Catherine O’Hara’s John Candy Eulogy – Transcript

Actress Catherine O’Hara delivers her emotional eulogy at John Candy’s Memorial Service on March 18, 1994 at St. Basil’s Church in Toronto.

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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 did they know? John Candy thinks I’m funny.”

You walked behind John to communion. You carried his bags up to his hotel room and he said, “Hey, that’s too heavy, let me get that for you,” and then he tipped you, or was that a day’s pay?

Your child was friends with John’s daughter Jennifer or his son Christopher, and you got a little sick of hearing how much more fun it was at the Candy house. You worked one of the thousand Air Canada flights John took between Toronto and LA 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. You caught a John Candy scene on TV one night right when you needed to laugh more than anything in the world.

You delayed him at customs and immigration just for fun. You worked on a John Candy show and not only did he give you your very own Argo jacket on the last day, but he thanked you for your good work every day before that. He closed your bar and it was packed, because of course no one would leave until John Candy had gone home. Party monster, maybe. Or maybe he knew you could just use the business.

Or maybe you’re here at St. Basil tonight because you were friends with John at school, and when he became famous you got all shy about calling him, little knowing that you were in his thoughts, but he was too shy to call you. Or you’re here because you’re John’s loving friend, his in-law, his aunt, his uncle, his brother, his mother. Sorry, dear Mrs. Candy. Whatever you did to deserve this child, God bless you, and thank you.

I have my own story. In 1974, I auditioned for John Candy, director of the Second City touring company, and he hired me. Yeah, John Candy thought I was funny. When I joined him in the main cast, he drove us all the way to Chicago to play their Second City stage, and I had a crush on him, of course, but he was deeply in love with Rose. So I got to be his friend, and I closed the Chicago bars with him just to be with him.

We did SCTV together, when we all tried to come up with opening credits that would somehow tell the audience exactly what we were trying with the show, to say about TV. It was John who said, “Why don’t we just throw a bunch of TVs off a building?” In any show, John knew what he was doing. He was bright and quick and graceful and full of ideas, funny ideas, but he always had room for your idea too. If you threw John something, anything, he would grab it, run with it, play with it, sparkle with it, and toss it back, and you’d get to sparkle too.

This open generosity was a way of life for John. And in business, John knew what he was doing. John’s sense of self-worth from day one was rock solid. Long before the reviews, the ratings, the fans, John just knew he had something valuable, and we all agreed. Almost every SCTV contract was a favored nations agreement, meaning we all got pretty much the same deal. Well, at the end of each paragraph about salary or residuals or PRUM, it would say “favored nations,” and then in brackets it would say, “with the exception of John Candy.” And he shared his wealth. Money was, for John, forgive me Father, the root of much good.

The last time I got to work with John was on Home Alone. He could give them one day, so they took him for 17 hours of improvising. John gave himself so completely to every role, big or small, not just because we all came to expect it from him, but because he loved doing it. He really had fun. And when he’d laugh, he’d throw his head back and put his hand to his heart and let out welps, welps punctuated by these exhilarated silences. You know the laugh. No, not the Johnny LaRue laugh. No, not the William B. William laugh. The real John Candy laugh.

The last time I saw John was at a tribute we took part in honoring Gilda Radner, God bless her soul too. I remember he wasn’t feeling well that day, but I also remember he never let it show on stage. He was funny and generous, and he reminded us once again why we love him.

My final claim to John Candy’s fame is he was born on my birthday, and he died on March 4th, my birthday. Since that day, I’ve been trying to remember. I spent nearly every morning, 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.

That is why we so mourn our loss, but we treasure it as well. John’s life had meaning. John had principles. He lived by them. He worked by them. He set a good example in so many ways. He was a protector. He cared. If he felt you’d been wronged in any way, he’d risk everything to make it right, to make you know you were worth something too. In a business that indulges the weaker souls, where the insecure lend others’ words far too much meaning, John was a humble, sensitive man, full of faith, who seemed forever grateful for his gifts and his time on this earth.

His work was filled with lightness. His movies are a safe haven for those of us who get overwhelmed by the sadness and troubles of this world. For those of us who aren’t sure which movies are really okay to take our children to, or even just those of us who don’t see a lot of movies and don’t want to waste our time and money when we do. My mother told me last week that in the last ten or twelve years she’d seen four films: Uncle Buck, Summer Rental, Home Alone, and Only the Lonely. And my mom didn’t realize until after he died that they had all been John Candy movies.

We each have our own John Candy story. We try to put it into words, how happy he made us, how much his time here meant to us, and why we’ll miss him. So we try to express John. And it’s okay we don’t have to. Privately we have our very own memories, and together we have so much else. As if he knew he’d be leaving us soon, John left us a library of fun to remember him by on tape, film, and LaserDisc. And we share this life with the whole world. The British Isles, Europe, the islands, they’ll all share with Canadians John’s love of life. And yes, Americans, who like to claim John as their own, and who can blame them? They too will need their comforting.

Let me just brag for a moment on John’s behalf. Last week, after the funeral mass where Dan Aykroyd recited the lyrics to John’s favorite song, “O Canada,” we all got in our cars and joined the procession to the cemetery where dear John, at least the body we know him by, will rest. The cemetery was quite a distance from the church, so we took the freeway. Of course, we’re in LA. We got on the 405, and I know from talking to everyone afterwards that they all had the same experience. We got on the 405 and we thought, “What is the deal? Why, it’s empty.” The 405, the busiest freeway in the world, was empty.

So we’re totally confused, and we turn around and we look back to see six lanes of traffic stopped. California Highway Patrol men were in their way with their lights flashing. They stopped the 405 for John Candy. And when we crossed the busiest freeway intersection in the world, the 10 was stopped too. We cheered. We cried. Every entrance ramp along the 405 was stopped by a CHIP officer. At one of the entrance ramps, a driver from one of the cars way back was in the cop’s face, obviously trying to find out what the deal was, why we stopped. The man listened to the cop’s explanation. He listened, he lost his anger, his face lit up, and he walked back to his car smiling for John Candy.

I must mention, if you don’t mind, that Joe Flaherty and I are the only SCTV castmates of John’s who are fortunate enough not to be working tonight and able to be here. But John knew all about missing important things for work, and he didn’t turn out so bad. So please know that their thoughts and their words are in mind, spoken tonight.

God bless dear John, our patron saint of laughter. God bless and keep his soul. I will miss him, but I hope and pray to leave this world too someday and to have a place near God, as near as any other soul, with the exception of John Candy.

Thank you, John.