John Candy: I Like Me (2025) | Transcript

John Candy: I Like Me (2025)
Director: Colin Hanks

Plot: John Candy began his career on the sketch comedy series Second City Television before becoming one of the most popular and beloved stars of comedy films until his death of a heart attack in 1994. The film relies primarily on rare and never-before-seen archive footage, outtakes, private home video, audio commentary and interviews provided by friends and family.

John Candy: I Like Me was released by Amazon Prime Video on October 10, 2025.

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John Candy: I Like Me (2025) | Transcript

[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 closeup 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 War 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 War 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 toto 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 standup and he did improv.

[Rita] Improv… he just was born to that. He could spontaneously ignite.

[Terry] He didn’t seem to have aa 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 fourdoor 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, likeminded 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 kill you, I’ll kill 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 killing 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, grownup 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 kill 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 gun.

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.”

[♪ ToneLoc 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 3Dbased. 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 War 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 goddamn 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 30minute 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 aa 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 aa 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 barechested.

[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 onscreen 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 20yearold 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 threequarters 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] Mmhmm.

[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 bitch.

[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] Mmhmm.

…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 shit.

[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 everloving 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 kill 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 grownups 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, itit 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 shooting.

“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, Dick, 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 Sky-Dome.

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 ass 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 fucking 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 bullet 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 asshole 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 shit.

[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 shoot, “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.

[Dick 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 shit, 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, hehe 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, thatthat’s great.” I don’t know why they went so far away to Durango.

It was a terribly difficult place to shoot in. People around you now are carrying, like, machine guns 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 ass.” “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 ass, that’s all I got to say.

Oh, yeah, and why not?

You put a hickey on my ass, 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 shopathome 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 andand, 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.