John Candy: I Like Me (2025) Movie Script

1
[crew chattering indistinctly]
Be care... Hey, be
careful with that thing.
[crew member 1] Take one.
[crew member 2] Thank you.
[clears throat]
Well, I don't really know the
meaning of the word "vulnerability."
I just don't.
Uh, but there was... I can't tell
you what was right about John Candy
or what was wrong.
I have no... I-I'm not really
sure what was going on there.
[clears throat] But
he was my friend,
and when you see him,
when you see his face... I mean,
I don't want to cry, but
wh-when I see his face,
I really miss him, you know,
'cause we were together,
really together,
and then we both sort of spun
off and went our... went...
You know, we both carved out a little
space up there in the world for ourselves,
and, and then he was taken,
you know, he was gone.
Quickly, you know?
And he was smart and he was...
you know, he loved music
and he was good to people.
You can always judge someone by how they
treat a waiter or waitress, you know.
He always was, like...
he always was kind
to people that were working,
that were working, you know,
'cause we were starving once.
You know, you... uh...
I wish I had some more bad
things to say about him.
B-But that's the problem
when you talk about John.
People don't really have a lot of
negative things to say about him,
and I hope that what you're
producing here turns up some people
that have got some
dirt on him, because...
I did do a play once, I
did a stage reading, um...
See, this is a bad
thing to say about him.
Good, I'm glad I
thought of something.
[static crackling]
[singers vocalizing]
[indistinct chatter]
[cameraman laughs]
[John and cameraman
speak indistinctly]
[vocalizing continues]
[young Jennifer
Candy] Hi, Daddy.
Hi, Jennifer, how you doing?
-Hi.
-Can you see me in here?
-Yes.
-Okay.

[Mary Margaret O'Hara sings "Dark Dear
Heart"] -Oh, when will I, when will I
ever know I'll be
leaving my story?
You told me so
Brave and alone,
a bird will fly
and will fly once again
and will never die
So alone, not afraid
Hear the bird sing
with the promise of glory
your stories bring
[Dan Aykroyd] I'm gonna give
it out today in the manner
in which he would
have wanted it.
[uplifting music playing]
You have been accorded
a great honor.
You stand up and walk
to the front of the room
and, without grief or
weeping, deliver loudly,
clearly, short and straight
to the salient points,
the best tribute and oratory
possible from the heart
of an allied professional, a creative
brother, and a fellow Canadian
who loved this boy from the
Donlands like we had the same blood.
We salute first a patriot who
always professed and promoted
the positive
interests of the North
but who also welcomed
into his fold Americans
and was enfolded,
in turn, by them.
Like all on our planet, they eventually
came to see his indistillable value.

This is no meager life
we reflect on today.
This is as full a life
as any human can live.
Joy, emotional abundance
of spirit, infectious rage,
a tinge of Lugosi-like madness with his
bottom reverse-vampire teeth and all.
A titan of a gentle, golden man.
Magnificent of visage,
eyes, and frame.
Let none be deceived by what the less
enlightened would label as "girth,"
for there are many witnesses to
the clamping power of his mitts
and the steel in his forearms,
the quickness and
lightness of foot and leg.
Challenge him, and you would
be hurled away like a toy.
There's a word in our language
we don't hear much anymore,
but it applies to Candy.
The word is "grand."
He was a grand man.
John Franklin Candy,
devoted son, brother, altar
boy, student, salesman,
stage, radio, and television
writer and performer,
world-famous comedy ambassador,
farce and dramatic actor.
International feature film star, director,
businessman, connoisseur, percussionist,
charitable benefactor,
husband, father,
and the sweetest, most generous
person ever known to me.
I loved him from the
instant I laid eyes on him
in his first impeccable suit...
...and I will never stop.
[jaunty music playing]
[announcer] News on the March.
Okay, hold it, we'll
roll it again in a sec.
[overlapping chatter]
Well, that's it.
That's it. What do
you think, boys?
Pretty damn good documentary,
if I do say so myself.
Only one thing bothers me.
What about the man?
Well, what do we know
about him, his motivations?
Why did he do the things he did?
Where's he from?
Where was he born?
Yeah, yeah, where was he born?
Go to Jupiter, go to Venus,
go to Pluto, I don't care.
Get the story,
that's what we need.
So that this man sits
down and sees it,
and we tell him more about him
than he knows about himself.
I like it.
[children laughing]
[indistinct chatter]
[cameraman] Mr. Candy,
is this your, uh,
-first birthday production?
-This is... yes.
It is indeed my first production, yes,
and we're, we're hoping it goes well.
We're a little nervous...
and everybody's tense, but, uh, we've
rehearsed as much as we could... we can,
-and, uh, well, we'll see what happens.
-[chuckles]
[cameraman] Okay. Christopher.
Christopher, how's the party?
Fine, I got to go eat pizza.
[cameraman] Okay.
[Christopher] People will often
come up and ask the questions.
"What character was
your father most like?"
[intriguing music playing]
You know, I'm someone who's grown
up primarily without a father.
And feels a bit like
being a detective of
your own father's life.
You're kind of going back and looking
over at who he was, who he knew...
and then also your
experiences with him.
[Rose Candy] When I zoom in...
[John] Then you
got to adjust this.
[Rose] Oh, what an
ugly beard. [laughs]
[John] This is
your close-up here.
-[child] Can I see?
-[Rose] See, now you're,
you're perfect,
you're clear. [laughs]
[John] And now adjust it. See?
[Christopher] On the lighter
side of things, he was super fun.
You know, I think my father was
someone who, um, was a big kid,
so he knew how to be a kid
with me.
Hi, Daddy.
[indistinct chatter]
[giggles]
[Jennifer] Everyone wants
to make it to the top.
[young Jennifer] Big giant...
[Jennifer] And
it's a lot of work.
And sometimes you're so focused
that you have blinders on
and you don't see anything else
or you forget people
or you forget yourself.
[Rose] Hi, Jennifer.
Come to me.
[Jennifer] He knew that
putting in the hard work,
taking care of your team,
taking care of your family,
that's what's most important,
and our dad always did.
He took care of everyone.
He touched so many
aspects of the world,
I think that it's left
a lasting impression.
[videotape rewinding]
[jazz playing]
[interviewer] How old were you
when you got your first laugh
and decided you liked it?
I guess at a young age.
I mean, uh, much like most kids,
you know, we were always
just fooling around, playing.
I loved play... I played a lot.
Had a great
imagination as a kid.
You're always, uh,
playing pretend games
and putting little stage shows on
in garages or in someone's basement.
[Jennifer] So, my dad was born on
Halloween in Newmarket in Canada.
Just north of Toronto.
They were only there
for about a year or so.
They moved into the
city to East York
with his brother
Jim and his mom Van.
My grandfather's
name was Sidney.
[Steve Aker] Sid was
in the Canadian Army.
He was a sergeant and
a World 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 to-to use as a
perk and he had a regular paycheck.
And so why would you ever leave
that for a, an acting job?
He got a suit on and he said to
me, "Well, what do you think?"
And I said, "Well, that's okay if you
want to, you know, that's all right."
But I panicked
for him because...
...John was creative,
he was a force.
He really liked acting and
he was really good at it.
He did do stand-up
and he did improv.
[Rita] Improv... he
just was born to that.
He could spontaneously ignite.
[Terry] He didn't seem to
have a-a fear of failure.
He didn't seem to know his
limitations, if he had any, but he,
he had to try it.
It was a blessing when Catherine McCartney
said, "Hey, you'd be a good actor."
That was from Eaton's going
across the street to a restaurant.
The agent saw him and just
looked at his face and said,
"I think you'd be
good in the industry."
That very first time
we spoke, he said,
"Well, I really want to be a
football player, but I also want
to act."
And that was how it happened.
Whether it's cloudy
or whether it's clear
Whether it's thunder
or wind that you hear
[Rose] Children's theater, he met
Dan Aykroyd and Valri Bromfield.
And I'm going, "You're
doing children's theater?
Okay."
[Dan] I'd just come from
Ottawa with Valri Bromfield,
my old partner there in comedy.
She had done a children's
theater play, I think, with YPT or one of
these groups, and where they'd, you know,
go up to Bala Bay and,
uh, you know, tour around
and, you know, dress
as squirrels and stuff.
And she said she'd met a guy there who
was... she said, "He's just like you,"
she said, you know, "Y-You're
the same, you guys," you know.
I see this brown Pontiac
Laurentian four-door pull up
and this magnificent
man step out.
-[LaVern Baker sings "Tweedle Dee"]
-Tweedlee dee...
He matched the car completely.
He was so presentable
and gentlemanly and so Canadian.
I said, "No, I'm sorry, you
can't park." He said, "Why not?"
"Well, because I'll give
you a ticket," I said.
And, you know, "No, I,
no, I can park anywhere."
I said, "Are you a doctor?"
He says, "Sometimes."
And then we start off
like that, so immediately
we get going.
Tweedlee, tweedlee...
[Dave Thomas] This
is a lovable guy.
This is a guy who, the minute you
see his face, you're going to smile.
We met at Godspell, and
instantly loved the guy.
Godspell preceded Second City.
[Martin Short] And it was Gilda Radner
and Andrea Martin and Victor Garber
and Paul Shaffer, Eugene Levy.
And John always maintained
he hated Godspell because
he just got tired of us
always talking about it.
[laughs]
[Eugene Levy] Godspell
was a big show.
In Toronto, 1972,
it was just fun.
We had fun working
because we were working.
[newsman] In 1972,
Chicago's renowned
Second City comedy theater arrived
in Toronto to conduct auditions.
[Andrea Martin] Toronto had
enough of a cultural scene,
so we had lots of
opportunities to grow.
We could
cultivate our talents
because it was
a safe place in which to do it.
And we had friends amongst us,
like-minded people that
we didn't compete with,
and everybody's personality
and skill set grew.
And that's what it gave
John, huge opportunities.
[Dave] Danny got
into Second City.
Dan Aykroyd and Valri Bromfield
got John to come with him
because John was a perfect
candidate for Second City.
[John] Oh, they did
trick me into it.
They were already
in Second City.
They said, "You should join this, you
should join this, should get involved,
they'll love you, you're
funny, you'll do it."
I said, "No, no, no, I can fool around
with you guys, but I can't do that stuff."
They said, "Well, we've got
to be down there anyway.
Meet us down there for lunch."
I went down there, I
was waiting around,
I was looking at everybody kind of in
awe, seeing everybody from Godspell.
And I hear John
Candy being paged.
And Valri's, "Come on, come
on, come on, you're going,
come on, we put your name down."
I was like, "Oh, I'll 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, grown-up guy
dressed up as Jerry Mathers,
saying, "I don't
know, gee, Wally."
That Eddie Haskell, he
really makes me mad.
Why don't you 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."
-[Tone-Loc sings "Wild Thing"]
-Let's do it
Hi, I'm Gil Fisher,
the Fishin' Musician.
I guess my secret to
acting, uh, would be:
I pretend real hard.
[Catherine] At that moment in
time, we happened to be the cast
in Second City Toronto when they
decided to do a television show,
and they brought in
Harold as our head writer.
[Dave] Our show
was the poor cousin
-of SNL.
-It's Saturday Night!
[Harold] Well, we had no sponsors,
no one to tell us what to do.
It was like being turned
loose in a TV studio,
and, uh, w-we-we never knew when the
show would run, so we couldn't do
topical material.
So we were forced into the really
dark parts of our imaginations.
[Andrea] John's performance
style was extroverted,
and he had a great
need to connect.
Hello, I'm Mr. Mambo...
If you think of Monty Python,
you think of Second City,
you think of
Saturday Night Live,
he was one of the top
performers out of all of them.
[Tom H.] And John, who
could not hide his frame
when he would be doing Julia Child
or he would be doing Pavarotti,
the only time you saw a big man doing
stuff like that was, like, Jackie Gleason
or Lou Costello.
It had to be like, literally, a
guy making jokes about his size,
and he simply didn't.
Bruno!
[grunts]
[Catherine] He and Eugene
doing Doctor Tongue and Bruno,
oh, it's the best.
[Eugene] They were scary movies
that ended up not being that scary,
and they were all
kind of 3D-based.
But the idea of creating
a very cheap 3D effect...
...was a really funny idea.
[audience laughing]
[announcer] That's right, why wait for
hours for those martinis to take effect
when speed-drinking can make you
the instant life of the party?
Let's mambo.
[Conan O'Brien] I'm at
that impressionable age.
I'm a comedy freak, and
here comes John Candy,
and I'm like, "Who is that guy?"
You calling me a drunk?
I got you this job.
[Conan] One of the things that
Johnny would do that I would love is
immediate turns that
were almost cartoonish.
-Yeah, you know they're, um...
-Lesbians?
And I mean that in the
good sense, I-I do.
[laughter]
No letters.
[Conan] He could go from absolute
sort of childish, avuncular...
[laughs heartily]
"What are you talking about?"
And it's... it's insane.
Yellow, yellow belly...
He did a character in a
sketch called "Yellowbelly."
It's a promo for a television
show about a cowardly
soldier in the Old West.
It's kind of like the
Oppenheimer blast for me.
[announcer] Ostracized by the North
and South during the Civil 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
30-minute shows, and then,
by '81, it extended to
90 minutes, and it became
massive.
[Dave] But John was the key to
turning that thing that tanked
into something that was
successful and funny.
[Rose] It's a moment in time.
It was like his second family
but became his first family.
You know, became my family.
He loved it.
It was really hard for
him to let go of it, too,
'cause he was so
emotionally wrought.
But he knew he had to move on.
And movies came up.
[rousing music playing]
[Catherine] John's first
big movie was 1941.
We were still doing SCTV,
and Spielberg wanted him.
We were finishing off
writing a-a season of SCTV,
and we had a big party.
People were coming over to me,
going, "Steven Spielberg is here.
He's here, he wants to see you."
I'm thinking, you
know, it was a joke.
I went over there,
and there he was.
And he was just surrounded
by a lot of people
and he says, "John, John...
I really like your work."
And I was, "Oh."
But he, uh, said, "I'd like
you to do this picture 1941.
I have a role in it for you,
and I think you'd be perfect."
I said, "I really
appreciate that.
I know it's a party and
we've all been drinking,
so thank you very much and, uh,
I appreciate that
you watched SCTV."
He says, "No, I really
want you for the movie."
"Yeah."
Let's mutilate this food before
they can serve it to anyone else.
[indistinct chatter]
Oh, my God.
-[cameraman] Hello, John.
-This is Candid Camera, wait a minute.
-How are you?
-I'm fine.
[Catherine] And John said, "I'm
gonna get y'all roles in the movie."
It was like, it was
like he felt bad
he was the only one getting called about
a movie in the United States, right?
"It's okay, John."
[interviewer] Did you
see the movie 1941?
[John] Yes, I did.
-Did you like it?
-I liked parts of it.
We were dressed as soldiers.
We were little kids, you know,
living out our fantasies.
[interviewer] Do you prefer
working in feature films, John?
[John] I'd like to, uh,
to try to stay in
films if it's possible.
If there's anyone out
there with a film.
[interviewer 2] Now, when you
proposed to your wife, where were you?
Well, we'd been living in
sin for a number of years,
so it wasn't really the same.
[interviewer 2 laughs]
[John] Well, I proposed, I guess, in
Los Angeles when we were doing 1941.
It was so rushed, it was...
We were trying to find a date.
We couldn't get a weekend.
[laughs]
It was fun. It was a silly
wedding, but we had fun.
[interviewer 2] A silly wedding?
[John] Well, the church we got married
in was under construction, and we didn't
think to look.
[laughing] It was
under construction.
[interviewer 2 laughs]
[upbeat music playing]
[interviewer 3] Did your parents
get married at McDonald's?
[laughs]
[Christopher] No, they got
married at a sound stage
where a McDonald's Canada
commercial had just filmed,
and the Golden Arches are
prominently displayed.
[Martin] What Rose always
brought was this calm,
in control, grounding,
wise element.
If John was upset about something, by the
end of the day Rose would calm him down.
They had one of the most successful
marriages I've ever known.
The summertime has
become the season
for at least one irreverent, gross-out,
anarchistic, slapstick comedy,
and this summer it's Stripes.
[Ox] My name's Dewey Oxberger.
My friends call me Ox.
You might've noticed I've, uh,
got a slight weight problem.
-[man] No. No.
-[Ox] Yeah, I do, yeah, yeah, I do.
I went to this doctor, and... well, he
told me I, I swallow a lot of aggression,
along with a lot of pizzas.
[laughing] Pizzas.
I'm basically a shy person.
I'm-I'm a shy guy, and, uh...
How they described him
in the beginning...
because of his face and,
you know, the round face,
they described him with weight.
So he knew that it was
already being defined for him.
So I figured, while I'm
here, I'll lose a few pounds.
And you got, what, a six-to-eight-week
training program here, a real tough one?
Which is perfect for me.
I'm gonna walk out of here a
lean, mean fighting machine.
-[laughter]
-[indistinct chatter]
[interviewer] Now tell me,
inside John Candy, is there really
a lean, mean fighting machine
-just dying to get out?
-Doesn't it look lean?
It doesn't look like it, no.
Um, no, there isn't.
No, I'm, I'm quite
happy the way I am.
[Rose] Even the interviews on John,
they would say things that offended him.
It's called Big City Comedy,
and if you can't remember "big,"
take a good look at John...
-Take a look at this city.
-...and that will refresh that.
-You worked in The Blues Brothers.
-[Rose] He knew
what he was up against
in this industry.
[interviewer] You're
very handsome.
It's, uh... But I wondered,
if you did indeed become
kind of a-a leading man,
svelte-look guy, could you...?
Isn't it... is it true that... don't
you think everyone loves a fat man?
Uh, I guess, uh...
-Why?
-I-I-I don't know,
I guess they're-they're
harmless.
[laughs]
I'm not sure.
Uh... no, if I lost, if
I lost a lot of weight,
I don't think it would,
uh, affect me that much.
But-but it wouldn't
change your-your style
or it wouldn't change your kind of,
um, uh, your-your kind of humor?
No.
To say that John... hated that?
Uh... John just
wouldn't accept it,
and I think that's a different
version of saying "hated it."
There was no
self-loathing in John.
There was just a-another
degree of artistic purity.
You know, you're always treated like
a second-class citizen in a way,
or you get that feeling.
I think it's just, you're so vulnerable
and you're so sensitive to it,
and, uh, I think that
ha-has a lot to do with, uh,
uh, s-some of the way that I
portray characters, you know.
I never really... I look at
things through thin eyes, really.
I never really
consider anybody...
what they look like, their
physical self, you know.
It's really who's in the
person is really what counts,
and I think that I learned over the
years, you know, by having a large frame.
You start to... People, people
treat you differently, you know.
And it hurts sometimes, you know,
people get hurt by it, you know.
[Andrew] He was very upset
about Stripes and the-the scene
that, you know, he had in the mud.
Give me a kick, honey.
Ooh, whoa...
[Dave] I was the emcee
in the wrestling match,
which he did not want to do.
[whistle blows]
"You know, it was like, " John, take off
your shirt and roll around in the mud
with a bunch of strippers."
John wore a
long-sleeve T-shirt top
'cause he wouldn't go
completely bare-chested.
[cheering]
[Bill] The women got into it... they
were all fit... and, um, they started
pulling his ears
and stuff and...
People would take a little
advantage 'cause they think,
well, you could do anything
you want to hurt him, you know.
You could say anything,
you could hurt him.
"He's so big, I couldn't
possibly hurt him."
He didn't like, uh, he
didn't enjoy that. I never...
You know, I, I understood that.
[Steve M.] But... it's the face you put
on the world that defines who you are.
The face he puts on the world
is-is friendly and happy,
and you could be mean,
you know, or insult people
or fight back, but he didn't.
Maybe I should fold.
Well, let me see,
let me see first.
No, not with a hand
like that, come on.
Dare me, go on,
bluff me, come on.
How much should I bet?
If it were me, I'd
bet everything.
But that's me, I'm an
aggressive gambler. Mr. Vegas.
[laughter]
-Come on.
-Mm...
Go for it. Go for it.
Yes, yes, there we go,
I'm in. [clears throat]
-What do you got?
-Well, I got a full house.
Three threes and two
sixes. That's a full house.
What have you got?
-Oh, you have...
-Two fours, I got an ace.
You got an ace, an
eight, and a seven.
Well, you lose, you see.
If you would've had four
fours, you would've won.
[winces]
-You're getting good at this, aren't you?
-Starting to get the hang of it, though.
You like it? Isn't this fun?
You're pretty good for
a first time, really.
[interviewer] We're here in
what's kind of a retreat for you,
a place which I imagine
you don't see that often.
Do you have any idea how big a
star you are in your hometown?
Uh, no.
Do you know that when you
appear on-screen in Stripes,
I've been told
that people cheer?
They say, "There's
John Candy, our hero."
[chuckles] That's nice to hear.
Does any... Is any of that
sinking in, or is it just weird?
It's... it's very
weird, you know.
Uh... it's hard to relate to.
This is the house, you
know, it's my home.
I feel comfortable
here. I like New York,
but New York drives me crazy.
It's just so...
And especially I go
crazy there, I like it.
[chuckles] It's too
much of a good thing.
There's everything.
John Belushi said, uh,
when he, he was trying to convince me to
do Saturday Night Live, and he said, uh,
and he played Frank Sinatra's
"New York, New York,"
and he said, "Look, this
is... New York is Rome."
[videotape rewinding]
[newsman] Comic actor
John Belushi died today
at a rented hotel bungalow
in the Hollywood Hills.
Los Angeles Times quoted a source who said
the comedian had cocaine in his blood.
[camera shutter clicking]
[somber music playing]
[Dave] I told John,
John burst into tears,
and he said, "Oh,
God, it's starting."
[cries]
[sighs]
I can't even.
'Cause I got it.
I knew what he meant.
I knew that it was like...
the fun times all these
20-year-old kids had.
It could end.
[Christopher] You know, it's heavy,
but it's, it's the child brain.
It's... that's where we go.
It comes from this place
psychologically, this fear of
"Are you going to die soon?
Are you going to die soon?
Are you okay?"
A-And I had that
experience as a kid.
"Mom, are you
going to die soon?"
[Eugene] At that time I seem
to recall John saying, "I...
don't know whether I'm
going to make it past 35."
[Tom H.] So, John's
father dies at 35
on his fifth birthday.
And John knows that he
has his father's heart.
I think I met John
when he was 33 or 34.
So right then and there, his sensibility
is that he is living on borrowed time
and he is going to go away
in the wink of an eye,
just like his father did.
[Dave laughing] I remember one night John
was at a party at Marty Short's house.
So he was drinking
that night and then
he kind of got maudlin
and wanted to leave.
And I had driven him, and
I rolled down the window
and I'm talking to him and I'm saying,
"John, come on, get in the car."
He walked, I would say, half a
mile, maybe three-quarters of a mile
before he finally
got in the car.
And then he goes...
"You don't know, Dave.
You don't know
what I go through.
You don't know what
I have in my head."
And I said, "Well, I got a
feeling gonna find out tonight."
[mournful music playing]
He carried the weight of his
father passing almost every day.
Those things were in his mind, in
his heart, and he carried them.
[Rose] You can't carry it.
The weight of everyone.
The weight of his past.
[Andrew] He didn't want to go
to a doctor because he was going
to find out he was gonna have
to change his behavior.
You know, you go to a doctor,
and your doctor is going to say,
"You're gonna have
to stop drinking."
"Well, I don't want
to stop drinking."
Because he was addicted.
It's a coping mechanism, right?
His coping mechanism was, "I'm
gonna eat, I'm gonna drink,
and if I stop doing that, you
know, uh, I'm not going to work."
You know, it's all...
it was just a circle.
You just... sometimes you just
deny it, you know, you just go...
They're masters
of their own ship.
And him in a business where your,
um, appearance was so important,
I'm sure that was an added
stress to his, his existence,
but then it was
part of him, too.
Now, you look, uh, you
look a little different
from the last time
you were here.
Lost a few pounds.
-Really?
-I went to a place called, uh,
the Pritikin Longevity Center
out in, uh, California.
[David] Mm-hmm.
[John] I spent 26 days in there.
Whew. [chuckles]
I don't smoke anymore,
I quit smoking.
You were, you were there
almost a month, right?
-Yeah, 26 days.
-Now, c-can you, can you mention how,
how much you weighed before you
went in, or do you not want to say?
Oh... I was 341 pounds.
That was a lot.
[Rose] At home he worked
on it all the time.
And he would try. You know,
he had a trainer every day.
He was always on a
program of eating.
He'd always check in with his
doctors, and they'd say he's fine.
Now, you dropped how much?
-Seventy pounds so far, and, uh...
-Yeah?
[audience cheering]
[Rose] But then
the industry wanted him big.
I remember an agency said, "Don't drop
any more weight, whatever you're doing."
And in John's little mind,
"Oh, okay, keep eating."
This is what they like.
"They want me big,
I'll stay big."
I worried.
Honey, just relax, okay?
I told you I'm not angry
anymore. I'm in complete control.
I'm sure they're not repairing
every ride at the same time.
[lighthearted music playing]
Sorry, folks, park's closed.
The moose out front
should've told you.
[Jennifer] Harold Ramis,
who was writing for SCTV,
he did Vacation.
Walley World!
[Jennifer] The ending
didn't test well.
It was, like, awful, so they
called in my dad as an emergency.
"Like, " We need to
change the ending.
You're gonna be
perfect for this role."
My dad was like,
"Yeah, I'll come in."
[Harold] John was great.
I knew him really well,
and he had a character he'd created
on SCTV called Paul Fistinyourface,
who was just kind of a big clod.
Some of the people of
the town left, too.
Well, nobody, uh, nobody notified
this office of, um, of anything.
[Harold] And I asked him to
kind of do this character
as a relative of
Paul Fistinyourface.
[stammering, grunting]
[Jennifer] And Vacation,
it was just massive.
I knew he was star-bound, and
you could see it in Splash.
He was amazingly funny,
and that was Johnny Toronto.
And that's basically the
character that came out in Splash.
How drunk you get is dependent
on how much alcohol you consume
in relation to your
total body weight.
You see my point?
It's not that you
had a lot to drink.
It's just, you're too skinny.
[groans]
[Tom H.] It was really
just a gas... it was
like a working vacation.
Working with John Candy, on
the other hand, that was scary
'cause, uh, I was such a big fan
of both John and Eugene Levy's,
uh, for their work
from Second City
that I was a little bit
trepidatious about going into this,
quite certain that they could blow me
off the screen without too much effort.
Ron Howard's a, a
rough man to work for.
I can't stand him...
uh, his family.
Tom Hanks...
...with all his problems, couldn't
act his way out of a paper bag.
Freddie, you and I have to talk.
What, is it the
missing petty cash?
-It was the cleaning girl.
-No, I don't care about that.
-You don't?
-No.
Then it was me. I
admit the whole thing.
One thing that knocked me
out was, John was inclusive.
John was not trying
to score on top of me.
He was not trying to
have the funniest lines.
He was trying to develop
a back-and-forth.
I did not understand that about
the improvisational process.
He was like... "Yes, and..."
He was, like, waiting for me
to come up with something else
that would make it better
and extend the beat.
We had the scenes when the two
brothers are in our office, you know,
and he starts talking about
what he did last night.
Maybe I went to the,
uh, Club A last night.
[Allen] Oh, something
new for you.
Maybe I met Mr. Buyrite, the
owner of Buyrite Supermarkets.
And maybe, just maybe, we're
his new produce suppliers.
[Tom H.] It wasn't until then
that I realized that, oh, John is
inviting me to play with him.
We came up with all sorts of brand-new
stuff right then and there about the desk.
I was out drinking with this bum
-all night long.
-I have to pick up my tuxedo this evening.
I'm busting my buns
all night drinking
-with this guy, getting a big deal.
-All the way up on East 77th Street.
-Come on, you can handle this, Allen.
-For crying out loud.
-Come on, relax...
-Oh, yeah, I'll handle fine, no problem.
-Clean up the desk.
-Don't touch the desk.
Why does it always look
like a pigsty here?
-Leave the desk alone.
-Do what I do.
-Throw it in the drawer.
-I have a system on the desk!
You know, I'm on the phone
and John just picked up the phone
and started goofing like that.
If we were married, you wouldn't
just move out like this.
She might do that, sure.
Will you get off?
-Was that you?
-Get off the phone!
-I'm so sorry.
-No, no, no,
not you, not you, Victoria, no.
I didn't know you
were on the phone.
It was additive.
It was additive and inclusive.
And the racquetball scene.
He had been up the night before,
I'm sure, studying his lines.
Right, that part to the story.
He was out drinking somewhere, and lo
and behold, Jack Nicholson came in.
And Jack knew John,
and John... and they...
or maybe they met for the
first time right there.
[laughing] But they
dra... they drank.
[Christopher] If Jack
Nicholson called me into a bar
and kept me up all night
drinking... [laughs]
I would do it.
So John is coming in
not only exhausted,
probably with only maybe
an hour and a half sleep,
but he's also coming in
fueled by an evening
with Jack Nicholson.
And we have to do a very
physical thing, you know.
Son of a 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] Mm-hmm.
-...how difficult is it to keep your life
as normal as possible?
You know, you just try to
put things in perspective.
You know, life is too short.
You know, this is a real place,
these are real people around me,
and you got to do
real things every day.
You know, you got to change the kitty
litter, you got to take the garbage out,
you got to do things, um,
you've got responsibilities.
You know, I chose that life.
Lot of people don't want
the responsibilities,
a family, a home... you know,
and a lot of people just love to
"Let's take it, let's roll," you know.
Live fast, die young, you know.
[chuckles] Legs Diamond.
Uh, "Let's go for it."
And that-that's just not the
way I choose to live my life.
Stay that way.
[Conan] I'm a comedy
fan and I'm interested
in comedy performers
and writers,
but I never think in a million
years that that's something I'll do.
I think it's the fall of my senior year,
and I'm the president of the Lampoon,
and we got this idea that we could
have our heroes come visit the Lampoon,
and I was very eager to
get John Candy to come.
And then we hear back through
his people, "Yes, he'll come."
So I drive to Logan Airport...
he took a commercial
flight from Toronto...
and I see John Candy
coming down an escalator.
He had a camera around
his neck like a tourist.
You know the way if John Candy
was gonna play a tourist,
he'd have a big camera
around his neck?
And he'd be like,
"Oh, wow, golly gee!"
That's the way he was.
There's a picture of
me in Harvard Yard,
and there's a picture
of me at Adams House.
I have proof that
for two instances
he pointed a camera at
me and took a picture,
which is a testament
to my insane ego...
[laughs]
...that all I care about...
We were going to show a big
montage of all of his clips,
and everybody on
campus wanted to go,
and he's everything
you want him to be.
He's John Candy times ten.
He's screwing around, he's
making everybody laugh.
I remember him very clearly watching the
clips as if he hadn't seen them before.
He filled a room with his aura.
He was expansive and joyful and
kind of voracious about everything.
I remember admitting to him that
I was very interested in comedy...
and I might even want to try it.
I'll never forget this.
He looked me square in the eye
and he said, "You don't try it.
You either do it
or you don't do it.
You don't try it, kid."
And that spoke to me.
Like, "All in, kid,
all in or not at all."
[inspirational music playing]
[interviewer] And what does your own
family feel about having a famous son?
[John] It's hard on them.
My brother, I think,
doesn't like it that much.
It's always, "You're
John's brother."
He's my older brother, too, so that's,
that's even worse on an older brother.
Um, I feel terrible
about that, but...
[interviewer] How
are you as a husband?
[John] As a husband?
Geez, real bad, I guess,
because I'm hardly here.
I'm an actor.
And you're a father.
Yeah, that's great,
and there's my daughter
over there... Jennifer.
Which is the best thing
that ever happened to me.
[Rose] There you go.
-[laughter]
-Whoa!
[Jennifer] My dad had purchased this
farm in a town called Queensville
when I was less than a year old.
For my dad, I think
that was his getaway.
[Christopher] It was this
gigantic, sprawling property,
but it was a very simple
house with a pool.
There was a hammock in the
backyard and a beautiful red barn.
And I also think
it was a way out.
[interviewer] You've turned down films
because it would require traveling.
[John] Yeah, a lot of
times I've had to do that.
Well, now the kids are
getting a little older
and I want to spend
some time, and I...
Geez, my daughter was...
you know, it seems
like she was just born
and now she's in school.
And they grow up just so fast. I
mean, it's been said so many times,
but they do grow up so quickly and I
just want to spend some time with them
so they can say, "Oh, yeah, that's my
father," you know, not that guy on TV.
[Rose] He loved being a dad, you know,
and he got involved in the community,
loved doing things with
the kids at school.
[John] 3D baby.
He was a kid, actually.
He was a child.
[Eugene] I think the
happiest I ever saw John
was when he's in
his own kitchen.
I think the Johnny Toronto
lifestyle that he had
took a lot of energy.
H-He wanted to be, um...
...s-smaller, you
know, in the world.
[Jack] Ooh, excuse me.
-Ow!
-Oh, geez, I'm sorry.
-Really, I didn't mean to.
-Hey, that was my hand.
[Mel Brooks] Everybody who worked
with him fell in love with him.
Carl said when he was making
Summer Rental, he couldn't wait
to get to the set
to schmooze with John Candy.
You took a vacation
away from my family.
Now I'm gonna take
something away from you.
[Mel] He would be
remembered very simply
for his good nature.
[Rose] He's going on set to
make people happy, from the crew
to the makeup to the wardrobe
to the drivers.
He's there to have
fun with people.
Hi!
[Jennifer] He took care of his
mom, he took care of his aunt,
he took care of his brother, he
took care of his cousins, and
he took care of us.
[Dave] The way John treated his
family spoke boatloads about the guy,
and you saw more depth
and heart in a guy that has
that aspect to his life.
[Jennifer] He doesn't take roles that
didn't play to a certain thought process
or a dream of, like, "I want to be
like that" or "I want to be like this."
Give me a hug.
-What?
-Give me a hug, will you?
-Dad.
-Come on.
-I'm too old for hugs.
-Oh, you're never too old for hugs.
[Jennifer] As much as he was John
Candy, it was also playing John Candy.
Like, he was a dad.
You know, we got in
trouble, we got yelled at.
Go on, get out!
[Jennifer] But it was
also a lot of love.
[soaring music playing]
You're still a
nonsmoker, aren't you?
Daddy.
Just being a dad, that's all.
[Christopher laughs]
In a way, yeah, it's like he,
uh, he created for himself
the father he probably
always wanted.
You and I coming up to the woods is
like your father bringing you here.
Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah, I understand.
[Martin] He brought so much of his
own vulnerability and sweetness
and kindness into the
characters he created,
and he was such a good actor, he
could convey that without any effort.
The Chesters.
[Mel] He was a consummate actor.
He knew what was required and
he knew he could deliver it.
He stuck acting in his back pocket
and behaved like a human being.
He was a total actor because
he was a total person.
Carl told me it was a delight
because John Candy was so much
fun and so good-natured, and
he said, "If you ever get a chance..."
I said, "I'm looking for a mog."
He said, "What's that?"
Half man, half dog.
I'm my own best friend.
[Mel] And my next
picture called...
[corporal] Spaceballs.
May the Schwartz be with you...
-[minister] Who are you?
-[Barf] I'm the best man.
-What's your name?
-Barf.
Your full name.
Barfolomew.
[Lone Starr] We're not just
doing this for money.
We're doing it for
a shitload of money.
Give me paw.
[both howl]
Holy 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 ever-loving smile.
Two generations
past and we still...
his memory is still as
vivid and as lively as ever.
[Bill] As kind as John was to
people that he was only going
to be with for a minute, when you're
working, you have to be professional.
You know, if it's
not going right...
He had a lot of experience.
He made a lot of... bunch of
movies, did a lot of, you know...
certainly learned how
to work on the stage,
and that's how it
was in a scene.
You couldn't let someone give you,
like, an ordinary slapdash thing.
You go, like, "No, no,
come on, this is real now.
We're not... we've
got to give, you know?
You have to commit to
doing the best you can."
We did a stage
reading, and it was
Marilyn Suzanne Miller, a great
writer on Saturday Night Live.
She wrote a play, and we got... somehow
Sydney Pollack was gonna direct it.
And we had a bunch of
famous actors in it.
There was, like, Ray
Liotta, Kevin Kline,
Candy, myself, only
a handful of others.
And Candy had a scene where
he was in the bathroom,
you know, talking
from ins... and...
...he milked it so bad, bad.
I mean, he milked it.
The timing was beyond...
...comprehension.
It was... it... you
couldn't believe it.
And I'm-I'm, I'm watching, and
I'm watching Sydney Pollack,
who's going out of his
mind 'cause John is just
milking it, milking it, milking it,
just having his own kind of fun,
and I'm going... and I'm laughing
'cause I know Sydney's gonna 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 grown-ups in general.
You felt invited in.
Even just doing, like,
the interrogation scene,
I don't think he
expected me to be
that snappy, and
so he's like, "Oh.
Oh, no, now I have to keep
up with the eight-year-old."
And, you know, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom.
-Where do you live?
-In the city.
-Do you have a house?
-Apartment.
-Own or rent?
-Rent.
-What do you do for a living?
-Lots of things.
-Where's your office?
-I don't have one.
-How come?
-I don't need one.
-Where's your wife?
-Don't have one.
-How come?
-It's a long story.
-Do you have kids?
-No, I don't.
-How come?
-It's an even longer story.
Are you my dad's brother?
What's your record for
consecutive questions asked?
Thirty-eight.
I see a bad egg when
I look at your niece.
She is a twiddler, a
dreamer, a silly heart.
And frankly, I don't think
she takes a thing in her life
or her career as a
student seriously.
-[Hugh Harris sings "Rhythm of Life"]
-[Ennio] In each movie you would find
a different character, a
different side of John.
She's only six.
[Ennio] Saw something of his
view of the world, his humanity.
I don't think I want
to know a six-year-old
who isn't a dreamer
or a silly heart,
and I sure don't want to know one who
takes their student career seriously.
I don't have a college degree.
I don't even have a job.
[scoffs]
[Buck] But I know a
good kid when I see one.
Because they're all good kids.
I was strollin' through
the jungle one day
Met a girl, and the voice...
[Macaulay] Paternal, I
think, is the right word.
I think he always had that
really great instinct.
But also, you know, I think he
saw, like... listen, I, uh...
Even before the wave crested
and the Home Alone stuff was
happening, it was not hard
to see, uh, how difficult,
like, my father was.
You know, it-it was no secret.
He was, he was already
a monster even bef...
And then, all of a sudden,
the fame and the money came,
and then he bec... then he
became a, an infamous monster,
but he was, you know, he
was already not a good guy.
And so I think John was kind
of looking a little side-eyed
over to, like, just like, "Is
everything all right over there?"
You know, so he's
like, "You doing good?
Good day? Like,
everything's all right?
Everything good at
home? All right."
What do you do?
Wait, um, where do you live?
[John] In the city.
What do you do?
And that's a testament to
the kind of man he was.
It'll make you cry...
I think he was just
looking out for the kid,
which I appreciate 'cause that
doesn't happen that often.
It actually happened even
less as time went on, too.
Because, like, "Of
course he's doing good."
[chuckles] "Yeah, he's... he's,
he's a movie star, you know,
he's making money
and this and that."
It's like, "Yeah, but,
like, how you doing?"
And it's like that-that-that's the thing
that kind of is a, is a wonderful dagger.
Just like, "Ah," like, you
know, like, just like, you know,
I wish I got more of that,
you know, like, in my life.
And so that's why it's
important when-when, you know...
Like, I-I remember that.
You know, I remember John caring, and,
uh, not... when not a lot of people did.
[John Hughes] Uncle Buck was a
perfect Candy script for me to direct
because he put himself into it.
When he got in the car... There's
a scene where he gets in the car,
he's gonna take the kids to the
racetrack, and he knows it's wrong.
He's in the car and he
looks in the rearview mirror
and he sees these
two sweet little kids
that he's going to
take to the track
while he meets his, his gangster buddies
and they bet, and he can't do it,
and I know when he
was doing that scene
that when he looked
in the mirror,
you know, he wasn't looking
at two little actors.
He was talking to two real kids.
I mean, that was him,
that was him, the father.
[airplane and train passing]
[car engine revs]
My agent said, "I've heard of this
script Planes, Trains & Automobiles.
I'm watching it for you."
John and I were cast.
We didn't really know
each other at all.
I'm thinking we'd better
spend some time together.
[laughs] We're gonna
be doing this movie.
I was starting to mature as
an actor, and John was there,
and so, in these scenes
we were able to connect.
[mouthing]
My character was
written uptight.
[gasping]
I was very lucky. All I had
to do was be annoyed. [laughs]
He just knew exactly
how to play annoying.
Oh.
Oh, that feels good.
[chuckles] Oh, God,
I'm telling you.
My dogs are barking today.
Whew.
Oh.
[chuckles]
That feels better.
[Steve M.] Showing me his curtain
rings and smoking in the car.
Big laughs.
I mean, his own laugh.
[laughs]
Wow.
[laughs]
Still a million bucks shy
of being a millionaire.
[Del and Gus laugh]
[Steve M.] And John was the
perfect person to play it.
He's so tender in the movie.
There's a scene
where I berate him.
You're no saint.
You got a free cab,
you got a free room
and someone who'll listen
to your boring stories.
I mean, didn't you, didn't you notice
on the plane, when you started talking,
eventually I started
reading the vomit bag?
[Catherine] When Steve Martin's
character lays into him,
like, says the worst things anyone
would ever want to hear in their lives.
You choose things that are, that are
funny or-or mildly amusing or interesting.
You're a miracle.
Your stories have none of that.
And then it keeps going.
They'd say, "How
can you stand it?"
And I'd say, "'Cause I've
been with Del Griffith.
I can take anything."
[Catherine] And then he keeps
going, and then he keeps going,
and cutting to John's face,
listening.
[Neal] It's like going on a date
with a Chatty Cathy doll.
I expect you to have a little
string on your chest, you know,
that I pull out and
have to snap back.
Except I wouldn't pull it out
and snap it back. You would.
"Aah! Aah! Aah! Aah!"
[Steve M.] His facial response
in that scene told a huge story.
[laughs] And I always
feel bad, you know.
I say, "Well, we are just
pretending, you know."
[laughs]
But he acted so hurt.
[Chris] This is not a comedian.
This is a guy
who is much more complex than
what a lot of
people would think.
You want to hurt me?
Go right ahead if it
makes you feel any better.
I'm an easy target.
Yeah, you're right.
I talk too much.
I also listen too much.
I could be a coldhearted
cynic like you.
But I don't like to
hurt people's feelings.
Well, you think what
you want about me.
I'm not changing.
I like, I like me.
My wife likes me.
"I like me," you know? I...
"My wife likes me," you know?
[Catherine] "Just know
I have people who
love me, and I do..."
[chuckles]
My customers like me...
'cause I'm the real article.
What you see is what you get.
[Steve M.] People always
talk about that moment.
Twenty years later, they, they
always talk about that moment.
[Chris] I compare John to
someone like Charlie Chaplin,
particularly a movie
called City Lights.
If you see the final shot
of City Lights, where Chaplin realizes
that the blind girl can actually see,
Chaplin's acting
elevates that moment
to a level of true
complex emotion,
and I realized that when I saw John
in Planes, Trains & Automobiles,
he had that same thing.
I don't have a home.
[wistful music playing]
Marie's been dead
for eight years.
[Chris] And it was
then that I started
sort of this fascination with
wanting to work with John.
I am trying to get home
to my eight-year-old son.
And now that I'm this close,
you're telling me it's hopeless?
[Chris] So, the
Shmenge brothers,
to me, were the original
inspiration for Gus Polinski.
What?
Excuse me. Can you
excuse us for a sec?
[Chris] John Hughes and I
talked about John Candy,
and I said it would be a dream come
true to get John to do this role.
And for some reason he was
only available for one day.
And John came in first hour and
said, "Take as much time as you need.
It's fine."
And we took 23 hours.
Allow me to introduce myself.
Gus Polinski.
How are you?
Polka King of the Midwest?
The-the Kenosha Kickers?
[Chris] Simple character, yet
he came to the set with an
intense backstory in his head.
I never heard about it.
I got to learn about it in
those 23 hours of 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 SkyDome.
He was signing autographs,
and I just went up and
introduced myself and told him,
"I'm Kelvin Pruenster,
I'm your right tackle."
And he just looked
at me, said, "Oh,
I know who you are.
You don't have to
introduce yourself."
John was like part of the team.
Instead of off to the side with
everybody, he was on the bench,
and there's occasions where
he ran out on the field
to help injured
players off the field.
[sportscaster] The rest of the
Argonaut ownership entourage
is in the warmth of the booth, but
John Candy's decided to brave it
-in the great outdoors.
-I'm braving it out here.
You're darn right, Scott,
we're braving it out here.
[Steve A.] John worked
his 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,
he-he got me involved in the, in the show,
which I was grateful for, and we
flew down, just he and I, to Durango.
He was taking care
of himself then, too,
because he had a nutritionist
who was with him now,
and I thought, "Oh,
that-that's great."
I don't know why they went
so far away to Durango.
It was a terribly difficult
place to 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 shop-at-home service,
buys in tremendous volume from
America's finest carpeting mills.
The best human being I've
ever met is John Candy.
He was my angel.
Man,
he affected my life.
But very soon, John Candy
is going to be doing
all the great roles that
Charles Laughton has done.
He is a fantastic actor.
-You listen to Mother.
-I'm listening.
We'd exchange gifts and-and, uh,
then we'd sit and read stories,
-Christmas stories...
-You exchange socks?
Do they have that in
your, um, Christmas?
-We exchange socks.
-You do that?
Oh, yeah, yeah,
the male guys do.
The male members of-of the family would
exchange socks with each other, you know.
-No, I've never heard of that.
-Yeah.
Well, I-I just thought-thought... I
thought everybody did that, you know.
-What does that mean?
-You just take the socks off your feet
and you give it to the
guy next to you, you know,
or, like, you know, your
uncle, your cousin, whoever.
-But, uh...
-And this is planned?
Oh, yeah, every Christmas,
-every Christmas.
-Ah.
It's kind of the first thing
you do when you get up.
You want to hurt me?
Go right ahead if it
makes you feel any better.
I'm an easy target.
[Deadpool] And for the first
time in a long while...
I like me.
[Del] My wife likes me.
My customers like me...
'cause I'm the real article.
What you see is what you get.
-[John] See you later.
-[Rose] Okay.
[child] Bye. [speaks
indistinctly]
[Rose] Bye.
[sentimental music playing]




[music ends]
The trunk?
Yeah, the trunk.
[exhales]
[exhales] There it is.