

big movie was 1941.

We were still doing SCTV,

and Spielberg wanted him.

We were finishing off

writing a-a season of SCTV,

and we had a big party.

People were coming over to me,

going, "Steven Spielberg is here.

He's here, he wants to see you."

I'm thinking, you

know, it was a joke.

I went over there,

and there he was.

And he was just surrounded

by a lot of people

and he says, "John, John...

I really like your work."

And I was, "Oh."

But he, uh, said, "I'd like

you to do this picture 1941.

I have a role in it for you,

and I think you'd be perfect."

I said, "I really

appreciate that.

I know it's a party and

we've all been drinking,

so thank you very much and, uh,

I appreciate that

you watched SCTV."

He says, "No, I really

want you for the movie."

"Yeah."

Let's mutilate this food before

they can serve it to anyone else.

[indistinct chatter]

Oh, my God.

-[cameraman] Hello, John.

-This is Candid Camera, wait a minute.

-How are you?

-I'm fine.

[Catherine] And John said, "I'm

gonna get y'all roles in the movie."

It was like, it was

like he felt bad

he was the only one getting called about

a movie in the United States, right?

"It's okay, John."

[interviewer] Did you

see the movie 1941?

[John] Yes, I did.

-Did you like it?

-I liked parts of it.

We were dressed as soldiers.

We were little kids, you know,

living out our fantasies.

[interviewer] Do you prefer

working in feature films, John?

[John] I'd like to, uh,

to try to stay in

films if it's possible.

If there's anyone out

there with a film.

[interviewer 2] Now, when you

proposed to your wife, where were you?

Well, we'd been living in

sin for a number of years,

so it wasn't really the same.

[interviewer 2 laughs]

[John] Well, I proposed, I guess, in

Los Angeles when we were doing 1941.

It was so rushed, it was...

We were trying to find a date.

We couldn't get a weekend.

[laughs]

It was fun. It was a silly

wedding, but we had fun.

[interviewer 2] A silly wedding?

[John] Well, the church we got married

in was under construction, and we didn't

think to look.

[laughing] It was

under construction.

[interviewer 2 laughs]

[upbeat music playing]

[interviewer 3] Did your parents

get married at McDonald's?

[laughs]

[Christopher] No, they got

married at a sound stage

where a McDonald's Canada

commercial had just filmed,

and the Golden Arches are

prominently displayed.

[Martin] What Rose always

brought was this calm,

in control, grounding,

wise element.

If John was upset about something, by the

end of the day Rose would calm him down.

They had one of the most successful

marriages I've ever known.

The summertime has

become the season

for at least one irreverent, gross-out,

anarchistic, slapstick comedy,

and this summer it's Stripes.

[Ox] My name's Dewey Oxberger.

My friends call me Ox.

You might've noticed I've, uh,

got a slight weight problem.

-[man] No. No.

-[Ox] Yeah, I do, yeah, yeah, I do.

I went to this doctor, and... well, he

told me I, I swallow a lot of aggression,

along with a lot of pizzas.

[laughing] Pizzas.

I'm basically a shy person.

I'm-I'm a shy guy, and, uh...

How they described him

in the beginning...

because of his face and,

you know, the round face,

they described him with weight.

So he knew that it was

already being defined for him.

So I figured, while I'm

here, I'll lose a few pounds.

And you got, what, a six-to-eight-week

training program here, a real tough one?

Which is perfect for me.

I'm gonna walk out of here a

lean, mean fighting machine.

-[laughter]

-[indistinct chatter]

[interviewer] Now tell me,

inside John Candy, is there really

a lean, mean fighting machine

-just dying to get out?

-Doesn't it look lean?

It doesn't look like it, no.

Um, no, there isn't.

No, I'm, I'm quite

happy the way I am.

[Rose] Even the interviews on John,

they would say things that offended him.

It's called Big City Comedy,

and if you can't remember "big,"

take a good look at John...

-Take a look at this city.

-...and that will refresh that.

-You worked in The Blues Brothers.

-[Rose] He knew

what he was up against

in this industry.

[interviewer] You're

very handsome.

It's, uh... But I wondered,

if you did indeed become

kind of a-a leading man,

svelte-look guy, could you...?

Isn't it... is it true that... don't

you think everyone loves a fat man?

Uh, I guess, uh...

-Why?

-I-I-I don't know,

I guess they're-they're

harmless.

[laughs]

I'm not sure.

Uh... no, if I lost, if

I lost a lot of weight,

I don't think it would,

uh, affect me that much.

But-but it wouldn't

change your-your style

or it wouldn't change your kind of,

um, uh, your-your kind of humor?

No.

To say that John... hated that?

Uh... John just

wouldn't accept it,

and I think that's a different

version of saying "hated it."

There was no

self-loathing in John.

There was just a-another

degree of artistic purity.

You know, you're always treated like

a second-class citizen in a way,

or you get that feeling.

I think it's just, you're so vulnerable

and you're so sensitive to it,

and, uh, I think that

ha-has a lot to do with, uh,

uh, s-some of the way that I

portray characters, you know.

I never really... I look at

things through thin eyes, really.

I never really

consider anybody...

what they look like, their

physical self, you know.

It's really who's in the

person is really what counts,

and I think that I learned over the

years, you know, by having a large frame.

You start to... People, people

treat you differently, you know.

And it hurts sometimes, you know,

people get hurt by it, you know.

[Andrew] He was very upset

about Stripes and the-the scene

that, you know, he had in the mud.

Give me a kick, honey.

Ooh, whoa...

[Dave] I was the emcee

in the wrestling match,

which he did not want to do.

[whistle blows]

"You know, it was like, " John, take off

your shirt and roll around in the mud

with a bunch of strippers."

John wore a

long-sleeve T-shirt top

'cause he wouldn't go

completely bare-chested.

[cheering]

[Bill] The women got into it... they

were all fit... and, um, they started

pulling his ears

and stuff and...

People would take a little

advantage 'cause they think,

well, you could do anything

you want to hurt him, you know.

You could say anything,

you could hurt him.

"He's so big, I couldn't

possibly hurt him."

He didn't like, uh, he

didn't enjoy that. I never...

You know, I, I understood that.

[Steve M.] But... it's the face you put

on the world that defines who you are.

The face he puts on the world

is-is friendly and happy,

and you could be mean,

you know, or insult people

or fight back, but he didn't.

Maybe I should fold.

Well, let me see,

let me see first.

No, not with a hand

like that, come on.

Dare me, go on,

bluff me, come on.

How much should I bet?

If it were me, I'd

bet everything.

But that's me, I'm an

aggressive gambler. Mr. Vegas.

[laughter]

-Come on.

-Mm...

Go for it. Go for it.

Yes, yes, there we go,

I'm in. [clears throat]

-What do you got?

-Well, I got a full house.

Three threes and two

sixes. That's a full house.

What have you got?

-Oh, you have...

-Two fours, I got an ace.

You got an ace, an

eight, and a seven.

Well, you lose, you see.

If you would've had four

fours, you would've won.

[winces]

-You're getting good at this, aren't you?

-Starting to get the hang of it, though.

You like it? Isn't this fun?

You're pretty good for

a first time, really.

[interviewer] We're here in

what's kind of a retreat for you,

a place which I imagine

you don't see that often.

Do you have any idea how big a

star you are in your hometown?

Uh, no.

Do you know that when you

appear on-screen in Stripes,

I've been told

that people cheer?

They say, "There's

John Candy, our hero."

[chuckles] That's nice to hear.

Does any... Is any of that

sinking in, or is it just weird?

It's... it's very

weird, you know.

Uh... it's hard to relate to.

This is the house, you

know, it's my home.

I feel comfortable

here. I like New York,

but New York drives me crazy.

It's just so...

And especially I go

crazy there, I like it.

[chuckles] It's too

much of a good thing.

There's everything.

John Belushi said, uh,

when he, he was trying to convince me to

do Saturday Night Live, and he said, uh,

and he played Frank Sinatra's

"New York, New York,"

and he said, "Look, this

is... New York is Rome."

[videotape rewinding]

[newsman] Comic actor

John Belushi died today

at a rented hotel bungalow

in the Hollywood Hills.

Los Angeles Times quoted a source who said

the comedian had cocaine in his blood.

[camera shutter clicking]

[somber music playing]

[Dave] I told John,

John burst into tears,

and he said, "Oh,

God, it's starting."

[cries]

[sighs]

I can't even.

'Cause I got it.

I knew what he meant.

I knew that it was like...

the fun times all these

20-year-old kids had.

It could end.

[Christopher] You know, it's heavy,

but it's, it's the child brain.

It's... that's where we go.

It comes from this place

psychologically, this fear of

"Are you going to die soon?

Are you going to die soon?

Are you okay?"

A-And I had that

experience as a kid.

"Mom, are you

going to die soon?"

[Eugene] At that time I seem

to recall John saying, "I...

don't know whether I'm

going to make it past 35."

[Tom H.] So, John's

father dies at 35

on his fifth birthday.

And John knows that he

has his father's heart.

I think I met John

when he was 33 or 34.

So right then and there, his sensibility

is that he is living on borrowed time

and he is going to go away

in the wink of an eye,

just like his father did.

[Dave laughing] I remember one night John

was at a party at Marty Short's house.

So he was drinking

that night and then

he kind of got maudlin

and wanted to leave.

And I had driven him, and

I rolled down the window

and I'm talking to him and I'm saying,

"John, come on, get in the car."

He walked, I would say, half a

mile, maybe three-quarters of a mile

before he finally

got in the car.

And then he goes...

"You don't know, Dave.

You don't know

what I go through.

You don't know what

I have in my head."

And I said, "Well, I got a

feeling gonna find out tonight."

[mournful music playing]

He carried the weight of his

father passing almost every day.

Those things were in his mind, in

his heart, and he carried them.

[Rose] You can't carry it.

The weight of everyone.

The weight of his past.

[Andrew] He didn't want to go

to a doctor because he was going

to find out he was gonna have

to change his behavior.

You know, you go to a doctor,

and your doctor is going to say,

"You're gonna have

to stop drinking."

"Well, I don't want

to stop drinking."

Because he was addicted.

It's a coping mechanism, right?

His coping mechanism was, "I'm

gonna eat, I'm gonna drink,

and if I stop doing that, you

know, uh, I'm not going to work."

You know, it's all...

it was just a circle.

You just... sometimes you just

deny it, you know, you just go...

They're masters

of their own ship.

And him in a business where your,

um, appearance was so important,

I'm sure that was an added

stress to his, his existence,

but then it was

part of him, too.

Now, you look, uh, you

look a little different

from the last time

you were here.

Lost a few pounds.

-Really?

-I went to a place called, uh,

the Pritikin Longevity Center

out in, uh, California.

[David] Mm-hmm.

[John] I spent 26 days in there.

Whew. [chuckles]

I don't smoke anymore,

I quit smoking.

You were, you were there

almost a month, right?

-Yeah, 26 days.

-Now, c-can you, can you mention how,

how much you weighed before you

went in, or do you not want to say?

Oh... I was 341 pounds.

That was a lot.

[Rose] At home he worked

on it all the time.

And he would try. You know,

he had a trainer every day.

He was always on a

program of eating.

He'd always check in with his

doctors, and they'd say he's fine.

Now, you dropped how much?

-Seventy pounds so far, and, uh...

-Yeah?

[audience cheering]

[Rose] But then

the industry wanted him big.

I remember an agency said, "Don't drop

any more weight, whatever you're doing."

And in John's little mind,

"Oh, okay, keep eating."

This is what they like.

"They want me big,

I'll stay big."

I worried.

Honey, just relax, okay?

I told you I'm not angry

anymore. I'm in complete control.

I'm sure they're not repairing

every ride at the same time.

[lighthearted music playing]

Sorry, folks, park's closed.

The moose out front

should've told you.

[Jennifer] Harold Ramis,

who was writing for SCTV,

he did Vacation.

Walley World!

[Jennifer] The ending

didn't test well.

It was, like, awful, so they

called in my dad as an emergency.

"Like, " We need to

change the ending.

You're gonna be

perfect for this role."

My dad was like,

"Yeah, I'll come in."

[Harold] John was great.

I knew him really well,

and he had a character he'd created

on SCTV called Paul Fistinyourface,

who was just kind of a big clod.

Some of the people of

the town left, too.

Well, nobody, uh, nobody notified

this office of, um, of anything.

[Harold] And I asked him to

kind of do this character

as a relative of

Paul Fistinyourface.

[stammering, grunting]

[Jennifer] And Vacation,

it was just massive.

I knew he was star-bound, and

you could see it in Splash.

He was amazingly funny,

and that was Johnny Toronto.

And that's basically the

character that came out in Splash.

How drunk you get is dependent

on how much alcohol you consume

in relation to your

total body weight.

You see my point?

It's not that you

had a lot to drink.

It's just, you're too skinny.

[groans]

[Tom H.] It was really

just a gas... it was

like a working vacation.

Working with John Candy, on

the other hand, that was scary

'cause, uh, I was such a big fan

of both John and Eugene Levy's,

uh, for their work

from Second City

that I was a little bit

trepidatious about going into this,

quite certain that they could blow me

off the screen without too much effort.

Ron Howard's a, a

rough man to work for.

I can't stand him...

uh, his family.

Tom Hanks...

...with all his problems, couldn't

act his way out of a paper bag.

Freddie, you and I have to talk.

What, is it the

missing petty cash?

-It was the cleaning girl.

-No, I don't care about that.

-You don't?

-No.

Then it was me. I

admit the whole thing.

One thing that knocked me

out was, John was inclusive.

John was not trying

to score on top of me.

He was not trying to

have the funniest lines.

He was trying to develop

a back-and-forth.

I did not understand that about

the improvisational process.

He was like... "Yes, and..."

He was, like, waiting for me

to come up with something else

that would make it better

and extend the beat.

We had the scenes when the two

brothers are in our office, you know,

and he starts talking about

what he did last night.

Maybe I went to the,

uh, Club A last night.

[Allen] Oh, something

new for you.

Maybe I met Mr. Buyrite, the

owner of Buyrite Supermarkets.

And maybe, just maybe, we're

his new produce suppliers.

[Tom H.] It wasn't until then

that I realized that, oh, John is

inviting me to play with him.

We came up with all sorts of brand-new

stuff right then and there about the desk.

I was out drinking with this bum

-all night long.

-I have to pick up my tuxedo this evening.

I'm busting my buns

all night drinking

-with this guy, getting a big deal.

-All the way up on East 77th Street.

-Come on, you can handle this, Allen.

-For crying out loud.

-Come on, relax...

-Oh, yeah, I'll handle fine, no problem.

-Clean up the desk.

-Don't touch the desk.

Why does it always look

like a pigsty here?

-Leave the desk alone.

-Do what I do.

-Throw it in the drawer.

-I have a system on the desk!

You know, I'm on the phone

and John just picked up the phone

and started goofing like that.

If we were married, you wouldn't

just move out like this.

She might do that, sure.

Will you get off?

-Was that you?

-Get off the phone!

-I'm so sorry.

-No, no, no,

not you, not you, Victoria, no.

I didn't know you

were on the phone.

It was additive.

It was additive and inclusive.

And the racquetball scene.

He had been up the night before,

I'm sure, studying his lines.

Right, that part to the story.

He was out drinking somewhere, and lo

and behold, Jack Nicholson came in.

And Jack knew John,

and John... and they...

or maybe they met for the

first time right there.

[laughing] But they

dra... they drank.

[Christopher] If Jack

Nicholson called me into a bar

and kept me up all night

drinking... [laughs]

I would do it.

So John is coming in

not only exhausted,

probably with only maybe

an hour and a half sleep,

but he's also coming in

fueled by an evening

with Jack Nicholson.

And we have to do a very

physical thing, you know.

Son of a b*tch.

[Tom H.] E-Everybody is

laughing on one thing,

and John is utilizing his exhaustion

to a degree that works for my brother.

[grunts]

How long we been playing?

[Allen] About five minutes.

Oh, God.

My heart's beating

like a rabbit.

You, uh, want a beer?

[interviewer] How many

takes did it take you

to do the shot where you hit

the ball against the wall

and it rebounds off your head?

Well, you're not going to

believe this, but three.

Oh!

[interviewer] Now, John, one

of the most effective scenes

in the film is really your scene, when

you're telling Tom Hanks, "Listen, kid,

if you're in love,

you're in love.

It may never happen to me."

People fall in love

every day, huh?

-Is that what you said?

-Yeah.

Yeah?

Well, that's a crock.

It doesn't work that way.

Look, do you realize how

happy you were with her?

That is, of course, when you

weren't driving yourself crazy.

You... Hey, come on.

Some people will

never be that happy.

I'll never be that happy.

[John] It was one of the reasons

I wanted to do the picture.

Uh, the-the script

allowed me to do

something other than,

uh, play racquetball.

[Eugene] That really was big.

Splash made John

a bona fide star.

[soaring music playing]

[Christopher] There is a

change that starts to happen,

and he becomes this

huge celebrity.

And it happened so fast.

[film projector whirring]

[interviewer] Once you

hit movie stardom...

-[John] Mm-hmm.

-...how difficult is it to keep your life

as normal as possible?

You know, you just try to

put things in perspective.

You know, life is too short.

You know, this is a real place,

these are real people around me,

and you got to do

real things every day.

You know, you got to change the kitty

litter, you got to take the garbage out,

you got to do things, um,

you've got responsibilities.

You know, I chose that life.

Lot of people don't want

the responsibilities,

a family, a home... you know,

and a lot of people just love to

"Let's take it, let's roll," you know.

Live fast, die young, you know.

[chuckles] Legs Diamond.

Uh, "Let's go for it."

And that-that's just not the

way I choose to live my life.

Stay that way.

[Conan] I'm a comedy

fan and I'm interested

in comedy performers

and writers,

but I never think in a million

years that that's something I'll do.

I think it's the fall of my senior year,

and I'm the president of the Lampoon,

and we got this idea that we could

have our heroes come visit the Lampoon,

and I was very eager to

get John Candy to come.

And then we hear back through

his people, "Yes, he'll come."

So I drive to Logan Airport...

he took a commercial

flight from Toronto...

and I see John Candy

coming down an escalator.

He had a camera around

his neck like a tourist.

You know the way if John Candy

was gonna play a tourist,

he'd have a big camera

around his neck?

And he'd be like,

"Oh, wow, golly gee!"

That's the way he was.

There's a picture of

me in Harvard Yard,

and there's a picture

of me at Adams House.

I have proof that

for two instances

he pointed a camera at

me and took a picture,

which is a testament

to my insane ego...

[laughs]

...that all I care about...

We were going to show a big

montage of all of his clips,

and everybody on

campus wanted to go,

and he's everything

you want him to be.

He's John Candy times ten.

He's screwing around, he's

making everybody laugh.

I remember him very clearly watching the

clips as if he hadn't seen them before.

He filled a room with his aura.

He was expansive and joyful and

kind of voracious about everything.

I remember admitting to him that

I was very interested in comedy...

and I might even want to try it.

I'll never forget this.

He looked me square in the eye

and he said, "You don't try it.

You either do it

or you don't do it.

You don't try it, kid."

And that spoke to me.

Like, "All in, kid,

all in or not at all."

[inspirational music playing]

[interviewer] And what does your own

family feel about having a famous son?

[John] It's hard on them.

My brother, I think,

doesn't like it that much.

It's always, "You're

John's brother."

He's my older brother, too, so that's,

that's even worse on an older brother.

Um, I feel terrible

about that, but...

[interviewer] How

are you as a husband?

[John] As a husband?

Geez, real bad, I guess,

because I'm hardly here.

I'm an actor.

And you're a father.

Yeah, that's great,

and there's my daughter

over there... Jennifer.

Which is the best thing

that ever happened to me.

[Rose] There you go.

-[laughter]

-Whoa!

[Jennifer] My dad had purchased this

farm in a town called Queensville

when I was less than a year old.

For my dad, I think

that was his getaway.

[Christopher] It was this

gigantic, sprawling property,

but it was a very simple

house with a pool.

There was a hammock in the

backyard and a beautiful red barn.

And I also think

it was a way out.

[interviewer] You've turned down films

because it would require traveling.

[John] Yeah, a lot of

times I've had to do that.

Well, now the kids are

getting a little older

and I want to spend

some time, and I...

Geez, my daughter was...

you know, it seems

like she was just born

and now she's in school.

And they grow up just so fast. I

mean, it's been said so many times,

but they do grow up so quickly and I

just want to spend some time with them

so they can say, "Oh, yeah, that's my

father," you know, not that guy on TV.

[Rose] He loved being a dad, you know,

and he got involved in the community,

loved doing things with

the kids at school.

[John] 3D baby.

He was a kid, actually.

He was a child.

[Eugene] I think the

happiest I ever saw John

was when he's in

his own kitchen.

I think the Johnny Toronto

lifestyle that he had

took a lot of energy.

H-He wanted to be, um...

...s-smaller, you

know, in the world.

[Jack] Ooh, excuse me.

-Ow!

-Oh, geez, I'm sorry.

-Really, I didn't mean to.

-Hey, that was my hand.

[Mel Brooks] Everybody who worked

with him fell in love with him.

Carl said when he was making

Summer Rental, he couldn't wait

to get to the set

to schmooze with John Candy.

You took a vacation

away from my family.

Now I'm gonna take

something away from you.

[Mel] He would be

remembered very simply

for his good nature.

[Rose] He's going on set to

make people happy, from the crew

to the makeup to the wardrobe

to the drivers.

He's there to have

fun with people.

Hi!

[Jennifer] He took care of his

mom, he took care of his aunt,

he took care of his brother, he

took care of his cousins, and

he took care of us.

[Dave] The way John treated his

family spoke boatloads about the guy,

and you saw more depth

and heart in a guy that has

that aspect to his life.

[Jennifer] He doesn't take roles that

didn't play to a certain thought process

or a dream of, like, "I want to be

like that" or "I want to be like this."

Give me a hug.

-What?

-Give me a hug, will you?

-Dad.

-Come on.

-I'm too old for hugs.

-Oh, you're never too old for hugs.

[Jennifer] As much as he was John

Candy, it was also playing John Candy.

Like, he was a dad.

You know, we got in

trouble, we got yelled at.

Go on, get out!

[Jennifer] But it was

also a lot of love.

[soaring music playing]

You're still a

nonsmoker, aren't you?

Daddy.

Just being a dad, that's all.

[Christopher laughs]

In a way, yeah, it's like he,

uh, he created for himself

the father he probably

always wanted.

You and I coming up to the woods is

like your father bringing you here.

Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah, I understand.

[Martin] He brought so much of his

own vulnerability and sweetness

and kindness into the

characters he created,

and he was such a good actor, he

could convey that without any effort.

The Chesters.

[Mel] He was a consummate actor.

He knew what was required and

he knew he could deliver it.

He stuck acting in his back pocket

and behaved like a human being.

He was a total actor because

he was a total person.

Carl told me it was a delight

because John Candy was so much

fun and so good-natured, and

he said, "If you ever get a chance..."

I said, "I'm looking for a mog."

He said, "What's that?"

Half man, half dog.

I'm my own best friend.

[Mel] And my next

picture called...

[corporal] Spaceballs.

May the Schwartz be with you...

-[minister] Who are you?

-[Barf] I'm the best man.

-What's your name?

-Barf.

Your full name.

Barfolomew.

[Lone Starr] We're not just

doing this for money.

We're doing it for

a shitload of money.

Give me paw.

[both howl]

Holy sh*t.

-[grunts]

-[screams]

[Dark Helmet] Um, he did it.

[Mel] One day John took my chair that

said "director" and he just sits down.

And I said, "John...

that's my chair."

He said, "I know.

I'm thinking of directing and

I want to know how it feels."

[laughing] So...

he... he knocked me out.

He wanted to know how it feels.

And I said, "How?" He

said, "It's the same.

It's just the same. It's like sitting

in a regular chair, you know."

[intriguing music playing]

He had a wild, you know, weird

and beautiful sense of humor.

And blessed with a sweet

nature and a smile.

And that ever-loving smile.

Two generations

past and we still...

his memory is still as

vivid and as lively as ever.

[Bill] As kind as John was to

people that he was only going

to be with for a minute, when you're

working, you have to be professional.

You know, if it's

not going right...

He had a lot of experience.

He made a lot of... bunch of

movies, did a lot of, you know...

certainly learned how

to work on the stage,

and that's how it

was in a scene.

You couldn't let someone give you,

like, an ordinary slapdash thing.

You go, like, "No, no,

come on, this is real now.

We're not... we've

got to give, you know?

You have to commit to

doing the best you can."

We did a stage

reading, and it was

Marilyn Suzanne Miller, a great

writer on Saturday Night Live.

She wrote a play, and we got... somehow

Sydney Pollack was gonna direct it.

And we had a bunch of

famous actors in it.

There was, like, Ray

Liotta, Kevin Kline,

Candy, myself, only

a handful of others.

And Candy had a scene where

he was in the bathroom,

you know, talking

from ins... and...

...he milked it so bad, bad.

I mean, he milked it.

The timing was beyond...

...comprehension.

It was... it... you

couldn't believe it.

And I'm-I'm, I'm watching, and

I'm watching Sydney Pollack,

who's going out of his

mind 'cause John is just

milking it, milking it, milking it,

just having his own kind of fun,

and I'm going... and I'm laughing

'cause I know Sydney's gonna k*ll him.

[interviewer] Like, I-I don't

know, hearing John suck,

suck is more interesting

to me than...

Oh, it wasn't sucking.

He was just milking.

-He was just milking.

-[laughs]

It wasn't like it wasn't funny.

It was just that it was shamefully,

um, irresponsible to, to the idea

that there might be another actor

in the scene or in the whole play.

I said it before and

I'll say it again.

Life moves pretty fast.

You don't stop and look

around once in a while,

you could miss it.

[Simple Minds play "Don't

You (Forget About Me)"]

Hey, hey, hey, hey

Ooh...

[Christopher] When he meets up with John

Hughes, I think he really hit his stride.

Those two were like brothers,

you know, the brothers

they wanted to have.

John Candy and John

Hughes both had

a great... what we

call a bullshit meter.

They did not suffer fools,

and those two guys

were kindred spirits.

[Catherine] John Hughes was

so in love with John Candy,

and they shared a beautiful,

dark sense of humor.

Good, dark jokes

but so real.

You know, the terror

of being a parent.

It's the family that

would vacation together.

We would be at their farm, they would

be at our farm, we'd be at their house,

barbecues every holiday, and I

think that bled over into the films.

[Macaulay Culkin]

It's his best work,

when the Johns worked together.

If you're gonna associate

an actor with John Hughes,

a lot of people would think, like, "Oh,

Molly Ringwald" or something like that,

and it's like, "No,

it's John Candy."

I've done as many John Hughes

movies as Molly Ringwald.

We've both done three.

I think he did...

Candy did nine.

You should associate those two.

[Chris] Their work remained

very, very honest and real,

and I think when you're not

going to the grocery store

and you're not going to the

local diner in the morning

and you start separating

yourselves from real people,

that's where you lose your touch

with what's going on in the world,

and John Candy and John

Hughes never lost that.

I think, uh, John Hughes

was really watching John

and being, uh, taken by him...

in the best sense. [chuckles]

I could do a script and give

it to John, and John could...

he'd do the final check on it.

And, you know, that-that-that-that

was, as a director,

that was a, a great

gift, you know.

He really didn't allow

me to make a mistake.

He wrote characters for him.

Uncle Buck... it was

written for John.

I mean, that's quite

a statement of a,

a director of John Hughes's talent and

writing talent... make a movie for you.

[Buck] Hey, how you doing?

Who are you?

I'm your Uncle Buck.

[Macaulay] How about this?

When John Candy passed

away, he was 43 years old.

I am 44 years old. [laughs]

I am seven years older today than

he was when we shot Uncle Buck.

So there's your Mac fact of the

day that makes you feel old.

[Young MC sings "Bust a Move"]

I think it was very

easy to draw parallels

between John Candy in the

real world and Uncle Buck.

I think that's why that's one of my

favorite performances, is because

I think he put a lot

of himself into it.

[John] The whole attitude in acting

with the two kids in the movie

was based on my relationship

with Jennifer and Christopher

and how I would deal with them.

The one thing I never did, I

never talked down to them at all,

and in the movie Uncle Buck

doesn't talk down to these kids.

I think that's

why they like him.

They... you know, he

treats them as an equal,

and they're given that

respect and that self-esteem.

Sits down next to you

and starts talkin', say

[gasps]

A lot of people don't know how

or don't like to work with kids.

That was a big thing.

Uh, believe me, as an adult, uh, kids

are tricky to work with, you know,

and John was always

really, really kind

and really good with us, you know,

and he showed, like, a lot of respect.

When you're eight years old,

you don't really get respect,

whether it's in a workplace or just

from-from adults and grown-ups in general.

You felt invited in.

Even just doing, like,

the interrogation scene,

I don't think he

expected me to be

that snappy, and

so he's like, "Oh.

Oh, no, now I have to keep

up with the eight-year-old."

And, you know, boom,

boom, boom, boom, boom.

-Where do you live?

-In the city.

-Do you have a house?

-Apartment.

-Own or rent?

-Rent.

-What do you do for a living?

-Lots of things.

-Where's your office?

-I don't have one.

-How come?

-I don't need one.

-Where's your wife?

-Don't have one.

-How come?

-It's a long story.

-Do you have kids?

-No, I don't.

-How come?

-It's an even longer story.

Are you my dad's brother?

What's your record for

consecutive questions asked?

Thirty-eight.

I see a bad egg when

I look at your niece.

She is a twiddler, a

dreamer, a silly heart.

And frankly, I don't think

she takes a thing in her life

or her career as a

student seriously.

-[Hugh Harris sings "Rhythm of Life"]

-[Ennio] In each movie you would find

a different character, a

different side of John.

She's only six.

[Ennio] Saw something of his

view of the world, his humanity.

I don't think I want

to know a six-year-old

who isn't a dreamer

or a silly heart,

and I sure don't want to know one who

takes their student career seriously.

I don't have a college degree.

I don't even have a job.

[scoffs]

[Buck] But I know a

good kid when I see one.

Because they're all good kids.

I was strollin' through

the jungle one day

Met a girl, and the voice...

[Macaulay] Paternal, I

think, is the right word.

I think he always had that

really great instinct.

But also, you know, I think he

saw, like... listen, I, uh...

Even before the wave crested

and the Home Alone stuff was

happening, it was not hard

to see, uh, how difficult,

like, my father was.

You know, it-it was no secret.

He was, he was already

a monster even bef...

And then, all of a sudden,

the fame and the money came,

and then he bec... then he

became a, an infamous monster,

but he was, you know, he

was already not a good guy.

And so I think John was kind

of looking a little side-eyed

over to, like, just like, "Is

everything all right over there?"

You know, so he's

like, "You doing good?

Good day? Like,

everything's all right?

Everything good at

home? All right."

What do you do?

Wait, um, where do you live?

[John] In the city.

What do you do?

And that's a testament to

the kind of man he was.

It'll make you cry...

I think he was just

looking out for the kid,

which I appreciate 'cause that

doesn't happen that often.

It actually happened even

less as time went on, too.

Because, like, "Of

course he's doing good."

[chuckles] "Yeah, he's... he's,

he's a movie star, you know,

he's making money

and this and that."

It's like, "Yeah, but,

like, how you doing?"

And it's like that-that-that's the thing

that kind of is a, is a wonderful dagger.

Just like, "Ah," like, you

know, like, just like, you know,

I wish I got more of that,

you know, like, in my life.

And so that's why it's

important when-when, you know...

Like, I-I remember that.

You know, I remember John caring, and,

uh, not... when not a lot of people did.

[John Hughes] Uncle Buck was a

perfect Candy script for me to direct

because he put himself into it.

When he got in the car... There's

a scene where he gets in the car,

he's gonna take the kids to the

racetrack, and he knows it's wrong.

He's in the car and he

looks in the rearview mirror

and he sees these

two sweet little kids

that he's going to

take to the track

while he meets his, his gangster buddies

and they bet, and he can't do it,

and I know when he

was doing that scene

that when he looked

in the mirror,

you know, he wasn't looking

at two little actors.

He was talking to two real kids.

I mean, that was him,

that was him, the father.

[airplane and train passing]

[car engine revs]

My agent said, "I've heard of this

script Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

I'm watching it for you."

John and I were cast.

We didn't really know

each other at all.

I'm thinking we'd better

spend some time together.

[laughs] We're gonna

be doing this movie.

I was starting to mature as

an actor, and John was there,

and so, in these scenes

we were able to connect.

[mouthing]

My character was

written uptight.

[gasping]

I was very lucky. All I had

to do was be annoyed. [laughs]

He just knew exactly

how to play annoying.

Oh.

Oh, that feels good.

[chuckles] Oh, God,

I'm telling you.

My dogs are barking today.

Whew.

Oh.

[chuckles]

That feels better.

[Steve M.] Showing me his curtain

rings and smoking in the car.

Big laughs.

I mean, his own laugh.

[laughs]

Wow.

[laughs]

Still a million bucks shy

of being a millionaire.

[Del and Gus laugh]

[Steve M.] And John was the

perfect person to play it.

He's so tender in the movie.

There's a scene

where I berate him.

You're no saint.

You got a free cab,

you got a free room

and someone who'll listen

to your boring stories.

I mean, didn't you, didn't you notice

on the plane, when you started talking,

eventually I started

reading the vomit bag?

[Catherine] When Steve Martin's

character lays into him,

like, says the worst things anyone

would ever want to hear in their lives.

You choose things that are, that are

funny or-or mildly amusing or interesting.

You're a miracle.

Your stories have none of that.

And then it keeps going.

They'd say, "How

can you stand it?"

And I'd say, "'Cause I've

been with Del Griffith.

I can take anything."

[Catherine] And then he keeps

going, and then he keeps going,

and cutting to John's face,

listening.

[Neal] It's like going on a date

with a Chatty Cathy doll.

I expect you to have a little

string on your chest, you know,

that I pull out and

have to snap back.

Except I wouldn't pull it out

and snap it back. You would.

"Aah! Aah! Aah! Aah!"

[Steve M.] His facial response

in that scene told a huge story.

[laughs] And I always

feel bad, you know.

I say, "Well, we are just

pretending, you know."

[laughs]

But he acted so hurt.

[Chris] This is not a comedian.

This is a guy

who is much more complex than

what a lot of

people would think.

You want to hurt me?

Go right ahead if it

makes you feel any better.

I'm an easy target.

Yeah, you're right.

I talk too much.

I also listen too much.

I could be a coldhearted

cynic like you.

But I don't like to

hurt people's feelings.

Well, you think what

you want about me.

I'm not changing.

I like, I like me.

My wife likes me.

"I like me," you know? I...

"My wife likes me," you know?

[Catherine] "Just know

I have people who

love me, and I do..."

[chuckles]

My customers like me...

'cause I'm the real article.

What you see is what you get.

[Steve M.] People always

talk about that moment.

Twenty years later, they, they

always talk about that moment.

[Chris] I compare John to

someone like Charlie Chaplin,

particularly a movie

called City Lights.

If you see the final shot

of City Lights, where Chaplin realizes

that the blind girl can actually see,

Chaplin's acting

elevates that moment

to a level of true

complex emotion,

and I realized that when I saw John

in Planes, Trains & Automobiles,

he had that same thing.

I don't have a home.

[wistful music playing]

Marie's been dead

for eight years.

[Chris] And it was

then that I started

sort of this fascination with

wanting to work with John.

I am trying to get home

to my eight-year-old son.

And now that I'm this close,

you're telling me it's hopeless?

[Chris] So, the

Shmenge brothers,

to me, were the original

inspiration for Gus Polinski.

What?

Excuse me. Can you

excuse us for a sec?

[Chris] John Hughes and I

talked about John Candy,

and I said it would be a dream come

true to get John to do this role.

And for some reason he was

only available for one day.

And John came in first hour and

said, "Take as much time as you need.

It's fine."

And we took 23 hours.

Allow me to introduce myself.

Gus Polinski.

How are you?

Polka King of the Midwest?

The-the Kenosha Kickers?

[Chris] Simple character, yet

he came to the set with an

intense backstory in his head.

I never heard about it.

I got to learn about it in

those 23 hours of sh**ting.

"Polka Twist."

These are songs?

Yeah, yeah, we... some fairly big hits for

us, you know, in the early '70s, you know?

-[chuckles]

-Oh.

Yeah, we sold about

623 copies of that.

-In Chicago?

-No, Sheboygan, very big in Sheboygan.

-They loved it, you know.

-I'm sorry, did you say you could help me?

[Catherine] So, in this small

stage, they had the van,

and John just kept coming up with

ideas and John Hughes kept coming up

with ideas.

[sniffing]

Do I smell of rat?

I don't think I know that smell.

It's a very foul smell.

Uh, I was at a...

[clears throat] this, uh, pierogi

fest that we were at, you know...

Apparently, down in the dressing

room we were at there...

Uh, we walked in, we... woof,

we almost keeled over, you know.

We asked the-the-the

priest there what it was,

and he said that a rat got into the

wall and died about a month before,

and it was rotting,

and, uh, you know, I...

-Is this what a rat smells like?

-Can you smell it?

It's just 'cause I hung my coat

-probably right on the wall there.

-Oh...

Why'd you make me smell that?

Well, yeah, I-I dipped it in Old Spice,

you know, I got the Old Spice all over it,

and now I got a real... mess

of smells coming out of here.

-Sorry.

-That's okay.

[Catherine] If you watch the

movie, there's very little of...

[laughs] my improv in it.

But John was so fun.

[Eugene] This is really

star power stuff,

and that's who John Candy was,

and that's who the, the mass audience

who were watching these movies,

that's what they were getting, and they

were falling in love with John Candy.

[interviewer] You know,

you've articulated this better

and in a more interesting way

than anyone I've ever talked to,

John, because not only do you

have to be a creative person,

but you have to be

a businessman...

These days, if-if you're not,

if you're not, then forget it.

If you're just an actor these days...

chances are you're not gonna make it.

If you're just a writer, chances

are you're not gonna make it.

As good as you are, as

brilliant as you are.

It's gonna take longer.

[VCR whirring]

[Jennifer] So he was at

the top of his career,

and then, all of a sudden,

this opportunity came up

where he could buy the Toronto Argonauts

with Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall.

[Steve A.] It was

like a lifelong

dream realized.

[John] It's a football team in Toronto,

uh, part of the Canadian Football League.

Canadian Football League is

ideal for certain markets

that aren't going

to get an NFL team,

and it's a very exciting

brand of football.

What am I...? I'm promoting

this, d*ck, I'm sorry.

That's all right,

there'll be no trouble

-finding people to...

-And I'll be flashing

season ticket numbers on the

bottom of the screen here.

Good seats still available,

-folks, please.

-No problem.

Come on down to the SkyDome.

He was signing autographs,

and I just went up and

introduced myself and told him,

"I'm Kelvin Pruenster,

I'm your right tackle."

And he just looked

at me, said, "Oh,

I know who you are.

You don't have to

introduce yourself."

John was like part of the team.

Instead of off to the side with

everybody, he was on the bench,

and there's occasions where

he ran out on the field

to help injured

players off the field.

[sportscaster] The rest of the

Argonaut ownership entourage

is in the warmth of the booth, but

John Candy's decided to brave it

-in the great outdoors.

-I'm braving it out here.

You're darn right, Scott,

we're braving it out here.

[Steve A.] John worked

his a*s off that year

to bring it back to

life here in Toronto,

bringing the shows, the

halftime shows he got.

He had the Blues Brothers

here the first opening night.

[atmospheric music playing]

[Jennifer] He stepped

into it with everything.

You're the guy who

owns the hockey team.

No, it's a football team.

-[Sings "O Canada"]

-Our home and native...

[Martin] The Argonauts

got into the Grey Cup,

which is Canada's Super Bowl,

and so John organized

that we would all fly

to the Grey Cup that morning on

the Bruce McNall L.A. Kings plane.

[Kelvin] They waited for him to

arrive and come out of the tunnel,

and you could just hear

the crowd noise start to rise.

[cheering]

[Dave] There's

50,000 people there.

"And ladies and gentlemen, Bruce

McNall, Wayne Gretzky, and John Candy."

And the crowd went nuts.

"Danny looked at it, and

he said, "Look at him.

He's Johnny Toronto."

He became the guy that he thought he

would be and that we all teased him about.

[Jennifer] Everything

before was you were on sets,

you were in the film,

you were with your crew.

And then, all of a sudden, it kind

of jumped to a different level.

Everything was heightened.

[sportscaster] To the outside!

[Jennifer] There were

more people, more events.

[sportscaster 2] Makes the

sack, as Will Johnson force...

[Kelvin] As we got to know each other, I

think he just trusted me more and more,

that I was somebody he could talk to and

he was never going to be let down by me.

He started to share

a lot about his

worries about the

movie industry.

He'd been,

you know, focused on

the football team,

and I think there was

no projects going on.

But there were movies

on the table for him,

and he would always say

to me, "There's no work."

"Will they like me?

Will they hire me?

Will I ever get another job?"

John, in his insecurity, was

coming through all the time.

[Christopher] I grew up with someone

who was already a successful actor,

who had made it.

The thing that was so

big and such a big secret

was that he didn't

believe in himself.

How f*cking human

is that? [laughs]

[Kelvin] So we talked a lot

about his psychological health

and the pressures

that he had and

was trying to learn what

caused that in his life.

Why now? Why did

it start in '91?

I think that's when it started.

[Christopher] So he had this aggressive

work ethic to get things set up.

I'd made winning my whole

life, and when you make winning

your whole life...

...you have to keep on winning.

[Macaulay] You get caught up in

this perpetual motion machine

when it comes to Hollywood.

-We're out of time!

-[Macaulay] And so

they kind of put you

in this hamster wheel

that you're kind of just

constantly having to roll around

and keep going and keep going.

And you start

feeling the pressure,

especially if you're starting to

juggle more than one thing at a time.

Like, you could be on the red

carpet with an Oscar in your hand,

and, you know, you-you're

at the top of your game,

and the first question they're gonna

ask you is, "What are you doing next?"

If I give you the name of the

big enchilada, you know...

...then it's bon voyage, Deano.

I mean, like permanent.

I mean, like a b*llet

in my head, you dig?

You're a mouse

fighting a gorilla.

[indistinct chatter]

[Macaulay] You stick around

in Hollywood long enough,

everyone either goes crazy

or turns into an as*h*le

or they end up dead.

[dramatic crescendo plays]

[Steve M.] We were all a

little worried about John,

health-wise.

Oh, I mean, it was

just in the air.

He was just big, living large,

and we kind of worried

about that for him.

One friend that he had

had written him a letter

telling him that he was

concerned about his weight.

John took his name

out of his Rolodex.

In other words, that's

it for that guy.

I remember John going through

doctors like cigarettes.

You know, he'd get a doctor,

and the doctor would tell him,

"You got to lose weight,

you got to stop drinking."

John didn't want

to hear that sh*t.

[interviewer] Does anybody ever

pressure you about your weight

and say, "Why don't

you slim down?"

Or-or do you ever...?

-Is it a concern of yours at all?

-No, no, not really.

I think it bothers other

people more than it does me.

-Yeah.

-You know?

But, uh, does it bother you?

-It doesn't bother me at all.

-Oh, good, because I was wondering.

You brought it up, so I was

wondering if it bothered you.

As it kept moving along,

the heart, it's stressed.

I worried about it 'cause I

would always go buy him clothes.

And every time I'd

go, I'd go, "Okay,

this is a double X."

Then we went to a 3X,

then we went to a 5X.

And I went, "Okay,

this is tough.

John, you know,

this is not good."

And further over here.

[Don Lake] I

remember at that time

he was gonna direct

his first film,

and it was called

Hostage for a Day.

-A fly right there.

-All right.

Uh, you-you take it

and then adjust it.

[Don] What I remember vividly

is this one night sh**t,

"he said, " Come

into the trailer.

We're gonna rewrite that scene."

And it was like, "What?

Wow, we're gonna

rewrite it? All right."

So now we're in

the Winnebago, and we got

the script out and we're,

we're doing this

whole scene different.

And it's like, "Wow, but,

John, you know, there's like,

there's other people that

are coming into this cast.

We're just going to

kind of throw..."

"They'll be fine,

they'll be fine."

-Action.

-[Don] But with John it's like

I want to do so well for him.

I want to make this so great for him

'cause he's loving it, and I knew

how invested he was from the rewrites,

and he did that with all the scenes.

[dramatic piano music playing]

[Kelvin] I think the weight of everything

he was doing was just too much,

and he had a family

and he had kids.

He felt so bad leaving his kids

alone, being on a movie set.

He struggled with that.

-Hi, Daddy.

-[John] Hi.

[d*ck Cavett] You've been in so many

successful films and a few turkeys.

[John] Yeah, I've had a

number of critics go after me,

which is fair game,

I mean, you know.

For what, for example?

Well, usually poor

choice in material.

-Yeah.

-Or "Here he is again, too many films."

[Bill] Because he had already

had this kind of big success,

he was trying to, like, drag

people along, but you can't,

you can't really drag

people that easily.

You know, you think

you're doing favors.

You can't really do

favors for people.

It's a funny thing.

[John] I did go through a period

there, I was doing a lot of favors.

"Sure, I'll do that." "Well,

could you just...?" "Sure."

Without thinking or

leading with your heart.

I did it out of loyalty

and out of, uh, friendship.

[interviewer] Well, you know

that you've been in more turkeys

than a stuffing mix.

[laughing] Oh, geez.

-Had you seen that?

-No.

-Except the-the corollar...

-I'm depressed now.

No, the corollary to that is

"yet everyone seems to love him."

Well, I've been in some

movies that didn't fare well.

I-I wouldn't, wouldn't

call them turkeys.

So, what, you got

bad judgment or...?

No, I-I-I-I...

[Tom H.] You end up into this

commoditized version of

something, and people come to you,

you know, say, "Hey,

we can do this."

We can do this animated show."

And John was the type to

say, "Hey, let's do that."

[John] It's all here

next on Camp Candy.

[announcer] At Radio Kandy

starring John Candy...

[Andrew] I remember being outside the

stadium and the thousands of fans,

and John must have stood there for

three or four hours signing autographs

and then flying across the country,

supporting every other football team.

It's a lot of fun.

Yeah, there's risk.

[Andrew] I knew those

trips took a toll on him

because there was... it was

no money involved, it was

showing up, meet

and greet, you know.

He didn't have to do it, but he did it

because somebody asked him to do it.

Thank you very much.

[Conan] For someone like John, like

I said, I just knew him for that day,

but I saw him give to everybody

and I saw him delight

in the glow that he was casting.

It made him feel good to

give that much to everybody,

including me. Who-who am I?

I'm just some kid that

picked him up at the airport.

A hazard of this business is

that it's very unhealthy

for people pleasers,

because if you're

a people pleaser,

they'll take whatever you got

and they'll ask for more, and

there's no end to it.

It's a bottomless cup of coffee.



[Andrea] Perhaps the need to

take in stuff so much was

to suppress... an anxiety.

Anxiety.

What is that?

[Christopher] If you go a whole

lifetime eating your feelings,

drinking your feelings,

smoking your nerves,

it shows up... in

one way or another.

Then it's an alarm system

and it's saying, "Hey, there

is something wrong here."

The mind was overweight.

[Jennifer] Traveling in airports,

he would have panic attacks.

We'd get off the plane and

there'd be a mass of people.

He just couldn't breathe.

It was just like

everything came inwards.

It was hard to see

because you didn't know

what it was, but he would get

agitated, so you're kind of like,

"Okay, don't piss Dad off."

We were going from, for some reason, one

restaurant to another, and all of a sudden

John's looking around, looking

around, looking around.

You could tell

something was wrong,

and he had to go sit down and, you

know, catch his breath and relax.

[interviewer] He did... I'm

assuming he didn't really give up

what it was about. It was...

No, no.

And a guy like me,

I would never ask.

[laughing] Like, I

don't want to know.

Nobody had therapists.

Maybe Upper East Side, New York, you

have a therapist, but not in Toronto.

John had such a good sense of

others and what they needed

and was so good at getting

outside of himself,

maybe as a protective thing, who

knows, but isn't it also just...

a healthier way to be than

being lost in your own head?

[Christopher] If he was

five when his father died,

and then you grow up

with a group of people

who do not for a second

want to even acknowledge it?

Well, yeah, no sh*t,

I'd have anxiety, too.

[Steve M.] You know,

there's some things

that are just painful.

That's it, and you can't

make 'em not painful.

There's no closure

for certain things.

[intense music playing]

[Andrew] John had called me and

said, "I'm going into partnership

with one of the most honest people

I've met in Hollywood... Bruce McNall."

But eventually Bruce McNall

went to jail for bank fraud.

Bruce pled guilty

because he is guilty.

[Andrew] Bruce was going

to try and sell the team,

and he was devastated because

Bruce didn't call him himself,

'cause Bruce had always promised,

"I'll call you directly."

It conjures up all those thoughts about

"This was my father, he's let me down,"

you know, and, um,

hurt, deep hurt.

John was very sensitive.

He saw a lot, he felt a lot.

He started to have

crippling chronic anxiety.

He would have it

for the whole day.

Y-You don't much like

these interviews.

Are you overly

comfortable with it?

I'm not very, as you can see, I'm

not that good at them right now.

I'm sort of stiff.

[Kelvin] Some days

worse than others,

it kept him from sleeping.

So he really suffered

and needed to find out what it

was about and did not want to go

the medication route.

Wanted to understand what

was happening to him.

Could you give us a little tour of the

dark side of the... of your personality?

-[laughing nervously]

-Is there...

Are there things about

you you don't like?

Is there something?

-[groans] No.

-Oh, this is embarrassing.

Shall I move on?

Uh... you can move on.

-[laughing] Okay.

-Next, please.

[Kelvin] He was in therapy.

He would share with me what he

learned about the root of anxiety

and what causes it.

People don't talk about having it, but

so many, so many people suffer from it.

[dramatic piano music playing]

[Christopher] People keep their therapy

private, or they used to at least,

and now a lot of people talk about

it, but I'm very honored to say

that my father is the reason

that I've been in treatment.

I've been able to work on myself

because he went into therapy.

[Andrea] You just wish

for everyone that you love

that they can be self-accepting and

that the black cloud can go away.

[videotape fast-forwarding]

[Don] When I first met him,

of course, first you fall

in love with his talent.

It's such an

effortless, uh, comedy.

It's so genuine and it

comes from such a heart.

Wagons East came up, and so, you know,

he-he got me involved in the, in the show,

which I was grateful for, and we

flew down, just he and I, to Durango.

He was taking care

of himself then, too,

because he had a nutritionist

who was with him now,

and I thought, "Oh,

that-that's great."

I don't know why they went

so far away to Durango.

It was a terribly difficult

place to sh**t in.

People around you now are

carrying, like, machine g*ns

because they're protecting you.

John was layered in outfits,

and it was really hot.

The sand was... it gets

to you after a while.

Once you get on that horse, you

don't want to get off that horse.

There's a lot of people,

there's a lot of shots.

It didn't lend itself

well to comedy.

The... all the comedy

was a little broad.

-Oh!

-[Don] It started to wear thin

and started to get frustrating.

And I remember one

morning walking to set,

and he just said, "Hang on for

a second, hang on for a second."

And I go, "Yeah, what

is... what's up?"

He said, "I'm having, uh, I'm

having an anxiety attack."

And so I was like, "Yeah, okay, well,

you want to go back to the trailer?"

"No, no, no, no, no, I don't

want them to know I'm sick."

Like, "I don't want to, I don't want

to, I don't want to hold things up,

I don't want a

magnifying glass on me."

We're far away, he's not with his

family, and he's, he's scared.

We had done a, a movie years ago,

too, and I-I knew he alluded to

he had to insure himself,

you know, to do the project,

so he knew that people

were watching him.

So I knew that he didn't

want a microscope on himself

'cause probably every production

towards the end were sadly saying,

"Is John gonna make

it through it?"

I think the last day

was late in the day.

You're tired, right? You're beat

up, you just want to get home.

And then it's, you know, "Okay, now tell

him it's a wrap," and off the horses go.

I think it was like

2:30 in the morning.

He was all alone in

a big cowboy house.

And then, when I heard

how they found him,

and it looked like he had

sat up on the side of the bed

and opened up the Bible...

and was reading from it

and just passed away on the bed.

But I remember thinking...

[clears throat]

...how he was

trying to find home.

[somber music playing]

[Rose] I had a dream.

Before he died.

We were outside a door.

And I was with Jennifer

and Christopher.

[groans]

And John had died

in the other room.

[groans]

Yeah, he was leaving.

[Cynthia Erivo sings

"Every time You Go Away"]

[newsman] One of

Canada's most famous

entertainers, John Candy,

is dead at the age of 43.

Hollywood still reacting

to the shocking news.

The sudden death of John Candy.

Although friends and fans are...

[Roger Ebert] He cofounded

Toronto's Second City troupe

and then went on to star

on the SCTV television show

and in more than 30 movies.

[newsman 2] Before his death, John Candy

certainly made a lasting impression,

particularly on the people

here in Durango, Mexico,

for it's reported that during the

filming, the actor with the heart of gold

quietly made a

large contribution

to one of the local hospitals

for the city's needy children.

How much money did he give them?

I don't know.

He didn't say anything about it,

but I-I knew he gave some money.

-Did he try to keep that quiet?

-Yep.

Ooh... ooh...

[Dan] When we're

here reminiscing

about John, it's deep

because I have to go back

and I've got to relive,

I've got to, uh, revivify

in my own imagination

what-what was, what I remember,

what I don't remember, so...

At the moment that I heard

John was gone, I left the road.

I drove right up

on a person's lawn.

I mean, I almost hit the lawn jockey and

the, uh, the pink, uh, you know, flamingo.

And so I shut the truck off and

I sat there, you know, in shock,

and then...

a flood of memories came...

...of that beautiful man and his

talent... and my time with him.

[Macaulay] I thought I

was gonna see him again.

You know what I mean?

That's, that's what made me sad.

I think I was like,

"Oh, yeah, like",

it'll be fun. He's gonna

see, oh, I'm a teenager now."

I was looking forward

to a day like that.

Just kind of got ripped away.

[crying] That time

period is a blur.



You go white, you go numb.

And I remember my mom saying,

"It's okay to cry."

[sighs]

[sighs]

[Christopher] You're meant to get older

and then experience loss, you know.

You can understand

life and existence and, um...

but a child shouldn't really

have to go through with that,

um, but it happens too

often to too many people.

I'm just someone who's experienced it

and has lived with it for my whole life.

[Catherine] I dreamt about

him more than I ever dreamt

about my parents

after they died,

and one of the first dreams

I had of John, we were just hanging out

and laughing and talking and doing bits,

and it was just really

loose and funny, and,

and then I said

something about...

"Aw, why'd you have to die?"

And he said... "Why'd

you have to bring it up?"

If we can solve any problem

then why do we

lose so many tears...

[priest] O God, our Father,

it's in a spirit of

trust and confidence

that we present these

prayers and petitions to you.

We ask you to hear them

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

-When the leading man appears

-Please be seated.

[Catherine] Who am I to be standing

up here, talking about John Candy?

I'll tell you who I am.

I'm one of the millions of

people whose lives were touched

and enriched by the life

that was John Candy.

I know you all have a story.

You asked him for his autograph,

and he stopped to ask you about you.

You auditioned for Second City, and

John watched you, smiling, laughing.

And though you didn't get the job,

you did get to walk away thinking,

"What do they know? John

Candy thinks I'm funny."

Ooh

Go on...

You worked one of the

thousand Air Canada flights

John took between Toronto and L.A.,

and you never had time fly by so fast.

You worked at the butcher shop,

the fish shop, the market, the LCBO

where John ordered up

his feast for friends,

and you took your time not only

to do it just right for him

but to keep John there

for a moment longer.

He closed your bar,

and it was packed

because of course no one would leave

until John Candy had gone home.

[mourners laugh]

Party monster? Maybe.

Or maybe he knew you could

just use the business.

I spent nearly

every working hour,

hundreds of evenings and weekends

with John for nearly ten years.

So where are the

details of those days?

I realize, when I think of John...

it's not in terms of details.

I think of John in terms

of the big picture.

Away

you take a piece

of me with you

Oh

[Eugene] After the funeral

we're going to the internment,

and I'm in the car with

some other pallbearers,

and all of a sudden...

I look out the window

and I'm just saying,

"Guys, guys, guys."

"Where's the traffic?"

Oh, my God,

they've shut the 405 down for

John's funeral procession.

And you saw at every

entrance cops doing this.

[sighs]

You know you've made it when

they're closing freeways for you.

It's only been

done twice before,

once for the pope and the

other for the president.

-[Del] Happy Thanksgiving, Neal.

-[Neal] Okay.

[Steve M.] In this movie Planes,

Trains & Automobiles, it's at the end.

My character is ready

to give it up.

He's gonna go home.

I say, "Well, it's been great.

I got to know you. Fantastic."

And I leave him and I

start thinking about,

"This doesn't make sense that

he's going back to his wife.

It doesn't make sense."

And I turn around, I go back...

...invite him home. [chuckles]

[soaring music playing]

[Tom H.] John Candy is a man who

will look you in the eye and be

so present with you

that he will make

you feel as though

you are the most fascinating

creature on the planet Earth.

[Don] He's such an everyman,

and we love it when that everyman

becomes a star because that's us.

We invested in him.

[Mel] If he didn't have

such an ebullient spirit,

you wouldn't have

missed him so much,

but he was such a presence and such

a sweetheart of a guy that to take

that away from us was... it

was-was a sin, just a sin.

[Macaulay] There are, you know, there

are horses out there in the world,

but it's rare when you actually

run into, like, a unicorn,

and I think that's really what it is,

that he was just a unique creature

that cut a certain kind of

silhouette into your soul.



[interviewer] You're

a fairly funny guy.

Well, thank you, and so are you.

[laughter]

That's a nice thing

to say to somebody.

"You're a funny guy."

It's better than

saying you're a jerk.

I'll take the funny guy anytime.

"You know, you're an

a*s." "Thank you."

You know? "You're a funny guy."

"Thank you very much,

I appreciate that."

[laughter continues]

Okay, I told you it's hard.

It's really hard to talk about

Candy 'cause, except for saying

that this one scene where he

really milked it like crazy,

there's nothing really

bad to say about the guy.

If that's the worst thing that

ever happened to the guy...

I feel like putting, like,

an extra tombstone on.

"By the way, he really milked

this one scene really badly once."

[interviewer laughs]

Let's not forget.

I-I mean, everybody

loved the guy, but...

Sydney Pollack had

a moment with him.

[Bobby Day sings

"Little Bitty Pretty One"]

Y'all come back now, hear?

Orange whip? Orange whip?

Three orange whips.

One of the most talented

men in the field of comedy.

Oh, you better hope to hell you didn't

kiss my a*s, that's all I got to say.

Oh, yeah, and why not?

You put a hickey on my a*s, pal,

I'll have a letter in your

hand from my lawyer real quick.

Where is that license?

[mutters] Not there, no.

More cash, more cash.

Oh, what's this next to

this folded ten dollar bill?

A license.

You, uh, sure you're okay, Bill?

I know you're concerned

about this trial.

Say when.

Uh, that's good, Bill.

[spokesman] Lincoln, Chicago's

largest shop-at-home service,

buys in tremendous volume from

America's finest carpeting mills.

The best human being I've

ever met is John Candy.

He was my angel.

Man,

he affected my life.

But very soon, John Candy

is going to be doing

all the great roles that

Charles Laughton has done.

He is a fantastic actor.

-You listen to Mother.

-I'm listening.

We'd exchange gifts and-and, uh,

then we'd sit and read stories,

-Christmas stories...

-You exchange socks?

Do they have that in

your, um, Christmas?

-We exchange socks.

-You do that?

Oh, yeah, yeah,

the male guys do.

The male members of-of the family would

exchange socks with each other, you know.

-No, I've never heard of that.

-Yeah.

Well, I-I just thought-thought... I

thought everybody did that, you know.

-What does that mean?

-You just take the socks off your feet

and you give it to the

guy next to you, you know,

or, like, you know, your

uncle, your cousin, whoever.

-But, uh...

-And this is planned?

Oh, yeah, every Christmas,

-every Christmas.

-Ah.

It's kind of the first thing

you do when you get up.

You want to hurt me?

Go right ahead if it

makes you feel any better.

I'm an easy target.

[Deadpool] And for the first

time in a long while...

I like me.

[Del] My wife likes me.

My customers like me...

'cause I'm the real article.

What you see is what you get.

-[John] See you later.

-[Rose] Okay.

[child] Bye. [speaks

indistinctly]

[Rose] Bye.

[sentimental music playing]

[music ends]

The trunk?

Yeah, the trunk.

[exhales]

[exhales] There it is.