Table of Contents

Title PageCopyright PageDedicationEpigraphINTRODUCTION

ACT I

CHAPTER 1 - A Motivated SpeakerCHAPTER 2 - Madison, WisconsinCHAPTER 3 - An EpiphanyCHAPTER 4 - Attacking the StageCHAPTER 5 - Whale BoyCHAPTER 6 - Super FanCHAPTER 7 - The Place in Alabama

ACT II

CHAPTER 8 - A Friendly VisitorCHAPTER 9 - The Magic Sixty-sixCHAPTER 10 - The Lost BoysCHAPTER 11 - The Polar Bear Pit

ACT III

CHAPTER 12 - Raising the White FlagCHAPTER 13 - The Devil in the ClosetCHAPTER 14 - Fatty Falls DownCHAPTER 15 - The Parting Glass

EpilogueAcknowledgementsNOTE ON SOURCES AND METHODTHE - OGRAPHIESIndex

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First published in 2008 by Viking Penguin,a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Tom Farley, Junior, and Tanner Colby,2008

All rights reservedGrateful acknowledgment is made for permission to

reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted works:“All You Need Is Love” by John Lennon and Paul

McCartney. © 1967 Sony/ATV Tunes LLC. All rightsadministered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 MusicSquare West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved.

Used by permission.“Working for the Weekend” words and music by PaulDean, Matthew Frenette and Michael Reno. © 1981

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Used by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Farley, Tom, 1961-The Chris Farley show : a biography in three acts /

Tom Farley, Jr. & Tanner Colby.p. cm.

Includes index.eISBN : 978-1-4406-3603-5

1. Farley, Chris, 1964-1997. 2. Comedians—UnitedStates—Biography. 3. Actors—United States—

Biography. I. Colby, Tanner. II. Title.PN2287.F33F37 2008

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For my brother, whom I love and miss; my dad, who gave us all he had to give; my kids, Mary Kate, Emma, and Tommy,the most inspiring, funny, caring, andwonderful kids anyone could have; and most important, my wife and deepest friend, Laura,whom I love with all my heartFor Gus, a great writer of stories andchapter books

Nothing you can make thatcan’t be made,No one you can save thatcan’t be saved,Nothing you can do, but youcan learn how to be you intime.It’s easy.All you need is love.

—JOHN LENNON/PAULMCCARTNEY

INTRODUCTIONIrish brothers share one of the strangestrelationships on earth. We fight like hellamong ourselves on a daily basis, butone word or action against one brotherbrings the wrath of God down upon youfrom the others. That was Chris and me.We were always competing, whether itwas driveway basketball, touch football,or Monopoly. Most of the time, thosegames would end in a brawl. Nothingbloody, mind you. Drawing blood wouldbring the fury of Mom or Dad down onall of us. No, most of the time we’dstrike a few blows and then run like hell.And let me tell you, nothing was more

terrifying than being chased through theneighborhood by a crazy, mad Irishsibling who outweighed you by twenty-five pounds and had a brick in his hand!

But rare was the time that I wouldn’tcome running if Chris was in trouble. Iwas the older brother; that was my job.And, Chris being Chris, it was a job thatput me in harm’s way more times than Iwould have liked. One such time, when Iwas in eighth grade and Chris was insixth, he got into a fight with aclassmate. He tackled the kid and threwhim to the ground, landing on top of himand breaking his collarbone. Word gotaround school that the kid’s seventh-grade brother was gunning for Chris.

Naturally, I had to step in. I put the wordout that the brother would have to getthrough me first. I found out later thatday that the kid’s brother was namedRocky. No shit: Rocky! The guy wasmassive (a future all-city lineman in highschool, no less). No fight ensued, but Idid learn that I possessed a real gift ofwhat the Irish call “the gab.” I talked myway out of it. It was my only defense,without which Chris would havecertainly gotten me killed several timesover. Life with Chris was exciting; hebrought drama and danger into our lives.But no matter what he put you through,he could always just give you a look andmake you laugh. Boy, did he make us

laugh.We always loved to tell “Chris

stories.” I’ve heard them from friends,relatives, teachers, coaches—evenpriests and nuns. You could be thefunniest guy in the room just bydescribing some of the stuff Chris did.For every hilarious thing he did oncamera, there were twenty things he didoffscreen that just blew it away. Helived to make others laugh, and he wasfearless about it. In the years since Chrispassed away, there have been countlesstimes when Chris’s buddies would findthemselves huddled together, sharingthese crazy stories. At one time, I eventhought that a collection of those stories

would make a fantastic book. I still do.But I now believe that those funnystories alone would not paint the rightpicture of who this kid was. Chris hadfar too much depth and way too muchpain. We all enjoyed Chris so much, andit’s hard to put those things into words.

I began this project by listing all thepeople who either knew Chris the bestor were there at the important momentsin his life. I spoke to most of them andgave them assurances that this was aproject that our family was behind allthe way. I wanted them to be open andhonest about their memories, opinions,and feelings about being part of what,for most, was an unforgettable

relationship. I’m not sure I was totallyprepared for the story that Tanner and Iended up with. The funny stories andoutrageous moments are definitely inthere, but what emerged was thisamazing picture of the multifacetedcharacter traits that Chris possessed. Hewas hilarious, yes, but he was also avery religious, very caring—and verytroubled and addicted person. It’s a sadstory, no question about it. But it’s Chris.

Soon after Chris died, I told my wifethat my greatest fear was being sixtyyears old and trying hard to rememberthis kid who was my brother. I guessanyone who’s lost someone close cansay that. Being able to watch the fun

movies and video clips only gets you sofar; it’s not the full picture. I’m pleasedthat this book will be something I canpick up when I’m older, remember Chrisand his wild life, and be once moreamazed that I had such an unbelievableperson in my life.

ACT I

CHAPTER 1

A Motivated Speaker

MIKE CLEARY, friend, EdgewoodHigh School:Freshman year of college we’reheading out on a road trip toMilwaukee to see a big game. We’re inthe car. We’ve got the fifth of vodka, thegallon of orange juice. We’re ready toget loaded and party. Just as we startto drive, Chris says, “Stop!”

We stop the car, and he pulls out arosary. We have to sit there in the carand say one decade of the rosary—ten

Hail Marys and an Our Father—beforewe can leave. Then he balls the rosaryup in his hand, tosses it in the glovecompartment, slams it shut, looks at allof us, and says, “Well, it’s in God’shands now." And we hit the road.On June 24, 1994, life for Chris Farleywas good. He had just finished his fourthseason on NBC’s Saturday Night Liveand was coming into his own as one ofthe most promising stars in Americancomedy. As the earnest, sad-sackChippendales dancer and theswaggering, van-dwelling MotivationalSpeaker, Chris was bringing a kind ofenergy and anarchy to the show not seensince its seventies heyday. Dana Carvey,

Mike Myers, and Phil Hartman werestepping down as the show’s reliablego-to players, and Chris was leading thecharge—alongside Adam Sandler, TimMeadows, David Spade, and RobSchneider—in the next cycle ofrevitalizing and redefining the late-nightinstitution for a new generation. Chriswas also about to take on his firststarring role in a feature film, TommyBoy. The following year, Tommy Boywould open at the top of the NorthAmerican box office and solidify Chris’sstatus as a bankable movie star.

From his very first days onstage—starting in plays at summer camp andeventually at Chicago’s Second City—

Chris had possessed a singular talent forcapturing and relating to an audience. Inthe words of SNL creator LorneMichaels, “People liked Chris Farley,they trusted Chris Farley, and theythought they knew Chris Farley.” In hislifetime, that likability translated to ahuge following on television and threestraight number one box-office hits. Andsince his death at the age of thirty-three,Chris’s appeal persists. In the past tenyears, Saturday Night Live’s Best ofChris Farley DVD has sold over amillion copies, making it the second-best-selling title in the show’s entire history.Tommy Boy, for its part, has gone on tobecome one of Paramount Studios’ top-

selling DVDs of all time.But Chris’s success had not come

easily. His rise at SNL had been marredby a constant struggle with alcohol anddrug addiction. High school and collegedrinking had given way, eventually, tococaine and heroin use. Through theintervention of friends and family, Chrishad attempted several different recoveryprograms, all of them eventuallyineffective.

But on June 24, 1994, Chris was cleanand sober and standing onstage in a largeauditorium at Hazelden, a nationallyrenowned drug rehabilitation facility inCenter City, Minnesota. Chris hadvisited Hazelden twice before, both

times as a rather unwilling anduncooperative resident. This time hewalked through its doors of his own freewill, as a guest, invited to share hisrecovery experience with other addictsstruggling in their own battles with thedisease.

Chris’s presence filled the auditorium;he knew how to work a room. Only thistime, abandoning his popular, manicpersona, he held the audience captive bysimply standing at center stage andspeaking in calm, measured tones. It wasa Chris Farley that only a handful ofclose friends and family members everknew. Dressed in a blue button-downshirt and stone-colored khakis, he paced

a small circle, nervously fidgeting withhis hands and running them through hisslicked-back hair. At no point did he falldown or remove his pants. And there,alone on the stage that day with no crazycharacters to hide behind, no wild-manstunts to impress, Chris gave a“motivational speech” quite unlike anyhe’d ever delivered on television.

CHRIS FARLEY:Good to be here. Um, pretty nervous. Iwas here a couple times, so I know whatit’s like to be sitting where you are, fullof fear and anxiety. Kinda how I’m

feeling tonight! Heh heh heh!Anyhoo.I’m supposed to share my experience,

strength, and hope with you, and so I’llstart. I remember my first drink. I wasseventeen years old, almost eighteen. Myfriend Patrick was a year above me and Iadmired him quite a bit, looked up tohim. He was a great football player, all-state and everything like that. I went to aparty with him one night. We went downin the basement. The guys starteddrinkin’, and they went, "C’mon and takea drink, Chris.”

So I took a shot, and I remembergoing, “Man, this sucks. I can’t believeyou do this.”

“Just take it down like medicine,”they said.

So I wolfed down about ten of ’em, noproblem. And I remember hearing stufflike, “Man, I thought he was wildbefore, and now he’s really gonna be awild man!”

So that kind of planted in my craniumwhat I’d always wanted, and that was tofit in, or to be liked. Everyone seemed tolove it. When I went upstairs, Iremember the girls were like, “Great!Chris, finally!”

And I was like, “Yeah! Maybe I’lleven get a chick now!”

So that night I got blind drunk and

threw up in my bed. Then I calledPatrick the next day and said, “Man, thiswas great! When are we gonna do itagain?” And I got blind drunk everyweekend until I graduated high school.

Then I went on to college atMarquette University. I was away fromhome and that meant I could party everynight. I did. Each year I got worse andworse. Freshman year I’d partyThursday, Friday, and Saturday.Sophomore year it’d be Wednesday,Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Then itstarted on Tuesdays, and by the time Iwas a senior it was every night.

Every drug that I tried I couldn’t waitto try more. Sophomore year I tried

marijuana and fell completely in lovewith it. I went home and watched LoveConnection and was like, “Ooooohhhhman ...” You know? I couldn’tunderstand why everyone wasn’t gettinghigh. It was the best way to live. MyGod, how boring it must be for you poorsober people. So I got high every dayfrom that day on. I’d try psychedelicsand I’d have a really bad trip and stillcouldn’t wait to do it again. “Maybe thisone’ll be different.” And that was theway it was. I just wanted to escape.

And so I remember reading aboutJohn Belushi in the book Wired. A lot ofpeople read Wired and thought, “Man,that poor guy! I never wanna do drugs

again!” But I was like, “Yeah! If that’swhat it takes, I wanna do it!” ’Cause Iwanted to be like him in every way, likeall those guys from that show. I thoughtthat’s what you had to do.

When I got outta school, I didn’t knowwhat I was gonna do with my life. Iknew I didn’t have much in the gradesdepartment, and so I was very fearful. Awhole lot of fear. I remember drinkingwas the only time I felt, you know, good.I went and worked for my dad afterschool. I’d show up late and stuff likethat. He was the boss, and so I was hisscrew-up son. I didn’t get in too muchtrouble. He’d let it slide.

The one thing I knew was that I

wanted to go into acting. I went down toChicago to try to go into a place calledSecond City. I auditioned for that and gotin pretty quickly, but I couldn’t stoppartying. They gave me a warning: “Ifyou do it again, we’re gonna kick you offthe main stage.”

I wanted to continue performing, so Ionly got high for the performance, onmarijuana. Then afterward I couldn’twait to get ripped. I remember one timemy director was giving me notes, and Idrank a pint of Bacardi in about tenminutes, before he was done talking. Heasked me a question, and I was slurringmy words. He said, “Oh, you’re nogood. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” But it

was kind of tolerated. My lifestylecradled it, because I didn’t have to wakeup in the morning. I could get blinddrunk every night, and that’s what I did.

Then I went to New York and startedworking on Saturday Night Live. Thatwas, I thought, a dream come true. I’dread all about my idols and how theypartied back then. I thought, man, this isgonna be great! I am gonna get ripped!

Well, that just wasn’t the case. Itwasn’t hip anymore. I stuck out like asore thumb, taking my clothes off atparties and making a fool of myself,which I had learned to do pretty goodbecause I thought people would like me.Nobody’s afraid of the fool. “Hi! C’mon,

idiot! C’mon aboard!” I was totally fullof fear. I’d do anything for you to likeme, including doing things that I didn’twant to do. As long as I had mysubstance, I was okay.

I went back to Second City after myfirst year on Saturday Night Live andtook a bunch of acid and cocaine and aton of liquor and went onstage and madea complete ass of myself. They booed. Iremember during a blackout betweenscenes someone yelled, “Get the drunkoff the stage!” That kinda rang true.

I had to cover my ass so they’d hireme back at SNL again next year. So Icame here to the Shoemaker Unit atHazelden. I hated every minute of it. I

complied and kissed ass until thecounselors went home and then screwedaround and tried to make everybody onthe unit laugh, and didn’t take it seriousone bit. Got outta there and thought I wascured. “All right, I did twenty-eight dayssober, no problem.”

So I got outta here, didn’t go tomeetings, didn’t get a sponsor, didn’t doanything that they told me. And guesswhat? I got back to New York andstarted doing a lot of drugs. I thought, if Idon’t drink in front of people, they’re notgonna know I’m high. I thought I wasfooling everyone, and I was fooling noone.

That Christmas, after a real bad

bender, my apartment was just totallyripped out. I’d ripped apart drawers,everything was on the floor, because I’dbeen looking for something. “Oh, what’sthis? Is it in here? No?” Crash!“Where’s this?! What’s that?! Oh fuck!”So Christmas, coming home to surprisemy parents, what a lovely gift I was.They put me in a detox for a couple ofdays.

The whole rest of that season I did theoutpatient thing, which was a completejoke. I would comply with them andsay,“I’m really trying hard.” MeanwhileI always had a thing of urine in mypocket just in case they tested me. God,what an ass, asking my friends for their

urine. “Kevin, yeah, you got that, uh,urine?” Jesus. Everyone knew I wasusing. I just remember a horrible dismay.I was crying all the time, because I couldnot stop. I couldn’t imagine a life withsobriety, because drugs and alcoholwere the only thing that was my friend. Iknew I was in trouble.

I came back to Shoemaker. I decidedto make sure they knew that I was trying.“By God, I’m your boy, boss. I’m trying.Pluggin’ away!” So I screwed aroundand complied in treatment again, anddidn’t take it serious. I wasn’t listening,and that’s what you gotta do about thisdisease, because it’s hell to stop.

I got outta there thinkin’ I was cured.

La di da! Didn’t last even as long as Idid the first time out, and by that time Ihad almost thrown in the towel. I wentout to California to do some work thenext summer. I got into another rehab outthere. It was like every time I turnedaround I was in friggin’ rehab. God, itsucks! But I kinda started takin’ this oneserious, because I was like, “I don’twanna come back here, man.” The doorwas open just a little bit. I was sick ofusing, and I knew I was gonna be firedvery soon. I didn’t want that becauseSNL was everything I’d worked for.

They told me to go to FellowshipNew York, a halfway house that had justopened. So I went there and this time I

was gonna finish it, you know, give it areal shot. I was frightened of going torecovery meetings. Because what if Icouldn’t do it? That’s what would reallysuck.

I was glad to be sober, but after ninetydays people weren’t patting me on theback anymore, sayin’ “Good job on thatsobriety! Go get ’em!” People justexpected it. And why shouldn’t theyexpect me to be sober? I’m working forthem. But I wanted the pats on the back,and they weren’t doing that.

That ninety-day mark was a real toughone for me. After a bad day at read-through, the writers didn’t write me intothe show, and I was going back and

forth. I used. I did five bags of heroin.Then I came back and told my boss. Ithought if I was honest with him, youknow? That’s another manipulating tool.“I’m being honest with you, so youwon’t fire me, right? Because I’mtrying. Can’t you see I’m trying?” Allthat bullshit.

So, I lost my job for about a week. Ikept begging and crying, the samemanipulative things. Finally he gave memy job back, but he sent me to this placein Alabama, which was kind of like aboot camp. It was exactly what I needed,a good kick in the rear end. They told mestuff like “You’re arrogant. You’recomplying.” They made me cry every

single day. They’d say that if you pick updrugs and alcohol, you’re a baby. Ididn’t like to be called a baby. I didn’tlike to be called arrogant. I didn’t like tobe called all those things that I was.

It was around Christmas time, too.Man, what a horrible place to be overChristmas, you know? Hearing “Haveyourself a merry little Christmas . . .”when I’m in a stinky hospital ward. But Idid things in this treatment that I didn’tdo before, like making sure I made mybed every day. I practiced what I wouldbe doing on the outside. I prayed to Godin the morning to please keep me soberthat day, and then I’d thank Him forkeeping me sober every night.

So I got outta that thing in Alabama. Igot a sponsor. I got a home group. I wasreading from the Big Book. I went to amorning meeting every day at seven-thirty. I got involved, because I know Ican’t stay sober without these things,without going one hundred percent. But Ican stay sober when I do. And sobriety’sgood, man. Sobriety’s not carryingaround urine jars—that’s a real treat. It’snot waking up in a horrible apartmentwith everything broken in it. I have anice apartment now that’s all taken careof. I make my bed every day. I do thethings that I did in treatment. I have avery healthy fear of getting high, and Ihave to take it serious, man. Because if I

don’t, I’m gonna use, and I cannot useagain. I hate that shit. God, I hate it. Ihate being a slave to that shit.

The ninety-day mark was a real kickerfor me, again. I remember it was on St.Patrick’s Day. I like to have an icy coldGuinness on St. Patrick’s Day. I’m Irish!I have to drink, right? And I rememberpacing back and forth in the rain outsidea bar, crying. I was so scared, and I wasjust crying and crying and praying toGod to help me. Then I stopped. Iremembered that I don’t have to drink. Icalled the halfway house, went to ameeting, and I did what I had to do. Andtoday I have one year, six months, andsix days. That’s the most time I’ve ever

had. And I can do this. I know I can doit.

We all can do it.

CHAPTER 2

Madison, Wisconsin

GREG MEYER, friend:We were all sitting in the library oneafternoon—me, Chris, Dan Healy, MikeCleary, a bunch of guys. We’re sittingat this table, and Chris is just crackingus up. Finally, he gets up to go to class,and as he’s leaving somebody says,“He’s going to be on Saturday NightLive.”Everyone at the table just nodded."Definitely."

Chris Farley’s grandfather DonaldStephen Farley worked as an executivewith the A&P supermarket company inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania. He losteverything he had in the 1930sDepression and returned to his family’shome in Madison, Wisconsin. There hejoined his brothers in a hardwarebusiness that sold machine parts andservices. One of those services waslaying asphalt roads, a lucrative field inthe booming infrastructure build-outfollowing World War II. Hanging outtheir shingle as Farley Oil, the brothersbought and sold road-paving contracts.They were middlemen, salesmen. Theybid on contracts with state and county

officials and in turn brokered theservices of the crews that laid the actualroads.

Donald’s son Tom Farley, the second-youngest of six, applied for a specialdriver’s license and began driving forthe family business at the age offourteen. Later, at GeorgetownUniversity in Washington, D.C., hediscovered his calling in the game ofpolitics. He soon found himselfpresident of the campus YoungRepublicans and a frequent dinner guestof Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy.

During his senior year, Tom met MaryAnne Crosby, the daughter of anestablished Boston family and a student

at Marymount College. Upon graduation,he moved back to Madison to attend lawschool at the University of Wisconsin,the first step in his plans to seek a careerin law and a future in elected office.Mary Anne followed him to theMidwest, and they married in 1959.

The following year, Donald Farleysuffered two massive heart attacks. Hecould no longer run the family businessor support a family. With two parents,several siblings, a wife, and a newdaughter depending on him, Tom hadlittle choice. With only one year of lawschool remaining, he quit, shelved hisdreams, and for the next thirty yearsplowed his expensive East Coast

education and considerable personalcharm into selling asphalt.

He sold a lot of it.As a partner in Farley Oil—and later

owner of his own company, Scotch Oil—Tom Farley was very successful. Hebecame well known across the state,thriving in a business run entirely on hisboisterous laugh and hearty handshake.His success gave him the means toprovide for his family, which in the IrishCatholic tradition would soon growquite large. Tom and Mary Anne’sdaughter, Barbara, was born in 1960;Tom Jr. a year after that. Two years later,on February 15, 1964, at 3:34 P.M.,Mary Anne gave birth to her second son,

Christopher Crosby Farley. He weighedeight pounds, fifteen ounces. Next cameKevin Farley in 1965, and then finallyJohn, the youngest, in 1968.

Although Tom Farley, Sr., had grownup in a middle-class pocket of Madisonproper, when it came time to make ahome of his own, he moved to theVillage of Maple Bluff. Maple Bluffwas, and is, an idyllic slice of affluenttwentieth-century suburbia. Clustered onthe eastern shore of Madison’s LakeMendota, it is home to the governor’sexecutive mansion as well as the statelyresidence of one Oscar Mayer,proprietor of a local luncheon meat andhot dog concern. There, among Maple

Bluff’s treecanopied lanes and rollinggreen lawns, Tom and Mary Anne raisedtheir children. Over the next fifteen yearsthey lived in four different homes, eachone bigger than the one before. The lasthad a commanding lake-front view.Growing up, Chris would lack for littlein the way of material comfort. TheFarleys lived well. On paper, at least, itlooked like the American Dream.

TOM FARLEY, brother:When Chris came along, my grandmotherinsisted that my mom wasn’t going to beable to handle three kids at once, so this

Spanish woman came to help the family.My first memory is this woman cominginto our lives because of Chris. I alwaysremember that Chris got specialattention.

KEVIN FARLEY, brother:Maple Bluff was a great neighborhood.We were always outside playing,jumping in the leaves, riding our bikes,like kids do.

Chris was always popular, right offthe bat. He always wanted to start up agame, get everyone together. We’d playkick the can or ghost in the graveyard,

which was what we called hide-and-seek. I was the shy kid, and I wasamazed at how he could make friends soeasily. We changed schools a good bit,but no matter what school Chris went to,he always instantly had a new group offriends. Making people laugh was justinstinctive. And also he looked to Dad.Dad was very outgoing. My parentsalways had parties, were very involvedin the community. A lot of that carriedover for Chris.

What I remember most from theearliest years are the Christmases weused to have. That was always a bigevent. Whenever the relatives came overwe were sort of made to dress up and

look nice, basically put on a show forthe rest of the family, talking to all theaunts and uncles. Dad insisted on that.

TOM FARLEY:It’s been explained to me by more than afew therapists that we exhibited atypical Irish Family Syndrome. Thefather is the bullhorn and the head of thefamily, but not really the head of thefamily. It’s really the mother who keepseverything together, and Mom alwaysdid. Our life was straight out of Angela’sAshes, only, you know, with plenty ofmoney. Dad always drove the big

Cadillac. We were certainly well off byWisconsin standards, or at least gave theimpression that we were. There was apoint when we were all taken out of theparochial schools and sent to publicschools for a year. Dad had some excusethat, looking back, didn’t really holdwater. But this was 1974, and Dad wasin the oil business. He’d had a bad yearand couldn’t keep up with the tuition.But he always kept up appearances thateverything was fine.

KEVIN FARLEY:Dad loved politics. He ran for school

board at one point, but didn’t win. Thatwas probably because he had all hiskids in private school. They sort ofhammered him on that. But we went outand put up signs for the race. Dad joinedthe board for Maple Bluff. It was asubdivision, but it had its own councilsand so on. He enjoyed that immensely.He was a conservative man, politically,and very civic-minded.

TOM FARLEY:Dad’s voice was a sonic boom. All he’dsay was, “It’s time to go to mass!Everybody in the car!” and you’d

scramble like it was a DEFCON 4 sirenfrom the Strategic Air Command. Youdidn’t want to get on his bad side. Hewas very lenient, but with fourhyperactive boys, somebody’s got tocrack the whip sometimes. And when thewhip would crack, it would crack hard.

KEVIN FARLEY:He was very strict, but if you could get alaugh out of him, you were okay. AndChris knew that. One time Chris walkedinto Mrs. Jennings’s class at EdgewoodGrade School and said, “Excuse me,Mrs. Jennings, where do I ‘shit’ down?”

She hit the roof and called my dad infor a conference. She told him whathappened, and said Chris needed to besuspended. Chris was like, “I didn’t sayit, honest.”

And Dad said, “Well, Chris says hedidn’t say that. And if my son says hedidn’t do it, then I believe him. You musthave heard him wrong.”

So she backed down. Then, on theway home, Dad turned to Chris andwent, “You said it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”“I knew it.”They both had a laugh over it, and that

was it. He knew Chris had done it, but it

was okay to laugh as long as nobody gothurt. Those kinds of incidents croppedup all the time.

As strict as Dad could be, when hedecided it was time to have fun, it wastime to have fun. We would pile into thestation wagon and go shopping or out tomass. Sometimes we’d go out to theapple orchards to pick apples. Thechurch bazaars my dad loved. He’dcome in and say, “There’s a churchbazaar out in Lodi!”

And we’d go, “Aw, jeez . . .”And then we’d all get in the car and

go all the way out to Lodi for homemadepies and such at this bazaar out in a farmfield somewhere. The rituals of our

house when we were young all centeredaround the family. There was never atime when we wanted to rebel and getaway from it.

JOHN FARLEY, brother:Family dinners were very important. Wehad a dinner bell. Anything we weredoing anywhere in the neighborhood, wecould hear this giant bell outside ourkitchen. We’d stop what we were doing—setting fires, whatever—our headswould pop up like deer and we’d runhome.

There were actually two bells. There

was our dinner bell at six-thirty, andthere was also a giant whistle that wouldblow through the entire neighborhood atfive o’clock. It wasn’t from a factory. Itwasn’t the emergency broadcast system.It was just a whistle that the town ofMaple Bluff had. Why it went off everyday at five we still don’t know. Weassumed it meant it was time for all thefamilies to start their cocktail hour.

KEVIN FARLEY:Other than family, the one thing that wasimportant to my parents was education,in particular a Catholic education. Some

parents are really hard on good grades,but our parents cared more that welearned how to be good people, that wehad big hearts and were kind. I don’tknow of any better guy in the world thanmy dad, just in terms of being a strong,moral person. He always stressed that inus.

TOM FARLEY:If Dad instilled anything in Chris it wasthis love of the underdog, for the kidthat’s getting picked on. If we weredriving down the road and you made ajoke about some strange-looking

homeless person out on the sidewalk,man, he’d lock those brakes up and thehand would come back. You didn’t daredo that.

My dad was very Catholic, and inCatholicism that whole idea of right andwrong, good and evil is very important.Chris was very aware of that from anearly age. It all stemmed from TheExorcist. The mere fact that we’d seenthat movie brought the devil into ourhouse, and that started this wholesuperstition in Chris, not just of goodand evil, but the literal, physical devil.He and I shared a bedroom for a time,and he was next to the closet; that justfreaked the hell out of him. “Tommy, we

gotta change beds,” he’d say. “Tommy,please. The devil’s in the closet.”

KEVIN FARLEY:Every night for months after TheExorcist came out, he’d just show up inour room with a sleeping bag and crashon the floor between Johnny and me. Itwas sort of an unspoken thing. If youasked him why, he’d say, “Shut up,okay? I’m just sleeping here.” Chris wasafraid of the dark, and he hated sleepingalone.

He was a very spiritual person,instinctively spiritual, and he’d always

talk about it, so much so that he’d scarethe crap out of you. As you grow up,even though you still call the devil byname, you begin to understand him as aspiritual idea, and a lot of people stopbelieving in the devil altogether, which,of course, is exactly what the devilwants. But Chris, he believed in thedevil. He believed in hell, and it scaredhim.

TOM FARLEY:He prayed to St. Michael the Archangelevery night, because Michael was theone who’d thrown Lucifer out of heaven.

It was more superstition than spirituality,to be honest. He read something onceabout the different ways your shoes landafter you take them off means differentkinds of luck. If your shoe was to oneside, it was bad luck. If it was upright itwas good luck, and so on. So every nightI’d kick off my shoes, not caring wherethey landed, and Chris would say,“Tommy, pick up your shoe and set itright.”

“No.”“C’mon.”“No.”“Please.”“Do it yourself.”

And he’d get out of bed and go andmove my shoes; he felt that stronglyabout it.

KEVIN FARLEY:Growing up, Chris was wild and crazyand liked to have fun, and Tommy wasmore reserved. It really reflected, morethan anything, the two sides of our dad.Dad would carry himself as this veryprofessional gentleman, but he couldalso be this boisterous, crazy, laugh-out-loud kind of guy. And Tom and Chriswere the two sides of that personality.To the extreme, really. John and I are

somewhere in the middle.

TOM FARLEY:Kevin was very focused, got decentgrades. We called him Silent Sam,Steady Eddie. He just did his thing anddid it well. John was the gopher. He wasso much younger than the rest of us. Hewas always pleasing people, doing whatit took to tag along. Still is to this day.As for myself, I was the brains in thefamily, which is really kind of sad. But Iwas Tom Farley, Jr., and everything thatthat entailed. My dad went toGeorgetown, and so from day one the

pressure was on me as the oldest son tolive up to Dad’s expectations.

The expectations for Chris were thatthere were no expectations. He just kindof marched to his own drummer. Oneday Chris said, “I want to join thehockey team.” The next day he had abrand-new set of hockey gear, nevermind that he couldn’t really skate thatwell. So there was full support for himin whatever he wanted to do, but no realexpectation that he should fail orsucceed.

Chris and I were always together, butI was trying my best to toe the line andhe was effortlessly crossing over theline, trampling it with no consequences;

it annoyed the crap out of me. Andbecause he was always so funny, myfriends would want him to hang around. Ihated that.

KEVIN FARLEY:What was most important to Chris,really, was that he made people laugh.Chris was always the fat kid. Kids canbe pretty mean, and humor was his onlyweapon, from grade school on. Hewanted to be a football player, and thatmeant being part of the popular crowd.He used his humor to do that.

TED DONDANVILLE,friend, Red Arrow Camp:

I met Chris at summer camp, with all theother brothers. Tom was actually mycounselor, and Johnny wound up beingmy best friend. You didn’t forget Chris.Even if I’d never seen him again aftercamp, I’d remember him. During mass, ifthe priest made the mistake of asking foraudience involvement, Chris was rightthere. His hand would shoot up, and thenhe’d figure out whether or not he hadsomething to say.

DICK WENZELL, play

director, Red Arrow Camp:Red Arrow Camp was established in1922, and was named after the RedArrow Army, Second Division, fromWisconsin. It had originally been built asa logging camp in the nineteenth century.Some of the cabins date back to thattime. It was a resident seven-weekcamp.

TIM HENRY, friend, RedArrow Camp:

Chris always had some kind of stuntgoing. On Sundays they’d load all us

Catholic boys into this old school busand drive us into town. The girls’ campswould come to Sunday mass, too. Now,you’re never allowed to have candy atcamp, but somehow one Sunday Chrishas gotten ahold of these white tic tacs.He fills his mouth with them, and he’swalking up the aisle for communion soprayerfully, and when he gets in front ofthe girl campers he rolls his eyes backlike he’s going to pass out and then hefalls and hits his mouth on the side of thebench and spits out all the tic tacs. Theygo clattering across this wooden bench,and Chris is yelling, “Oh my God! Myteeth!” The girls were just aghast. Wewere all laughing hysterically.

HAMILTON DAVIS, friend,Red Arrow Camp:

It was anything for a laugh, absolutelyanything. They gave away all theseawards for good behavior andaccomplishments and such. Chris didn’tcare.

TOM FARLEY:He was our windup toy. You said it. Hedid it.

KEVIN FARLEY:He didn’t win a lot of the awards, butbecause he was so funny they’d put himin the camp play, and he was the star.Chris would always credit Dick Wenzellwith encouraging that in him.

DICK WENZELL:Chris was strictly a jock, but he had a lotof charisma. Once I got him onstage, hisconnection with the audience wasunbelievable. Not only could he projectto the audience, he could also receivefrom them. Chris could take whatever

the audience gave to him and build on it.He just did it naturally. Visiting parentswould comment on how magnetic hewas. And this was when he was tenyears old.

TED DONDANVILLE:The camp play was really a bunch ofskits strung together. One year they did atakeoff on Snow White and the SevenDwarfs, and Chris played the villain.When they caught him, he told them theycould do what they wanted to him aslong as they didn’t step on his blue suedeshoes. Then he launched into this Elvis

impersonation that brought the housedown.

HAMILTON DAVIS:Whatever the story was, they’d just drophim in there. He was such a crowd-pleaser that they didn’t even have tohave a part for him. Just put him uponstage. One time he did “Hound Dog”dressed up like Miss Piggy.

FRED ALBRIGHT,counselor, Red Arrow

Camp:

When people ask “Where did ChrisFarley get his start?” I say he got it atRed Arrow Camp. As a kid, he was justa miniature version of what he wouldbecome. Dick Wenzell used theexpression “He was always onstage. ”And that was the case. A lot of it was adiversion, because down deep Chriswas one of the most sensitive guys you’llever meet. Even though he came acrossas this kind of rough, gruff, jovial guy,you could hurt his feelings with just aword or two. Incredibly sensitive guy.

MIKE CLEARY:Chris was the very first guy I met atEdgewood. I grew up in Scarsdale, NewYork, and moved to Madison in highschool. Edgewood can be a little clubby.For days, the rest of the kids didn’t evencome near me. Then one day I wassitting in the commons, getting ready forfootball practice. Chris came up andsaid, “You’re the guy from New York?Hi, I’m Chris Farley.” He was the firstperson to make me feel comfortablebeing there.ROBERT BARRY, friend:At school you always wanted to bearound Chris. He was a blast, but his

focus was always on you, talking you up,making you feel better. “This is mybuddy Robert,” he’d say. “He’s all-statebasketball.” He’s this. He’s that. He’sthe greatest. It was never about himself.

TODD GREEN, friend:We had the closest thing to what I wouldcall a dream high school situation,where six or seven guys were as closeas brothers and laughed their asses offevery single day, and Chris was the gluethat kept us together. He was such apivotal part of our high schoolexperience. Chris was the type of person

who didn’t see social class, or ethnicity,or anything like that. He came from a lotmore money than most of us, but youwould never know.

MIKE CLEARY:One time I was visited by an old friendof mine from back east. He’d been a bigfootball player, but he’d had thishorrible car accident, and now he was ina wheelchair. A lot of kids could beuncomfortable around that, but Chris justembraced him. He spent the entire daymaking this kid feel welcome and totallyat ease. And the thing is, he did it with

no effort. His generosity was socommonplace that it was utterlyunremarkable.

DAN HEALY, friend:Chris made people feel good aboutthemselves. Everyone was on a pedestalfor some reason or another. He drewpeople together, naturally, and it wascathartic to be around him. To me, Chriswould bat his eye and I would lose itlaughing so hard my sides would hurt.

GREG MEYER:

People ask me what it was like going toschool with Chris Farley, and I say,“You’ve seen him on SNL, right?”

“Yeah.”“Well, crank that up times ten.”

JOHN FARLEY:With the birth of the VCR, wememorized Animal House, Stripes,Caddyshack , Meatballs, History of theWorld, High Anxiety, and BluesBrothers. And I’m not talking aboutmemorizing the lines. We memorizedeverything, every inch of footage. Theforeground, the background, we

memorized it all. And Chris pulled fromthat constantly.

One of Chris’s favorite bits to do wasto put his arms out like Frankenstein andmake this monster voice, “Urggghduugggh!” That was from an obscurescene in Meatballs with Spazintroducing himself to the cabin where,in the background, some fat camper wasdoing that Frankenstein thing. The wholething was maybe half a second of film,maybe. But even that we had down. Takethe original cast of Saturday Night Live,add in Mel Brooks, and you have ourchildhood.

NICK BURROWS,guidance counselor/assistant

football coach:Every time you’d walk down to thecafeteria, packed full of three-hundred-plus kids, all you had to do was listenfor the roar of laughter and you’d knowwhere Chris Farley was sitting. As Iremember, Chris didn’t really tell jokes.It was just who he was. He just wasfunny, being himself. People just likedhanging around him. I was his guidancecounselor, and I liked hanging aroundhim.

JOEL MATURI, dean ofdiscipline/head football

coach:His antics were never mean ordestructive. Chris did a lot of crazythings, but most of the stories of Chrisbeing in trouble at Edgewood are,unfortunately, fabricated. I say“unfortunately” because they sound veryentertaining many years later. There isone hilarious story about Chris and a nunthat I know for a fact just isn’t true.

NICK BURROWS:

We had a geometry teacher namedColonel McGivern. He was a retired airforce colonel. Back then we had alecture hall where all the kids would gofor these huge group lectures while thecolonel did equations and theorems onthis big overhead projector. Well, oneday Chris gets down in the aisle andbelly-crawls up to the front of the room.He gets to the stage stairs, waits forColonel McGivern to turn back to theprojector, and then sneaks up andaround, behind the curtain.

Now, Colonel McGivern had thisthing called the Groaner of the Day, areally bad, corny joke that he’d use toend each day’s lecture. He’d tell it, and

the kids would all groan because it wasso lame. So Chris waits, and just asColonel McGivern delivers his punchline, Chris drops his pants and moonsthe entire audience, sticking his rear endout between two folds in the curtain.Well, the whole place erupts withlaughter, and the colonel—who can’t seeChris—stands there scratching his head,going, “Jeez, I didn’t think it was thatfunny . . .” And then of course everyonereally loses it.

Some sophomore girl gets offended,and she rats Chris out. I get a call fromJoel Maturi, telling me that Chris hasdone this thing and needs to be punished.

“Nick, uh, are you familiar with the

term ‘hung a moon’?” he asks me.“Sure, Coach.”"Well, that’s what he did, and we need

to get his parents over here and sort thisout.”

So I call Mr. and Mrs. Farley, andthey come down to the office. I tell theFarleys about Chris hanging a moon andthe colonel and the Groaner of the Day,the whole story. And Mrs. Farley justbusts out laughing. She can’t stop. Then Istart laughing. Then Mr. Farley startslosing it, too. So here we all are dyinglaughing, waiting for the dean ofdiscipline to come down.

Now, Joel Maturi is a real straight-

arrow, buttoned-down kind of guy. Weall straighten up as he comes in with hisyellow legal pad where he’s got theincident written down. “Mr. and Mrs.Farley,” he says, very businesslike,sitting down, reading from his notes.“Ahem. Yes, it would appear, Mr. andMrs. Farley, that your son has ‘hung amoon’ in his geometry class.”

Mrs. Farley loses it again. She getsme laughing. Mr. Farley busts out again.And finally Maturi, as stiff as he is, hestarts laughing. We’re all roaring in myoffice. Finally, Maturi takes the legalpad, chucks it on the table, and says,“We’re just going to forget about thisone.”

It should have been a suspension, buthe threw it out because, quite frankly, weall thought it was too funny.

TOM FARLEY:Chris would show up in Room 217, thedetention hall, on a fairly regular basis,and Coach Maturi always seemed to belaughing under his breath, saying, “. . .dammit, Farley.”

When Chris was sorry, he wasgenuinely sorry. He’d be so guilty andremorseful, and he would always takehis punishment. He knew it was the priceto pay for getting the laugh. But before

that apology would come, he had to get alaugh and you had to admit that it wasfunny.

Chris’s bedroom was at the other endof the hallway from the bathroom, andlots of times he was just too lazy to getup and go. So what he did was he keptglasses in his bedroom. He’d pee inthose, and then take them down to thebathroom and empty them out once hewas ready to get up. Well, one time mymom found one of the glasses. We wereall sitting at the dinner table the next day,and she had told my dad about it. Dadwas so furious he didn’t know what todo. I mean, here was Chris peeing in ourdrinking glasses. Chris knew that Dad

knew, and Dad knew that Chris knewthat he knew, and there was dead silenceat the table. Everyone was waiting forthe other shoe to drop. Finally, Dadreaches over to take a sip of his water,and Chris goes, “You’re not gonna drinkout of that glass, are you?”

“Goddammit!”Chris knew what was coming, but he

had to get the laugh first.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris was such a natural talent that hewas always being asked by the teachersto try out for the school plays. But he

wouldn’t have any part of it. “That’s forpussies,” he’d say.

DAN HEALY:Madison is sports crazy. They’ll watchanything played with a ball. It wasn’tcool to do drama. In a perfect world Ithink Chris would have been about six-foot-three and played in the NFL. Iremember when we started freshmanfootball. It was a big deal at Edgewood.You knew making the football team wasa key part of fitting in. After one of thosefirst practices I heard this voice behindme say, “Well, my brother told me that if

I can start on ‘O,’ then I’ll probably starton ‘D.’ ”

I turned around, and there was Chris.He was already pretty overweight, andhe was wearing these saggy gray woolsocks with his football uniform.Everyone else was in bright whiteathletic socks, and here’s this chubby kiddressed kind of funny. I just thought, thispoor kid actually thinks he’s gonna play?But he did. And he was great.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris would play noseguard, andbecause I was his brother he’d want to

hit me pretty hard in practice. My God,he hit me good. A couple of times I thinkI practically blacked out. “God, youreally nailed me,” I’d say.

“I know,” he’d say. “I wanted to.”We were really competitive, and he

was a really good football player. Youcouldn’t move him because his legswere so powerful and he was so low tothe ground. He was a really goodinterior lineman. He just didn’t have theheight or the NFL build that he needed.

JOEL MATURI:Chris was like Rudy in that way, the kid

in that story from Notre Dame. I meanthat very honestly. He was all hustle.Chris would be the first one to jump intoa drill, first one to volunteer foranything. We were not a great footballprogram. I think his junior year we went5-5, and his senior year we went 6-4.But Chris always thought the glass washalf full. When other kids might havesaid something was impossible, Christhought it was possible. He alwaysbelieved. And that’s why you loved him.

MIKE CLEARY:Around Madison you played against

teams with these huge, enormous guyswho went on to Division One teams.They’d just steamroll right over you. Itwas so demoralizing. But with Chris onthe field, you’d never let that get to you.He’d never let you forget about havingfun, even when these future NFLers weregrinding your face into the mud.

PAT O’GARA, friend:When we played football, all the guyswould go in to take showers. And ofcourse all these sophomores andfreshmen were nervous about showeringwith the older guys. Chris would be in

there, in the showers, buck naked,curling his finger with a come-hitherlook at these kids going “Want somecandy?” It’d scare the crap out of them.It was always an interesting time whenChris would hit the showers. He had areputation of, well, exposing himself.All the time.

GREG MEYER:He was naked a lot.

PAT O’GARA:

Wasn’t ashamed at all. So, junior year, Iwas sitting in typing lab, practicing, andChris was sitting next to me. I said tohim, “Chris, I dare you to whip it out infront of this girl here.”

I’m typing away, and Chris just pullshis pants down and lays it out. I don’tthink twice about it. To me, I’m just like,“Jesus, what a sick bastard.”

And that was the end of it. Nothinghappened. Then, about a month later,Coach Maturi says to me, “I understandthat you dared Chris Farley to exposehimself to this girl.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I said that.”“Well, she’s been in therapy for about

a month now because she keeps havingflashbacks and has had a lot ofpsychological problems.”

A prank like that would normally justget you disciplined somehow, but thisgirl and her parents were making a realissue out of it. Chris wound up gettingexpelled.

TOM FARLEY:Dad, typically, said the school wasoverreacting. It was the school’s fault,not Chris’s. So rather than demoting himdown to public school, he was sent offto private boarding school, La Lumiere

in LaPorte, Indiana, for the rest of thesemester. Senior year they let him backin.

GREG MEYER:Chris was really, really pissed athimself, very disappointed to be leavingEdgewood. He’d do that thing out ofnowhere where he’d smack his head andgo, “Fuck! Idiot! Can’t believe I didthat.”

KEVIN FARLEY:

When he would get into trouble, even asa kid, it was like something would takecontrol of him that he couldn’t help butcut up and make people laugh, eventhough he knew he’d get in trouble for it.And he’d look back at whatever stupidthing he’d just done and be like, “Whydid I do that? Why did I get myself indetention just to get a laugh out of DanHealy?”

NICK BURROWS:The thing is, he was accepted by hisfriends and the other kids without all thecrazy behavior. Quite frankly, he didn’t

need it. But he felt that he needed it.Someone at Marquette told me a storyabout a time on a Monday morning oncampus. It was a dreary winter morning,and Chris all of a sudden just broke outrunning, dove into a snowbank, andstarted kicking his legs out in the air.Now, why would he feel compelled todo that?

GREG MEYER:He was always insecure about hisweight. He’d project this attitude of notcaring to everyone, but among the innercircle of guys, he talked about it quite a

lot. He said it was the worst thing in hislife.

TOM FARLEY:At some point, Chris started getting intohis share of fights. We were at abasketball game in Stoughton,Wisconsin. I was there with a girl, andword came up through the bleachers thatChris was down, just beaten andbloodied. Someone had called him afatty, and that was enough for Chris to gooff. We took him to the hospital andpatched him up. Ruined my date.

HAMILTON DAVIS:He was always fighting his weight, and Imean bad. He wanted to get with theguys who were lifting weights, wouldplay any sport. He just wanted thatweight off him so bad. We were both bigguys. One summer he was a cookie,working in the kitchen, and I was acounselor, and we went on this diettogether. We lost a bunch of weight,thirty pounds or so. He looked great.Chris always wanted to be mainstream,getting a girl and all that.

KIT SEELIGER, girlfriend:

I met Chris freshman year in high school.We had a lot of classes together, and wewere pals. For Valentine’s Day,Edgewood would do carnation sales.You could buy them for your girlfriendor whatever, and sophomore year Chrisbought me one and gave me a box ofcandy. I think, as far as high school goes,we were boyfriend and girlfriend then. Iwas a late bloomer. I didn’t have boysbeating down my door, by any means,and maybe I felt safe to him. I’m surethat probably had something to do withit.

We talked on the phone a lot. Then aswe got a little bit older we’d go out ondates and so forth. Chris was pretty

insecure when it came to dating andgirls, but the fact that we were friendsbeforehand made it a little bit easier.When his parents took him out ofEdgewood and sent him to La Lumiere,that’s when our relationship wasprobably the most serious. We talked onthe phone probably every single night.We wrote long letters, back and forth toeach other once or twice a week. We’dend each letter by writing, “I miss you somuch,” and it was a game to see howmany o’s you could put in the word “so.”It was all pretty innocent, really. For themost part, we were just good friends. Iknow he told me things that he never toldhis guy friends. He would say he loved

me, and things like that, things I know henever admitted to his friends that he’dsaid.

Then, the summer going into senioryear, Chris broke up with me. I wasshocked. But it was after a time when hehad started standing me up. My momcouldn’t stand Chris. She’d get so angryat the thought of my waiting around forhim. But around the time we broke up,things were really taking a turn for theworse.

PAT O’GARA:Toward the end of Chris’s junior year,

we were at a party one night at PeteKay’s house. Chris and I weredownstairs in the basement all alone. Iwas drinking something. Chris had abunch of beers, and he was justslamming them. I was like, “What areyou doing? Slow down. This isridiculous.”

But he went and got drunk. Iremember the next football practice onMonday he kept telling everyone,“O’Gara got me drunk!” He actually toldone of the assistant coaches, who waslike, “What the hell’d you do to Farley?”

That’s how it all started.

TODD GREEN:For the first two and a half years of highschool, Chris was adamantly againstdrinking or doing drugs of any kind.Totally and completely.

ROBERT BARRY:Chris didn’t drink until he was a junior,but the minute he did it was all over. Idon’t ever remember a time when Icould sit down with Chris and have “abeer” and have a conversation. It wasballs to the wall, all the time.

KEVIN FARLEY:The first time he got drunk, he came in,woke me up, and got into a fight withme. Then he woke up in the morning anddidn’t remember it, and I was like,“Whoa. What’s wrong here?”

It was the first sip he ever had, andthere was a complete personalitychange. Everybody was drinking in highschool, but nobody I knew had the kindof reaction he had. Chris was a fun guy,an outgoing guy, and it turned him intokind of a monster. It was like pouringgasoline on a fire. And I don’t think heliked it. He didn’t like being that guy, butat the same time he craved it.

And nobody talked about it. You don’tnarc on your brother. All I knew was thateveryone went out to the football gamesand went drinking. That’s what you did.We just thought, hey! Chris is so crazy!And there were other guys just as hard-core as he was, passed out at parties andall that.

He got in trouble a couple of times,but for the most part it just slid by. Wehad these bedrooms downstairs where itwas real easy to sneak out of the house.You could come and go, and you hadplenty of time to clean yourself upbefore you went upstairs and saw thefolks. I don’t know how much they knewwhat was really going on. They didn’t

know. They didn’t want to know.

TOM FARLEY:Drinking was okay in our house. Therewas alcoholism on my mom’s side of thefamily. On my dad’s side, well, it wasWisconsin. You drank first and askedquestions later. Our father was “a coupleof tumblers of scotch a night” guy. Fromearly on, we all knew what five o’clockmeant. It was all right out there in theopen.

The drinking age was eighteen, whicheffectively made it sixteen, so for us togo out and drink in high school was no

big deal. All you did in Madison onFriday nights was cruise around, eat,drink, and then everyone would end upat Rocky’s Pizza. Whenever we wentout, Dad would call us into the livingroom and dole out twenty-dollar bills toall of us. “C’mon in here!” he’d say.“Here you go. Buy a round for the boyson me!”

“But we’re only seventeen.”“Be careful!”We’d all walk out the door, head right

down to Vic Pierce’s liquor store, andcharge a six-pack on Dad’s account. Youwere ready to go. Chris was verygenerous, and Dad always made sure wehad the means to be generous. It was part

of being a Farley.

TODD GREEN:Mr. Farley always made you feel like amillion bucks as soon as you walked inthe door of that house. It was always,“Hey! How ya doin’?!” All theEdgewood guys, we loved Mr. Farley,loved him.

DAN HEALY:You heard all these stories about Mr.Farley being friendly with Joseph

McCarthy and all these very powerful,conservative people in Wisconsin. Hetalked it and walked it.

TOM FARLEY:My dad created an image for himself. Hewas always dressed in a custom-tailoredblue blazer and slacks, perfectlystarched shirt and tie. It was always,“Hey, Dad looks great! Check out hisnew blazer!” And, of course, nocomment that the blazer was a size sixty-five because Dad was hitting fourhundred pounds.

ROBERT BARRY:He was an overwhelming personality.Just a loud, gregarious guy. His wholebusiness was going around schmoozingpeople all over the state, and he wasvery good at it. The Farleys had thisimage they projected, living in MapleBluff, having the status symbols. Theywould do a lot of different things tocover their problems up. But when youlook at the family now, you can see howmuch of a façade it all was.

JOHN FARLEY:

Maple Bluff was a fantasyland, a placewhere there weren’t any consequences.What we’d do in the Farley household,back in the eighties, back when everyonedrank, was we had fun. We’d party andlaugh. We’d put on little comedysketches with each other. We weren’ttrying to be comedians; we were justdoing what came naturally and what weliked to do, just joking around. Didn’tknow drinking was bad for you. Didn’thave a clue. We grew up in a time and aplace where at five o’clock every day,everyone would break out the cocktails.We thought it was normal. Put a gun toour heads, we thought it was normal.

TOM FARLEY:We lived in a make-believe world. Wewere living with the elephant in theroom—the literal elephant in the room—that no one wanted to talk about. My dadweighed six hundred pounds by the timehe died. But Dad wasn’t overweight.Dad didn’t drink too much. Dad was justDad. We didn’t talk about it amongourselves, and we certainly didn’t talkabout it with anyone else.

Mom was really the only one toacknowledge what was going on withChris. She was the voice in thewilderness, and for years there wasnobody else on board with her.

“What’s wrong with Chris?”“Your mother and I are handling it.”And that was as far as it went for a

long, long time. Nobody was willing toface the truth. Nobody confronted Chrisabout his problem, because doing sowould have meant acknowledging thatDad had a problem—that we all had aproblem.

CHAPTER 3

An EpiphanyDICK WENZELL:As an actor, it took me a long time tolearn how to let the character take meover, to lose myself in it. I think Chrisfigured that out very early in life, andhe could hide himself by being anybodyelse that he wanted to be.After Chris’s expulsion and subsequentstint at La Lumiere prep school, he wasallowed to return to Edgewood for thewhole of his senior year. He graduatedin the spring of 1982 with little direction

beyond a vague sense that he might oneday work in the family business. ButChris’s father firmly believed that all ofhis children should receive a Catholiceducation, and so Chris found himselfenrolled at Marquette, a Jesuit universityin Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Though Chris’s grades did not makethe cut for admission, they did qualifyhim for the university’s FreshmanFrontiers Program, a preliminarysummer school in which students couldearn their way into the incoming class.Together with high school friend DanHealy, Chris entered the program,passed, and began regular course workin the fall.

It has been said that college is less aplace for academic achievement andmore a rite of passage through which todiscover oneself. By that standard,Chris’s years at Marquette were aringing success. As always, he wonfriends easily, especially among theMarquette rugby team—the gung-ho,gonzo athletes who would become his adhoc fraternity. Given the preferences ofhis father, and lacking any clear ones ofhis own, Chris started out in the businessstudies program. Bored anddisinterested, he did not do well.However, as his understanding of histalents grew, he changed course anddedicated himself to a career in acting

and comedy. Though his early attempts atperformance were frequently clumsy,Chris kept at it with a dedication he hadpreviously shown only in his footballuniform.

As a Jesuit institution, Marquetteteaches its students to pursue knowledgeand personal growth not only for theirown self-advancement but also for theglory of God and service to others.Chris’s four years in Milwaukee wouldgive him the opportunity to do preciselythat.

JIM MURPHY, friend:

When he first came to Marquette, he wasa very preppy guy. Super preppy. Hewould always have his hair combed andalways had polo shirts and khakis andTop-Siders. Then over time he wouldtake those Ralph Lauren button-downoxfords and he’d rip the sleeves off.Then, in the next phase, the khakisbecame army fatigues and the oxfordsturned into flannel shirts. It was the samething everyone did in college. We allkind of came in as one thing and left asanother.

FR. MATT FOLEY, friend:

The first time I saw Chris was on therugby pitch. I was the president of therugby team, and a sophomore. He was afreshman. He was wearing some kind ofobnoxious chartreuse-colored polo shirtwith argyle shorts and gym shoes. I wasdrawn to him right away because Ithought, oh, this poor soul is going to gethis ass kicked. The guys on the rugbyteam are a little rough, and here comesthe preppy, portly kid. But he hustled andmade many friends in no time because hewas such a classic character.

One of the great things about Chriswas that he was so very generous.Marquette would play Madison everyyear in rugby, so we went out there that

fall. We’d been drinking all day, andChris was like, “Let’s all go over to myplace!”

We get there, and Mr. Farley and Mrs.Farley are just the most gracious hosts.All these drunk, dirty rugby guys arerunning around their house—this isaround one in the morning—and Mrs.Farley is going, “Oh, you boys! Let memake some sandwiches.” And she justbrought out all these beautifulsandwiches.

We rode back to Milwaukee in theback of a pickup, freezing our asses off.It had a camper top on it, but it wasn’tvery warm. The bars in Madison closedat one, but the bars at Marquette didn’t

close until three. You could close thebars in one town and still make it toclose the bars in the other. That’s therugby mentality at its finest.

KEVIN FARLEY:When I got to Marquette, Chris had onlybeen there two years, and he wasalready a legend, flat out the funniest guyon campus, and that really grew out ofthe rugby parties. The Avalanche was atypical Milwaukee bar. That’s where therugby players would go party after theirgames. It had a great jukebox and acouple of pool tables. They had fifty-

cent Red, White and Blue beers. Whenyou finished your bottle, you threw itagainst the back wall of the bar.

Chris started doing this thing after thegames: naked beer slides. Everyone inthe bar would pour out their beer andhe’d take off all his clothes and take arunning start and slide across the barlike Pete Rose coming into home base.The Avalanche is long gone, but peoplestill do it. It’s something of a Marquettetradition. People have built a legendaround it.

JIM MURPHY:

It got to a point where every teamcoming in to play Marquette had heardabout the beer slides and wanted to seethem. Chris would start to take hisclothes off, going, “Aw, man. Why do Ialways have to do this?” But he’d kindof set the tone early, and he always hadto live up to himself.

PAT FINN, friend:Any time during a game that there was alull, or any opportunity for a laugh,you’d just look over at Chris. One game,we file in for this line out. Everyone iswaiting for the inbound pass. Chris kind

of looks over and then pulls up his pantsinto his ass like a thong. The whole otherteam just turns and stares, like, “Whatthe hell’s with this guy?” Then, with thewhole team distracted, Chris takes thepass and gets about twenty yards on theplay. He was always hilarious.

DAN HEALY:Freshman year of college, a group of ushad done a road trip for some winterfestival. It was freezing, snoweverywhere, and we were goofingaround, diving and playing in the snow.And while we were all screwing

around, Chris just stopped cold. Hestopped, and he turned to me and said, “Ithink I can make people laugh.”

He’d had an epiphany, literally. Hewas starting to realize that he had thisability, a calling in life.

FR. MATT FOLEY:He saw his talent as a gift from God—there’s no doubt about that. I went awayto seminary after his freshman year, butone thing I found fascinating about him inthose two semesters was that he had atremendous faith life, devoted anddisciplined. He was not evangelical; he

didn’t preach about it, but it wassomething in the fiber of his soul.

At Marquette, there’s the Joan of ArcChapel, this beautiful chapel broughtover stone by stone from Europe, andthey have a daily mass. Inevitably, youwould find Chris there, disheveled andpartied out and just sort of scruffy.There’s not a doubt in my mind that hewas in church more than any otherstudent on that campus, at least three orfour times a week.

PAT FINN:After I met Chris, we signed up for a

class called the Philosophy of Humor.We thought, could there be an easier A? Idon’t know why we thought that, sincewe’d never gotten an A before. Truth betold, Chris got a D. But Father Nauss,who taught the class, gave us each acopy of “A Clown’s Prayer.” The lastlines go, “Never let me forget that mytotal effort is to cheer people, make themhappy, and forget momentarily all theunpleasantness in their lives. / And inmy final moment, may I hear Youwhisper: ‘When you made My peoplesmile, you made Me smile.’ ” It meant alot to us, and we kept it in our wallets.

There were times, for instance, whenChris and I’d be on the highway, going

through a tollbooth. He’d do a bit infront of the tollbooth taker, and it’d makethe guy laugh. At first you were kind oflike, oh, that was a little weird. But onthe other hand it was like, you know, hejust made that guy’s day. That guy’sgonna go home and tell his wife, “Yeah,this big guy came through in a car todayand did this thing with the steering wheel. . .”

One of the cool things about Chris,and one of the noble things about Chris,is that if he made somebody’s day better,if he could ease the pain and sadness inthe world just a bit, that was why he felthe was here.

MARK HERMACINSKI,friend:

The thing about Chris was that he alwaysmade all of us feel like we were thefunny ones. He always listened andanything you’d throw out there, he’dbounce it back as a joke, so he madeeveryone feel like they were a part ofwhat was going on. Even if you’re not acomedian, it’s fun to sit around and laughtogether, and he could pull the humor outof you.

MICHAEL PRICE, dean,

College ofCommunications:

I was going through the studentregistrations for the spring semester ofhis sophomore year, and I saw that Chrishadn’t preregistered. I called him in. Hesaid he really didn’t want to be thereanymore. He didn’t want to be in school,period. I said, “Chris, what do you wantto do?”

“I want to be at Second City,” he said.“It’s a comedy company in Chicago.”

“Well, I can certainly see you doingthat,” I said, “but why don’t we talk itover with your folks? See what theysay.”

He seemed a little reluctant to evenbring this subject up with them. Hisfather wanted him to go into business.But Chris and his parents came down tomy office. We talked about what Chriswanted. I said, “You guys talk it over,and I’ll be right outside.”

When I came back in, the decisionwas made. Chris would remain atMarquette. He could drop the businessstudies major, and he’d major incommunications studies and minor intheater. Then, if he graduated, theywould support his wishes to do what hewanted. Onward he went.

PAT FINN:Chris and I took this professionalspeaking class together. The teacherwould give you a topic, like a how-tospeech or a “talk about a relative”speech. Then you would have to write athree- or eight-minute talk.

The first one was fine, but we boththought it was a little easy. We weresitting at lunch right before the nextclass, and one of us said, “Hey, whydon’t we make up each other’s topicsand go improvise it?”

So that’s what we did. Our speechwas supposed to be on our summer job.Chris decided that I’d spent the summer

repairing air conditioners. I told Christhat he’d been a carny in the circus.

Chris got up with nothing but a blanksheet of paper and said, “Hi, I’m Chris.This summer I spent three months as acarny with the circus.” And he juststarted telling stories. How he fell inlove with the fat lady, made out with amidget. The class stared at him. It wasamazing to watch, because you knew itwas complete fiction.

After those speech classes, Chris andI were determined. We wanted to “docomedy,” but what that meant we didn’tactually know. If you want to be alawyer you go talk to somebody’s uncle.But it wasn’t like we could call up Bob

Newhart and ask him. We’d sit and listento National Lampoon albums. We’dwatch Saturday Night Live, DavidLetterman. We’d do everything we couldto see anybody do anything funny.

JIM MURPHY:Chris and I both had these things that wewere pretty passionate about, art andcomedy, but we were at a Catholicliberal arts school in Wisconsin, not theplace most conducive to learning thesethings. Fortunately Marquette actuallydid have a healthy theater program. Thebig thing for Chris was when he got a

part in the school play. It was SamShepard’s Curse of the Starving Class.It kind of got him going.

TOM FARLEY:Growing up, we didn’t have a lot ofchoices: you played sports. But atMarquette a dean said to Chris, “Whydon’t you try out for one of the plays?”

Chris was like, “Guys don’t do that.”But he did it anyway and eventually

found out that he wasn’t an athlete whohappened to be kind of funny. He was anactor who happened to be very athletic.

MICHAEL PRICE:Dance was a part of the theaterrequirement. If you’re going to be atheater minor or major, you gotta do that.So Chris took ballet. You know, hemoved well. He was large, but he wasnot a slouch. He was great. SheilaReilly, the ballet teacher, had a dresscode and it was pretty stringent, and Ithink Chris got by without having toabide by that. He may be one of the firststudents she ever allowed to wearsweats instead of tights.

KEVIN FARLEY:

It was a very formative time for him.After he moved out of the dorms, he anda bunch of his rugby pals lived in thisbig piece-of-shit house up on NineteenthStreet. They called it the Red House. Itwas a hellhole.

JOHN FARLEY:Whenever I’d walk into the Red HouseI’d say, “Well, well, well. Looks likesomebody forgot there’s a rule againstalcoholic beverages in fraternities onprobation.” It was just disgusting. Dadrefused to go in for basic sanitaryreasons. Everything had a touch of

something on it. Odd smell, too.

JIM MURPHY:One of our roommates was theBudweiser rep on campus, so everythingwas Budweiser, signs and cupseverywhere. Chris’s room was at the topof the stairs. Any time your parentswould come, it was the first room they’dsee. He was such a slob, food andclothes everywhere. There’d be all thesefruit flies and it was, well, let’s just sayit was college.

MARK HERMACINSKI:We put Farley close to the bathroom, butthat didn’t help much.

KEVIN FARLEY:The bathroom was unspeakable. One ofthe things that made Chris a legend onthat campus was his room, simply thefact that a human being could survive inthere. People would come over just tolook at it.

JIM MURPHY:

We were pretty poor, so we didn’t turnon the heat until after Thanksgiving to tryand save money. It was so cold. We hada rugby awards banquet there. We kindof cleaned it all up and everyone broughtdates. The girls all came in dresses, andthey were freezing. We had a bucket forice so we could make cocktails. We putit out on Friday night. By Sunday night,the ice hadn’t melted.

The other thing I remember about theRed House was every couple of monthsChris’s mom and dad—this beingWisconsin—would send him a twenty-five-pound summer sausage and atwenty-five-pound wheel of cheese. Anytime you’d look in the refrigerator there

was never anything inside it except thisgigantic sausage and this huge wheel ofcheese.

MARK HERMACINSKI:The kitchen was all infested with fliesand maggots. After two months we justclosed the door. But we had a lot of fun.Since we had the campus Budweiserrep, they’d pull up the truck with ten,fifteen kegs and we’d have a party withfive hundred of our closest friends.Chris always drew a crowd. Whereverhe was, in Madison, on a rugby roadtrip, he’d have a crowd around him in

minutes.

TOM FARLEY:The place where Chris really learnedhow to be this galvanizing figure was atRed Arrow camp. It was like a graduateschool in male bonding. Every summerin college we all went back ascounselors, and every summer all thekids and the other counselors, they’drally around Chris.

FRED ALBRIGHT:

The kids loved him. How could you not?Every year, he was one of the mostpopular counselors. Chris had this verysensitive, sweet side to him, anempathetic side that helped himcommunicate with kids in this amazingway.

DICK WENZELL:He could take any old boring activityand make it a fun, exciting experience. Ifyou were eight years old, digging forearthworms with Chris was the most funyou ever had. He’d just hypnotize thesekids. “We’re digging for monsters, boys!

Oh! Hey! I found a big one!” And he’dlead them off on this grand adventure.And that’s the same thing he did with anaudience.

RANDY HOPPER,counselor, Red Arrow

Camp:Chris came to life around those kids. Hewas the biggest kid there. We had thisflag-football game called the SaladBowl. When it was time for the biggame, Chris would get up there in frontof the boys and give them a pep talk thatconvinced them that this was the game of

their lives. He’d get them all riled up.He’d be waving fistfuls of bacon, going,“Sooweee! Love them Hogs!” doing hisbig, high-school-coach motivationalspeech. In ten minutes, he’d have thirtykids so riveted and excited to be playingin this game that the Super Bowl wouldpale by comparison. His ability toconnect with people was uncanny.

FRED ALBRIGHT:He couldn’t talk to girls, though. Aroundgirls, Chris’d hide behind his jokes.He’d start flexing and doing this jokey,deep-voice, macho-man thing to try and

hit on them. One night we’re out at a barnear the camp and he goes up to thesewomen and says, “Well, which one ofyou little ladies is gonna go home withme tonight?”

And one of the women looks at himand says, “Well, it can’t be me, becauseyou’re my son’s counselor.”

Chris felt so small after that you justabout could’ve balled him up and puthim in a thimble.

He had one girl that he had met upnorth in Minocqua during the summer.She really adored Chris. They’d kidaround, and it was like they werebuddies, but Chris had this greaterattraction to her. He would talk to me

every day about how he’d had somemoment with her. I see her now fairlyoften, and she didn’t even realize that hewas so completely enthralled with her.

TIM HENRY:Being a camp counselor was all aboutworking the girls from the other camps.If you played your cards right you couldgo out several nights a week, but thegirls were only allowed to go out onenight a week. So you always had onelittle honey from each camp.

RANDY HOPPER:We’d all go out in the woods, have a bigbonfire, and it was all about trying toscore. That was the game. Chris was nottoo adept at that, not usually. But hewould entertain everyone.

TIM HENRY:It would always piss Tom off, becauseChris didn’t know when to stop. We’dbe out in the woods, Tom would beworking his magic on some girl, about toclose the deal, and Chris would comebarreling through the campsite fucking

around. Then Tom would have to tell meto fuck off because I was laughing sohard.

TOM FARLEY:One night, these two girls I knew fromGeorgetown had come all the way upfrom Chicago to visit. Chris was so outof control, and he wouldn’t turn it off.These were nice girls, and one of them Iwas really trying to get serious with.They were getting annoyed, reallyoffended. He wouldn’t stop, and Icouldn’t take it anymore. I lost it. Hewas acting up and running around, and I

grabbed him and I beat the shit out ofhim, just whaled on him, punching him inthe face. He was crying so hard hecouldn’t even fight back. He was soscared. The next day he showed up atmass black and blue and bloodied allover.

TIM HENRY:Chris so wanted to be with one of thosegirls, but he would always go back towhat was safe. He would revert to theguy who’s had too many beers and gotsilly. Most nights the parties would goreally late. As the hours wore on,

everybody would start to drift away andpair off out in the woods, and therewould be Chris, alone by the campfire.

DAN HEALY:I only stayed at Marquette for a year.After that, I transferred to University ofWisconsin. That sophomore year was acrucial time for Chris. I started to hearstories about him drinking alone in hisroom, which was weird. We werealways big social drinkers, but never thesit-alone-in-your-room kind of drinkers.The Marquette rugby team came intoMadison one time. We all went out and

drank, and then afterward I made a pointof saying to Chris, “What’s going on? Ihear you’re really going off the deepend.” He backed away immediately. Hedidn’t want anything to do with thatconversation.

JIM MURPHY:Then, during our junior year in the RedHouse, Chris read that book about JohnBelushi, Wired.

MARK HERMACINSKI:

Wired was the only book that ChrisFarley read in college. The only one.

JIM MURPHY:For our spring break that year, me,Chris, and this other guy went to L.A.We had a couch to crash on, and Chriswas really developing an appetite forthis career he wanted. We went arounddoing all the Hollywood tourist stuff,and the whole time Chris was like,“Jimmy, I really think I can do this.”

I’m a huge fan of Buster Keaton andall those early physical comedians. Onetime I was trying to turn Chris on to Fatty

Arbuckle. So I made him sit down andwatch one of Arbuckle’s films. At theend of it, the only thing Chris said to mewas, “Wow, Jimmy, he did all of hisown stunts.” He fixated on this one thingabout Arbuckle, and that was all hereally took away from it. And that’s sortof what happened with Belushi. WhenChris read Wired, he just tookcompletely the wrong thing away from it.You could tell that what he saw inBelushi and what you and I saw inBelushi were two different things. Chriswasn’t blindly imitating Belushi, butreading that book validated all theaddictions and impulses that Chrisalready had inside him.

Chris didn’t smoke pot freshman orsophomore year, didn’t do any drugs atall, other than drinking. Then all of asudden that year it clicked. I have thisvivid memory of him in his room oneday. While everybody else was going toclass, he sat in this chair with a big redbong. He sat there doing bong hits andchugging Robitussin cough syrup. Backand forth. One after another.

At that point you could see where itwas going. I’d try to explain to him, youknow, that you can only get so high. It’slike pouring water into a glass. You canpour in all you want. After a while, it’sall just spilling over the sides. But itwas the same thing no matter what he

did. It was the same when he tried pot,or when he tried mushrooms, or when hetried comedy.

PAT FINN:The first place Chris and I ever got upand performed together was during oursenior year in a skinny bar in a badneighborhood in downtown Milwaukee.It was called Wimpy’s Hunt Club, and ithad an open-mike night at midnight. Thestage was literally twelve milk cratesturned over in the corner. There wereabout nine people in the audience, allfactory workers on break from the

brewery. Tough crowd.Chris and I went up there, and it was

like when you’re in middle school andyou go on a date and you don’t reallyknow what you’re supposed to do. Itwas that awkward, and that bad. Webombed. We signed up to do it again thenext week. Then we found out that abunch of Marquette students were goingto be there. We chickened out and didn’tgo. Everyone got real mad at us.

Finally we signed up for the Follies,the school talent show. We got anactress, and we decided we’d do aparody of The Dating Game. JimMurphy was the host, and another friendof ours, Seamus, was the third bachelor.

We kept on meaning to get together andwork, and we’d talk about it every oncein a while, but we never had any ideawhat we were doing. Then about a weekbefore the show the girl quit school andmoved to Chicago, and we figured we’djust blow the thing off.

But the night of the Follies, I was overat Chris’s house and we were hangingout. About fifteen, twenty minutes into it,and we get a phone call from the stagemanager. “Where the hell are you guys?You better get down here. People arepretty pissed. They want to see you—and they’re screaming for Farley.”

We hopped on our bikes and rodeover. It was way bigger than we thought

it was going to be. There were at least acouple thousand people there. The showhad three more acts to go before itended. “You’re goin’ after this singer,”the stage manager told us.

Chris just goes, “All right, Jim, you’rethe emcee.” He looked over at Seamus,who had overalls on. “Seamus, you’refarmer guy.” Then he flicked my collarup on my shirt, unbuttoned a button, andsaid, “And Finner, you’re cool guy.”

“Okay. What about you?” I asked.He pulled out these nerdy glasses and

said, “I’ll be nerdy guy. Let’s go.”Jim went out, made up some intro,

brought out Seamus, and they did a funny

little Q&A. Then I went out, doing this“cool guy” walk, hopped on my stool,and answered some questions. Therewas no girl, mind you, just the host andthree male contestants, but that becamepart of the gag.

Then Jim said, “All right, let’s bringout the next guy.” The spotlight hit Chriscoming out of the curtain. He ran as fastas he could and then tripped and slidacross the entire length of the stage. Theplace went berserk. Then he went overto his stool, clumsily knocking it over.He finally clambered on and then fellright off. It was insane. The audienceloved it.

As soon as it was over, Chris and I

ran backstage, and I remember he justgrabbed me by the shirt and he lookedright in my eyes and said, “We’re gonnabe doing this for the rest of our lives.That was the greatest high I’ve ever feltin my life.”

MICHAEL PRICE:In the spring of Chris’s senior year, wegot one of those rare days when you canopen windows, be outside, and throw aball around. There was this white houseon Kilborn Avenue where all these girlslived. Chris had a cherry smoke bomb.He lit it and put it on the open

windowsill, thinking the smoke woulddrive everyone out and it’d be a goodprank. But he forgot that when you lightthose things they twirl around and spinout of control. Well, it spun off andlanded on their couch. And it burned. Imean, it really burned. Pretty soon thehouse was on fire, and it was spreadingto the second floor. Chris figured he’dbetter get the heck out of there. So hetook off with a friend, and they wentdown to Illinois, just across the border.

The next morning I got to work aboutseven, my phone rang and it was thepolice department. They werewondering if Chris was around. I calledthe Red House, and they said Chris

wasn’t there. I hung up, and then, aboutfifteen minutes later, two of the RedHouse guys showed up at my office.They said they couldn’t talk to me on thephone because their line had beentapped. I said, “Oh, come on. You guysare outta your mind.”

They told me where he was. I calledhim in Illinois. I talked to him and toldhim to come back. Then I called hisfolks in Madison. They asked me to givethem the name of a lawyer inMilwaukee, so I did. Between thelawyer and his parents it was decidedthat Chris would come to my office, wewould all meet there, and then he wouldgo and turn himself in.

I called the police department, and Itold them what the lawyer told me to say,that I knew where Chris was and hewould come down there on his own thenext day. Chris came back. The attorneytook care of things. And after manyweeks of delayed hearings and so on,Chris came away from it with a“dangerous use of firearms” charge, orsomething like that. He ended up withabout thirty hours of community service,but he couldn’t get his diploma.In Tommy Boy, Chris’s partying, rugby-playing alter ego graduated fromMarquette in seven years. In the realworld, Chris squeaked out in four and ahalf. As a result of the smoke-bomb

incident, he was put on probation, anduniversity policy did not allow studentson probation to graduate. However, hewas allowed to walk in the graduationceremony with his classmates, completehis course work at the University ofWisconsin in the fall, and receive aMarquette diploma the followingDecember.

Forced to return to Madison forschool, Chris moved into an apartmentdowntown, close to many of his highschool friends who had never left.Between finishing his classes andperforming wherever and whenever hecould, Chris took the only job offer hehad. He went to work for his father.

MIKE CLEARY:To understand Chris you have tounderstand something about Madison.Madisonians tend to be very educated,very literate, and upwardly mobile, but Iwould say that seventy-five percent ofthem have never seen the ocean. And I’mnot kidding. Madison’s got everythingyou need—that’s the default mentalityhere. And Chris came back in large partbecause the family discouraged him fromdoing anything else.

TOM FARLEY:

Dad always wanted all of us home. Itwas almost like, “You can’t make it outeast, and so you don’t need to try it.”Kevin bought into that at first, and Chrisdid for a while, too. Dad had tried itwith me. After I left Georgetown, I said,“Hey, all my buddies are going up toNew York. That’s where I want to go.”

Dad sat me down and said, “You’llnever make it.”

“Watch me,” I said. And I left.Dad and I butted heads throughout our

lives. If he said something was blue, Isaid it was red. Chris was the opposite.Everything he did was to please Dad. Atthat point, he had done the plays atMarquette, but he really had no idea of

how to go about making that into apossible career. Dad just said flat out,“No one’s going to offer you a job.You’d better come work for me.” SoChris went to work for Dad, but itwasn’t a two-man job, so there wasn’t awhole lot for him to do. The job wasreally a joke.

KEVIN FARLEY:When Chris finally left and I came in totake over the job, we opened up thedrawers of his desk and there wasnothing in it but Cracked and Madmagazines.

JOHN FARLEY:What did Chris do for my dad? Hell,what did my dad do? No one reallyknew. He’d take people to dinner,entertain them, and they’d buy stuff fromhim. That was our notion of work. Daddidn’t really have to sell his product. Hewas selling roads. Everyone needsroads, and all roads are basically thesame. Oil plus gravel equals road. Thefunniest, nicest, coolest guy was going toget the bid from the county, and therewas no better guy to hang out with thanmy dad. Add Chris to the mix and theycould sell anybody anything.

My grandfather was a salesman, and

some days he had to go on fourbreakfasts, going town to town to town.Then he’d have to go to all theselunches, and then come home and have adinner. It was the same for my dad. Mydad knew every restaurant, every bar inWisconsin. You’d drive by some placeway the hell out in the middle ofnowhere, and Dad would be like, “Theycan sauté a mushroom like nobody’sbusiness. Good cheese-burgers. ”

My dad’s clients were these farmers,these down-home guys from rural townswho just happened to sit on the countyhighway commission handing outmultimillion-dollar contracts to paveroads. The big thrill of their month was

when Tom Farley would drive out fromMadison and take them out for aschmooze and a steak dinner. You knowthose square pats of butter they keep onthe table? Farmers in Wisconsin eatthose like appetizers, like a predinnermint. Just open ’em up and eat ’em.Sweet Jesus that’s insane, but it’s a veryWisconsin thing.

Sit. Eat. Talk. Drink. That was thebusiness. It was about putting on a show,buying the round of scotches, prime ribfor everyone. That’s the key to who theFarleys are. We’d rather see a smile onsomeone’s face, even if it meant hurtingourselves. I don’t know why we did, butwe did.

TOM FARLEY:Chris was a great entertainer of clients,but for Dad to keep paying him twentygrand a year just to go to lunch was a bitmuch. So Chris started doing these openmikes at the student union. He bombed,failed miserably. He was getting up atthe liberal, progressive University ofWisconsin and telling crude lesbianjokes. That went over like a fart inchurch. He’d get heckled and booed.Then he found improv at the Ark.

TODD GREEN:

Chris, Greg Meyer, and me all livednear each other downtown. And onenight Chris said, “Guys, we gotta go tothis thing, the Ark.”

All through our childhood we alwaysknew that Chris was going to dosomething. We just didn’t know what.That night they were doing some skit andthey needed audience participation.Chris started to get into it, and hecompletely stole the show from theperformers. That was the start of thewhole thing.

DENNIS KERN, director,

Ark ImprovisationalTheater:

Chris always spoke fondly of his days atthe Ark, and I was always veryappreciative of that. We sort of took himin off the street—quite literally—andgave him a home. He showed up at thetheater one night after a show andstumbled in through the door. He was sodrunk he could barely even formcoherent sentences. He was just goingon, like, “Wanna do . . . comedy . . .improv, I wanna—gotta do this . . .”

I could barely understand him. To behonest, I thought he might be retarded. Ididn’t think he’d remember anything that

I told him, so I said, “Look, we’rehaving a rehearsal tomorrow. Why don’tyou come by and join us then?” Then Ishowed him out the door, thinking thatwas the end of the whole episode.

The next day I got a call from mywife, who was at the theater. “Did youtell some big guy that he could come toour rehearsal today?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “but I didn’t think he’dactually show up.”

“Well, he’s here. And he brought acase of beer.”

CHAPTER 4

Attacking the Stage

BRIAN STACK, cast member, ArkImprovisational Theater:Keith Richards said that the first timehe heard rock and roll it was like thewhole world went from black-and-whiteto Technicolor. That’s how Chris alwaysseemed to describe finding comedy.

As a city, Madison, Wisconsin, hassomething of a split personality. On theone hand, it’s a typical Midwestern townwith no shortage of beer, football, andcompetitive bratwurst eating. On the

other hand, thanks largely to theUniversity of Wisconsin, Madisoncarries with it a long history of liberal,even radical, politics. Wisconsingovernor and U.S. senator RobertLaFollette launched his left-wingProgressive Party in Madison. And inthe late sixties and early seventies, theuniversity itself saw some of thecountry’s most violent antiwar protests,culminating in the bombing of theschool’s Army Mathematics ResearchCenter at Sterling Hall.

In such a hothouse politicalenvironment, a small but vibrant artscommunity was bound to spring up aswell. It would still be a few years

before enterprising UW students hatchedthe Onion, the satirical newspaper thateventually found its way to Internet fameand glory. In Chris’s day, if you lived inMadison and had a notion to seek acareer in comedy, you went to the Ark.

Dennis and Elaine Kern founded theArk Improvisational Theater in Madisonin 1982. Both professional actors anddirectors, they had left New York Citydetermined to do theater on their ownterms and, God forbid, actually make aliving at it. For its first two years, theArk staged weekly shows at a local bar,Club de Wash, and offered classes inimprov and acting. It quickly becamerecognized as a stepping-stone for those

on their way to greater opportunities inneighboring Chicago. Joan Cusack, whohad joined the cast of Saturday NightLive in 1985, was among the Ark’salumni.

As the theater grew more established,the Kerns purchased a defunctdowntown building that had once houseda Brinks truck garage. They gutted it andinstalled a small one-hundred-seattheater. It was that converted garage thatChris Farley stumbled into late one nightin August of 1986. For over twentyyears, he had been a performer in searchof a stage. He had finally found it.

JODI COHEN, director/castmember, Ark

Improvisational Theater:I was there the day that Chris came toaudition. I forget what the scene was, butas part of it he fell out of his chair and—smack—landed on the ground. Ithought he’d really had a heart attack.My first reaction was: Is the theaterinsured for this? What’s going tohappen? That’s how convincing this fallwas.

Elaine and I didn’t want him in thecompany. He seemed like a wild card,and he didn’t seem very focused. ButDennis said, “This guy is really talented.

He should be in the group.” We formed acompany called Animal Crackers, andChris performed with them.

BRIAN STACK:I had never met anyone like him before.He had such incredible enthusiasm ineverything he did. One thing that getslost a lot is that when it came to thework, he was always very serious aboutit. He was always on time for rehearsal.In fact, he was usually there beforeeverybody else. I never, ever rememberhim being late for a show.

I don’t know if Chris had ADD, but

people who have a lack of focus, when itcomes to something they’re passionateabout, they hyperfocus. Chris wascertainly like that when it came to acting.Our group’s shows were mostly short-form, game-oriented improv with a lot ofaudience suggestions. But we also didsome sketch-type stuff, and Chris wasgreat with both of them. He was just ablast to work with from day one.

One thing that always amazed me washis ability to do things that if I had donethem would have put me in the hospital,and then he’d get right up from them. Hecould slam into walls and slam down onthe stage. He was such a natural athlete.He was almost like a ballet dancer. Even

though Chris is known for being a greatphysical comedian, some of my favoritethings were the subtle little characters hewould do.

DENNIS KERN:The Motivational Speaker appearedonstage for the first time at the Ark. Itwasn’t the same as on Saturday NightLive, but it was there in its infant form.

PAT O’GARA:The Motivational Speaker actually

started back in high school and wasbased heavily on our coach, Joel Maturi,who would go off on these inspirationalspeeches. He’d be prepping us for thegame, briefing us on the other team’sdefense and all that, and Chris would beright there behind him, imitating him,making all these faces and forcing us allto laugh.

JOEL MATURI:The Motivational Speaker is based inpart on me; there is some truth to that.Mostly some of my mannerisms, thehiking up the pants, the spreading the

legs and crouching down to get serious. Iwas pretty vocal with the pep talks andthe Knute Rockne speeches. Those kindsof things. I think the more philosophicalside of the character was actually basedon his dad.

DENNIS KERN:We taught Chris the basics of improv andscene work at the Ark, but the naturaltalent he had was already present. As aperformer, he was just there in themoment, like Johnny Carson used to beon the Tonight Show. What Carson wasso brilliant at was just reacting and

responding naturally to the environmentaround him in a way that made youlaugh. Chris had those same instincts. Hejust knew what to do.

BRIAN STACK:He could do the same thing fifty timesand somehow always make it funny. If apretty woman walked by he would dropand start doing push-ups, starting out “. .. 198 . . . 199 . . . 200.” I’d seen him dothat lots of times. It shouldn’t have beenfunny to me anymore, yet it always was.It’s hard to explain why it was; it justwas. You could videotape it and analyze

it with a computer, like you would a golfswing, but you still wouldn’t understandit, and you could never hope to replicateit.

One night after a show we went to thisbar, and Chris was making this middle-aged couple in the bar laugh. He wasdancing with the guy’s wife and doingthese cat-eye things with his hands. Thehusband was laughing so hard that hewas actually falling off his bar stool, andhe eventually said to Chris, “What’syour name? I want to be sure andremember it. I’ve never laughed likethis.” It was strange. Everyone sort ofsensed that there was just somethingunique about him. Chris wasn’t famous,

but it was the same reaction he wouldget years later after he left Madison andbecame a movie star.

DENNIS KERN:Chris and Brian Stack had just startedrehearsals on Cowboys No. 2, a SamShepard play that we were going to puton. And Chris, meanwhile, had beentaking trips down to Chicago here andthere with his father. Then it becameclear what all those trips to Chicagowere for.

BRIAN STACK:When Chris decided to leave, it waspretty upsetting. He loved the Ark, but hewas bursting at the seams to get out, andChicago was the first step. I think Denniswas happy that Chris was leaving topursue his dream, but he seemed kind ofangry on his last night.

DENNIS KERN:I was happy for him, but at the same timeI thought it was too soon. I thought thathe needed to be more in contact with thesource of his creativity before he went to

try at the professional level. I alwaysknew he would make it, but I don’t knowthat he was grounded enough in thetechnique of acting to have something tohold on to. He was immensely talented,but that talent was sort of at the whim ofwhoever needed the next laugh.

TOM FARLEY:The experience he had at the Ark toldhim he had to get out of Madison. Plus,he couldn’t take the job at Scotch Oilanymore. As much as he wanted toplease Dad, after a year of sellingasphalt even Chris was like, “I gotta get

out of here.”

JOHN FARLEY:Dad had made the ultimate sacrifice. Hewould have been a great lawyer,smartest man you ever met. Dreamed ofgoing into politics. But he had given allthat up to raise a family. And so hewanted everyone to stay in Madison,because that was what he’d sacrificedeverything for. Years later, Chris had tocry for this scene when he filmed BlackSheep. So he turned to me and he said,“Johnny, make me cry.”

I said, “Well, Dad’s all alone in

Wisconsin with two ladies. All his boyshave gone and moved on with theirlives.”

“Shut up.”He really got angry that I had said it.

Somehow it had triggered the wrongemotion.

MIKE CLEARY:When Chris was working for his dad, hecalled me up one day and said, “I gottatalk to you about something.”

“What’s that?”“Well, I have an opportunity to go to

Chicago to study at Second City. Whatdo you think?”

I really wasn’t sure about taking riskslike that. I said, “Chris, you need to justwork with your dad. Establish a solidcareer and maybe do this stuff on theside.” That was totally my mentality.Finally, I said, “Well, what does yourdad say about it?”

And his exact words were, “My dadsays I should definitely take theopportunity and go for it. He’s gonnaback me one hundred percent.”

I said, “Well then there’s noconversation here. You have to go.”

TOM FARLEY:We thought Chris would come runninghome in six months, and he never cameback.In June of 1987, Chris left for Chicago.He moved into a small apartment offArmitage Avenue, just north ofChicago’s Old Town neighborhood.There he rejoined his Marquette rugbyand acting friend Pat Finn.

The yellow porch light of Second Cityhad led Chris to Chicago, but he quicklyfound that the doors of the renownedcomedy institution did not immediatelyopen for untrained unknowns fresh offthe bus from Wisconsin. Forced to look

elsewhere for a place to learn andperform, he found it at ImprovOlympic.

Today, ImprovOlympic has become anindustry mainstay in its own right,producing a steady stream of bankablefilm and television stars, among themMike Myers, Vince Vaughn, JohnFavreau, Andy Richter, Tina Fey, StevenColbert, the Upright Citizens Brigade,and director Adam McKay, not tomention a healthy chunk of the writingstaff at Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

But when Chris arrived,ImprovOlympic was still a fledglingoutfit of vagabond comedians looking tomake the funny anywhere they could.Teacher and director Charna Halpern

had founded the group in 1981 withseveral goals in mind. Second City usedimprov as a means to create sketchcomedy. Halpern wanted a curriculum inwhich improvised performance was theend in itself. At Second City, only ahandful of seasoned performers trickledup to the main stage. Halpern gaveImprovOlympic a communitarian ethos,allowing even new and less-experiencedstudents the chance to practice and learnin front of a paying audience.

In 1984, comedy guru Del Closejoined Halpern’s cause. As a director inSecond City’s early heyday, Close hadtrained and mentored a who’s who ofcomedy, from John Belushi to Harold

Ramis to Bill Murray. He wasinstrumental in shaping the forms andconventions of the Chicago school ofimprovisation. Perhaps his most notablecontribution was the Harold, a long-form, fully improvised performance inwhich a whole cast works together off ofa single audience suggestion to create acohesive, continuous series of scenes.

For Close, the goal of improv was notto get laughs but rather to find the real,emotional truth of the characters thatcreated those laughs. He found theperfect instrument for that in ChrisFarley. With Halpern’s instruction andClose’s inspiration, Chris began hiscomedy education in earnest. Some

expressed doubts about his raw,unschooled talents, but those doubtsquickly vanished. Chris, performing fullthrottle at night and bumbling through acomical parade of semiemployment byday, proved to everyone that he wasdestined for a life onstage.

PAT FINN:After I graduated from Marquette, I wentdown to Chicago. Chris followed abouta year behind me. We had no jobs, andwe had no idea what we were doing. Hemoved into his place off Armitage, andwe went from there down to Second City

one day around two in the afternoon. Wejust kind of paced around in front of thetheater, back and forth. In our minds, thescenario literally went something likethis: Somebody up on the second floorwould say, “What? We need two morepeople for the Second City main stage?Where are we going to find— Oh, wait!What about these two people out front?They look hilarious.”

That was about how far we’d thoughtthings out. Then, after about ten minutesof pacing around, Joel Murray—Brianand Bill Murray’s brother—walks by.He was at Second City at the time, andhe and I had gone to the same grammarschool, so I knew him a little.

Chris said, “There’s Joel Murray.He’s Bill’s brother. You should talk tohim.”

“I don’t know, Chris.”“You got to! C’mon. That’s why we’re

here.”So Joel walked up, and I said, “Joel.

Hi. I’m Pat Finn, from St. Joe’s.”“Yeah. Little Finn,” he said. “What’s

goin’ on?”“Um, nothin’. This is my friend Chris.

We wanna get into comedy.”He just kind of looked at us. Chris’s

eyes had this look like the next thing outof Joel’s mouth was going to be the keysto the kingdom. And, actually, it turns out

it was.

JOEL MURRAY, castmember, Second City:

So one day here’s Pat Finn, who Ihaven’t seen since high school, standingthere with this big guy. I could tell thatthe big guy was restraining all of hisenergy to just listen and be attentive towhat I was saying. But I basically toldthem, “Go find Charna Halpern and DelClose at the ImprovOlympic and studywith them, and then see if somebody’lllet you paint the bathroom at SecondCity.”

It was funny, knowing Chris later, justto watch him holding it in, trying not tobe an idiot.

CHARNA HALPERN,director/teacher,ImprovOlympic:

ImprovOlympic didn’t even have anactual theater at the time. We performedat Orphans, this bar on Lincoln Avenue.We had to be out by ten o’clock so theband could come on. We got kicked outof Orphans, and we moved around tolike fourteen different spaces. It was aninsane time. But I kept attracting these

really brilliant people—Farley and PatFinn, Mike Myers, Vince Vaughn, JonFavreau, Andy Richter—and the showskept getting better and better. But eventhough we were getting thrown out ofthese places, the audience was followingus. It just kind of kept snowballing,getting bigger and bigger, and that waswhat it was like when Farley showedup.

BRIAN STACK:I went down to Chicago to visit him atImprovOlympic. He was taking classes,but Charna hadn’t let him go up onstage

to perform yet. After the show, he waspacing outside, and I could just see hehad all this pent-up, frustrated energythat had nowhere to go. You could seehow he was bursting at the seams, howhe needed to get up onstage.

CHARNA HALPERN:One night after a couple of weeks, Chriscame up to me with Pat Finn and said,“Let me go onstage! Let me playtonight!”

“You?” I said. “God, no. You’redefinitely not ready.”

He started getting violent. He was

banging his fists on the wall above me,like, “Let me go! Let me go onstage! I’llbe great! You’ll see!”

“I’ll tell you when you’re ready to beonstage,” I said.

He was just not hearing it. After agood seven minutes of his badgering, Ifinally got fed up myself. I said, “Allright, I’ll tell you what. You can goonstage and play tonight, but if you’rebad you will never ever get on my stageagain. Do you wanna take that chance?”

Before I even finished my sentence, hewas bounding out into the room to tellthe guys he was going on. Everyone waslooking at me like, “Are you crazy?” Buthe got up there and was absolutely

hilarious.The good thing about it was that when

he got back to class, he started to calmdown. Once I’d let him go onstage, he’dlost that need to prove something. Fromthen on he was really willing to learnand get better.

PAT FINN:From that point on, he just committed ahundred and ten percent. We took classeswith Charna. Then we got classes withDel. There were two improv teams thatgot assembled around that period. Onewas very cerebral—that wasn’t us. We

were the physical group, called FishShtick. People wanted to watch thembecause they were so smart and heady,but then they’d want to watch us becausewe were just off the wall.

BRIAN STACK:Chris once said that Del Close told himto attack the stage like a bull and try andkill the audience with laughter.

NOAHGREGOROPOULOS, cast

member, ImprovOlympic:

He was so big and emotional, veryphysical. He gave one guy a permanentscar on his forehead when he dove fromthe bar onto the stage in this overblownninja thing. He landed on him, smashinghis glasses into his head. Hiscommitment was just past the point ofsafety.

TIM MEADOWS, castmember, Second City:

I was already touring for Second City,and I used to go back and perform at

ImprovOlympic every now and then.One night I went up there and did aHarold with Chris’s team. It’s difficultwhen you’re the new guy in a group,because they already have their dynamicand you don’t know how you’ll fit intoit. But the very first time we performedtogether Chris was right there for me. Istarted a scene where I was hangingsomething up, and it was obvious toeveryone in the audience that I washanging up laundry on a clothesline. ButChris came out and said, “Doctor, whatdoes the X-ray say?”

I just looked at him and said, “Well,it’s not good.”

And it got a big laugh because it was

such a change from where peoplethought it was going.

PAT FINN:When you get a suggestion in an improvset, usually one performer goes out andsets the stage based on the idea. Andsometimes that person is out there for awhile, just fumbling around. He doesn’tknow where he’s going, and because hedoesn’t know, it’s really difficult to stepin and help him.

One night this girl walks out and putsa pretend briefcase down and goes, “Ihad such a great day today, honey. They

made me partner at the law firm and theylove me and somebody’s gonna beinterviewing me for Newsweek . . .”

And on and on and on. It was this longexposition, just going nowhere. We’reall standing there at the back of the stage,thinking, how do we even enter thisscene? She’s giving us nowhere to go.

This goes about a minute or so. She’sdroning on and on, and finally Chrisstorms out of the back line and goes,“Sweet Lord, would you just shut up andbowl?!”

His instincts were near perfect. Withone line he put the whole scene in aplace and a context and established whatthe joke was. “My God, every time you

bowl it’s something different. You’re adoctor. You’re a lawyer. ‘Look at me, Idiscovered something!’ Bowl thegoddamned ball.”

JAMES GRACE, castmember, ImprovOlympic:

He was an amazing processor ofinformation. He wasn’t great at gettingthings started, but if you gave himanything, he would take it, internalize it,have a perspective on it, be affected byit, and ride it out for the scene.

CHARNA HALPERN:He was an amazing listener onstage, likea sponge. You could just see himreflecting your idea through his facialexpression and taking on your mood. Hetotally got it.

And he was in incredible shape. Thatalways surprised people. I rememberone football sketch he was in where histeammates were making fun of him forbeing out of shape. They’d say, “Allright, fatty, drop and give me twenty.”And Chris could do it, with no problem,clapping his hands in between eachpush-up, even. He was all muscle underthere.

TIM HENRY:We’re at a bar in Chicago one night. It’sten degrees outside. Chris has got hisEnglish driving cap on, Timberlandboots, and some cutoff sweat-pants, andhe’s sporting these huge muttonchopsideburns. The after-work crowd isthere. A bunch of little honeys are at thebar, and Chris starts chatting them up.“Hey, how are you? What do you guysdo?” he says.

They work in advertising or insuranceor whatever, and they ask him, “So whatdo you do?”

Chris is standing there, sweating inten-degree weather, and he goes, “Me?

What do I do? I’m an aerobicsinstructor.”

We’re all laughing, ’cause we knowhe’s winding up to have fun with them.

“Aerobics instructor?” they say. “Areyou kidding me?”

And Chris, with one hand on the barand one hand on the stool, defying alllaws of physics, goes from standingstock still, leaps into a perfect backflip,and lands back right on his feet. Hatdoesn’t even come off his head.

“Yeah,” he says. “You know, aerobicsinstructor.”

TED DONDANVILLE:I got hooked on Chris’s shows veryearly. When I went back to Red ArrowCamp to be a counselor, Kevin andJohnny told me Chris was down inChicago. I’d been thrown out of theUniversity of Denver; I wasn’t having atraditional college experience. So Istarted hanging out with Chris a lot.When you’d go and see him in thesebars, you’d have to sit through an hourand a half of bullshit watching these kidslearn how to do comedy. But howevergood or bad the shows were, Chrisalways had that moment, that onemoment where lightning would strike

and he’d just kill the audience.

PAT FINN:ImprovOlympic was very young, and Ithink that’s what made it, for lack of abetter word, romantic. There were noagents coming to see you. There wasnobody pitching a screenplay. It was justabout the pure love of the game, goingout every night and making people laugh.

JAMES GRACE:It was like a wave of energy. We were

doing five shows a week, one onThursday and two on Fridays andSaturdays. We were just all constantlytogether all the time, performing, hangingout. Everybody who was there had comebecause they wanted to challengethemselves and push the boundaries ofcomedy. People were either rehearsingor performing every night of the week.You were consuming it all the time. Andwhen you weren’t rehearsing orperforming, you were hanging out withpeople whom you rehearsed andperformed with. Once you were on ateam, that was basically your fraternity.

It was very collegiate, especiallywhen it came to the drinking. I would

say that if you took a clinical definitionof alcoholism, then everybody there hada huge problem. Farley always dideverything bigger than everybody else,but we were all out of control. One timeI saw Pat Finn fall down two flights ofstairs solely to make me laugh. That’swhat we did, outrageous things allacross the board.

PAT FINN:Chris must have had something like fortyjobs during that time. One day he and Iwere walking down Armitage Avenue,and he was like, “Yeah, I worked there. I

worked there.”And I was like, “When?”“Well, I worked at the butcher shop

for like an hour, and they fired me. ThenI got a job at the hardware store the dayafter the butcher shop, but I was reallytired ’cause I’d had to get up so early forthe butcher shop, you know? So I fellasleep on some boxes in the back.”

I said, “How could you fall asleepwithin hours of your first day on thejob?”

“I don’t know, but they were reallypissed.”

So he lost that job. Basically he’d lostevery job up and down the street.

Eventually, we’d go to church and he’dpull the little tags on the bulletin boardthat said “Need neighborhood workers”and stuff like that.

He got a job as a bouncer, but thenone day he said to me, “Hey, I think Ikinda got fired from that bouncer job atthe bar.”

“Jeez, Chris”—this was on Sunday—“you started it on Friday. Whathappened?”

Apparently a fight had broken out, sohe—Chris, the bouncer—had left,because he didn’t know what to do. Andhe’d caused the fight.

What had happened was Chris was

checking IDs, and, goofing around, hegoosed some girl in the butt. Herboyfriend thought it was somebody else,and he started shoving people and itbroke out into a real melee, so Chris justkind of slipped out the front door.

All the other bouncers came out frominside and finally settled it. Then theowners came out and said, “My God,who’s on the front door?”

At that moment, Chris came backaround from this alley down the side ofthe bar. He saw the owners, panicked,turned down this alley, and yelled “Andstay out!”

“Where the hell were you?” theyasked.

“Where was I? Where the hell wereyou? There were like nine guys in thealley on top of me.”

“What?”“It’s okay. I took care of it. But, man .

. .”“Oh Chris, we’re so sorry.”So on Saturday he went back to

bounce again. I asked him how that went.“Well,” he said, “normally you get

your shift drink around eleven. But thegirl behind the bar really liked me, so Igot my shift drink at seven. Then I hadanother one. She was making thosegreyhounds that I like. Man, I had a lot of’em.”

“Were you okay?”“Well, that’s my question. I’m not

sure. I passed out on the people in linewhile I was checking IDs, and all thebouncers had to take me across the streetand put me into bed.”

“Uh-huh.”“So do I just go over there to get a

paycheck, or do I ask ’em to mail it?How does that work?”

“I don’t know, Chris. You probablydrank more than your paycheck. ”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess Ijust won’t go over there for a while.”

He didn’t seem particularly fazed byit. It just kind of reinforced to him that he

needed to find a way to make a living incomedy.

CHARNA HALPERN:We got a pilot, an improv game show,similar to Whose Line Is It Anyway? Ipicked out a bunch of our bestperformers, of which Chris was one, andthey flew us all out to L.A. We weredoing some really smart work, and theproducer just wanted us to dumb itdown. “It’s too smart,” he kept saying,“too smart.” And he started firing someof the best people. He wanted to bring inall these dick-joke stand-up comics.

So, one by one, my cast was gettingfired. It was just a nightmare, which Delhad warned me was going to happen.Chris could see what was going on. Atone point in the rehearsal he said,“Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t wanna getfired.”

“Do what you gotta do,” I said.And so he hiked up his shorts into the

crack of his ass and started jumpingaround doing the monkey dog boy dance,which is when you hold your crotch withone hand and put your fingers up yournose and just start jumping around beingsilly. And, oh, they were on the floorlaughing, because that’s the kind of dumbstuff they wanted. And he saved his job.

But Chris wasn’t always a caricatureof the fat guy. He did beautiful scenes.When he did serious scenes, oh my God,he could make you cry.

NOAHGREGOROPOULOS:

Chris’s vision of himself was thateveryone just wanted to see fatty falldown, so that was what he was going togive them. But there were plenty of otherguys who could fall off a chair and eat inRoman proportions. What Del Closeliked about Chris wasn’t necessarilywhat everybody else liked about him.

Del felt that Chris was in touch withgenuine emotions in a way not allimprovisers allow themselves. That’swhat Del was really attracted to inChris. He wanted to show Chris that hecould be more than just a one-noteperformer.

CHARNA HALPERN:After Chris was done working with me, Icouldn’t wait for him to get to Del,because that was the next level. I said toDel, “I can’t wait for you to see this guy.I want to see what you think.”

Del watched him, and after the show

he turned to me, and the first thing hesaid was, “Oh, that’s the next JohnBelushi.”

CHAPTER 5

Whale Boy

JUDITH SCOTT, cast member:If you think of the rest of the SecondCity cast as flat land, Chris wassomething that fell out of the sky andgave us shape. He might blow out ahuge crater, like a meteor, or justcollide with the ground, becoming thishuge mountain. And by creating thislandscape, he gave the rest of us theterrain on which to play.Chris Farley spent a little over eighteenmonths studying and performing at

ImprovOlympic. The young theater wasrapidly becoming one of Chicagocomedy’s best-known training grounds,but at the time it remained just that: aplace to learn. For actors seeking outprofessional opportunities and aprofessional paycheck, Second City wasstill the place to be. Since its founding in1959, Second City had established itselfas the nation’s graduate school ofcomedy. In the early days, Robert Klein,Joan Rivers, and Alan Arkin all cameacross its stage. Over subsequent years,dozens of Hollywood stars matriculatedthere as well.

Chris auditioned for Second City’stouring company in January 1989 and

was offered a position. Most performerswould have spent months or even yearson the road before joining the main-stageensemble; Chris made the move in amatter of weeks. Del Close had beenoffered the opportunity to direct SecondCity’s spring revue, and he was givengreat latitude to mold the show and itscast to his own liking. The performer heliked most was Chris. Second Cityproducer Joyce Sloane expressedreservations about the young performer’sreadiness and his outsized partyinghabits, but Charna Halpern insisted thatworking with Close was exactly the kindof discipline Chris needed. Sloaneultimately agreed.

And everyone agreed that Chris’spotential was virtually without limit.During his eighteen months at SecondCity, Chris performed in three revues:The Gods Must Be Lazy, It Was ThirtyYears Ago Today, which marked thetheater’s thirtieth anniversary, and FlagSmoking Permitted in Lobby Only. Alsomaking the leap from the touringcompany at that time was Chris’s friendTim Meadows. Second City veteransDavid Pasquesi, Holly Wortell, Joe Liss,Judith Scott, and Joel Murray, as well asunderstudy Tim O’Malley, rounded outthe cast. With each show, Chris’sreputation grew. He created a number ofcharacters and scenes that would go

down as some of the best in the theater’shistory.

TIM O’MALLEY, castmember:

I was sitting in the main lobby at SecondCity. Chris came through the front door,all big and boisterous like he alwaysdid. He went upstairs and auditioned.What he did for his audition was hepretended he was late for whatever thescene was, took a running leap fromstage left, and landed flat in the middleof the stage. They hired him right away,just on his energy and his commitment.

Everyone was like, “You should haveseen this guy’s audition. He was fuckingnuts.”

TIM MEADOWS:Me and Farley were the two new guys,both coming straight out of the touringcompany. We bonded over the fact thatwe didn’t know what the fuck we weredoing.

HOLLY WORTELL, castmember:

When we started rehearsals, Chris’sinexperience showed. You had to comeup with your own scene ideas, and hewas not very good at that. One day wewere throwing out these social,political, and cultural ideas, and Delsaid, “Chris, do you have anything?”

Chris went, “Um . . . yeah. I wasthinking, um, that there’s rich people . . .and, uh, there’s poor people . . . youknow . . . something about that.”

And I was like, “What was that?”

TOM GIANAS, director:Chris was a great writer, actually. He

just worked on his feet. You gave him apremise, and he’d spin it into gold.

JOEL MURRAY:The first time I had to improvise withhim onstage, the suggestion we got fromthe audience was “the drunk tank.” Itwas like, okay, there’s a natural. I said toChris, “Let’s do a two-person scenewhere I’m your dad and I’m picking youup at the drunk tank, but in actuality I’ma drunk, too.”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “Let’s go withthat.”

I didn’t know anything about Chris

and his father at that point; I just figuredhe was Irish so he’d know what I wastalking about.

It was a great scene, and the emotionsin it were so close to home in someways, this drunk Irish father in hispajamas picking up his son. He’s comingdown on the boy, but everything he says—like “That time your mother left meafter I mowed down the hedges . . .”—reveals that he’s a drunk, too.

So father and son have this meaningfultalk about their drinking, and Chris isdefending himself, like, “But I’m reallygood at it.” Like his dad should be proudof him. Of course it winds up withChris’s character offering to drive home.

And the dad, who’s been drinking, says,“Yeah, yeah. I think that’s a good idea.”

And that became Chris’s big sketch inthe first show. What do you do with adrunken sailor? You have him play adrunken sailor. Del Close was in theaudience, and he came backstage andsaid, “Yeah, well, that one’s ready.Script that.”

NATE HERMAN, director:At Second City, a lot of the performerstend to be very verbal. But every once ina while a physical comedian comesalong, and when an actor has that rough

physicality in such a small setting itreally tends to explode.

PAT FINN:When Chris’s first revue opened, he wasan instant hit. There was a scene wherehe played a waiter. The people eatingdinner were the heart of the scene, butChris came out and got a huge laugh with“Can I get you something to eat?” Thatwas it. He went over to the other side ofthe stage to make the drinks andsandwiches in the background, and everysingle head in the audience slowlyturned to watch Chris. It was the oddest

thing. Even if he was doing nothing, youwanted to watch him do nothing.

JOE LISS, cast member:His mere presence would inducelaughter. Anything he’d do on top of thatwas gravy.

DAVID PASQUESI, castmember:

Crowds loved him. I don’t think you canfind anyone who’ll refute that. That’s notan opinion.

HOLLY WORTELL:On Friday and Saturday nights, we had abreak between shows. Chris and I wouldalways dash out and get something toeat, and we’d always run into about halfthe audience from the first show. We’dboth been onstage for the past two hours,but everyone would come right up toChris and say, “You were so great!”

Chris would go to great pains to say,“Hey, she was in the show, too. Wasn’tshe good?” And that was very sweet ofhim, but it seemed logical to me thatpeople would notice him more.

JOEL MURRAY:During that first show the cast, minusHolly, went away to Joyce Sloane’splace on Lake Michigan. It was the deadof winter, and we’d brought a wholebunch of “Murray Brothers’ Tea,” thisbig thing of psilocybin mushroom tea.We wrote half the show that night, justfrom stuff we came up with screwingaround. I’ve never laughed so hard in mylife.

JOE LISS:We were fucking around inside the

house. I started doing this crazy Englishcharacter. Tim was going on about howhe couldn’t feel his legs. The sun wascoming up, and we couldn’t find Chris.“Where’s Chris?” “Let’s find him!” Westruck out of the house on an“expedition” to track him down. We ranout, and there he was, lying out on theice of Lake Michigan. “Look,” we said,“it’s a whale!” “No! It’s a boy!” “It’s aWhale Boy!”

JOEL MURRAY:The whole lake was frozen ice, thesehuge glacier formations, crazy stuff. And

at one point, Farley was out there, shirtopen, T-shirt over his head, diving like aseal onto the ice, doing these crazy bellyflops, his stomach bright red. We riffedon this Whale Boy thing for hours, highon mushroom tea, laughing our asses offout there on the frozen ice of LakeMichigan.

JUDITH SCOTT:We came back to the cabin, and as thedrugs wore off we realized that we’dwritten a scene.

TIM MEADOWS:We had trouble putting it on paper. Whenwe got back we tried to improvise withthis Whale Boy character, and there wasjust too much information. Plus, we allremembered it differently because we’dbeen tripping. So Nate Herman, our newdirector, sat down and said, “Each ofyou tell me your version of the story.”

We did that, and then a few days laterhe came in with the whole thing. Thestory was that we had raised this WhaleBoy as a real boy and hidden his trueorigin from him. The scene was hiscoming-out party into society. But thetension underneath was that his mother

couldn’t stand the fact that this was nother own son. Ultimately, we have to tellChris the truth: that he’s not our son, butin fact the product of a whaleimpregnated by radioactive humansperm and medical waste. Once hediscovers that, Chris launches into thisgrand song and soliloquy aboutreclaiming his true identity.

HOLLY WORTELL:We wanted him to be able to spout fromhis head like a whale, and so our stagemanager took a football helmet, drilled ahole in it, and connected this water hose

so Chris could squirt water out of it.

JOEL MURRAY:He looked like a Hummel figurine. Whenhe would come out like a choir-boy andsing the Whale Boy song, the crowdwould go nuts.

The last preview before openingnight, he does the song and goes to exitthrough a door, and he pulls thedoorknob off. There’s nothing he can do,so he jumps into the crowd, and hebreaks his foot. We’re all like, “Suck itup, Farley. C’mon.” But it turns out hereally did break his foot, and he had a

walking cast for opening night.

TIM O’MALLEY:Ian Gomez took over, and Chris was outfor a good eight weeks. But nobodycould stop him from coming in and doingthe improv sets. He’d come in and dothose on a cast.

JOE LISS:Chris was always “boy.” He was WhaleBoy. We did another sketch where hewas Caramel Boy. Then of course there

was Tommy Boy.

NATE HERMAN:Paul Sills, one of the founders ofChicago improv, used to say, “Out theredoesn’t matter. This is the only place thatmatters. The stage is the only place youexist.” So if the stage is the only placeyou feel real, it makes sense to make thewhole world your stage.

ROBERT BARRY, friend,Edgewood High School:

Whatever Chris Farley did in the moviesor on TV, that was just Chris Farley. Hewas never acting. Or, perhaps, Chriswas always acting. That might be abetter way of putting it.

CHARNA HALPERN:He was always more himself onstagethan off. He was more intelligentonstage. He’d step out there, and it waslike a light would go on behind his eyes.

HOLLY WORTELL:

I remember we’d be in his apartment andhe would be really calm. He’d talk abouthis feelings, things that he would neversay around the guys. Then we wouldwalk down the stairs and open that doorout onto Wells Street and, literally, thesecond that door opened he turned into“Farley.” It was like a jacket that he puton when he was leaving the house.

Chris would tell me a story about hisday, like maybe a story about ordering asandwich from the guy at the deli, andhe’d do his voice and the guy’s voice,acting out this little scene. But instead ofjust saying, “I told the guy, ‘I want atomato,’ ” Chris was really acting it up,like, “I told the guy, ‘I want a tomato!’ ”

And so I asked him, “Chris, howcome when you speak, you’re imitatingyourself ?”

“What?”I said, “When you tell that story about

yourself, you’re doing your owndialogue in a different voice. You’redoing a character voice for you.”

And that kind of blew his mind.

TED DONDANVILLE:Most of the people at Second City, afterthe show they’d all go out for drinks, andthey’d just hang out with you like a

normal person. But Chris and Joe Liss,they couldn’t stop. The red nose andfloppy shoes stayed on.

NATE HERMAN:His greatest frustration was trying tobeat that character that he was becoming.He really seemed like he wasuncomfortable being the great,swaggering drunk; it didn’t suit him. Ialways thought that inside there was thisnice kid from Wisconsin going, “I’mreally not comfortable doing this, butthis is who I’m supposed to be.”

TIM MEADOWS:Chris used to say that he only had onecharacter, and that was the fat, loud guy.But of course that wasn’t true at all. Inour last revue, we did a scene where thepremise was basically that Chris and Iwere good friends, we’re hanging out,and then his sister, played by Jill Talley,comes in. She and I really hit it off andI’m digging on her and Chris is reallynot okay with it.

JILL TALLEY, castmember:

The more Tim and I would milk ourflirtation, the more Chris would amp uphis reactions. Tim was giving me a footrub, I was laughing at all of his jokes,and Chris was just fuming, bubblingunder the surface, which he did sobrilliantly.

Then Chris comes right out and tellsTim, “You can’t date my sister.”

“Why, because we’re friends?”“No, because you’re black.”

TIM MEADOWS:The thing that I loved about Chris was

that he was willing to be the racist inthat scene. He starts off as my bestfriend, and then when I exit the stage fora moment he does this really subtlechange where he confronts her and tellsher he doesn’t like it. Then I walk backonstage right as he says “nigger.” Everynight you could hear a pin drop as soonas he said it. People didn’t expect thatfrom Second City, and they certainlydidn’t expect it from Chris.

FR. MATT FOLEY:When he was at Second City, he wouldcall me late at night and I could tell he

was using, that he was not doing well.He was really struggling; he was sodamn lonely. He’d lost some of hisanchors, and he was ashamed of his druguse.

TIM MEADOWS:When we were in Chicago, we all drank,and we all did our share of other things.But one night after we did the first showwe were getting notes from Del in theback. Farley went into the kitchen, got abottle of wine, and just started guzzlingit straight down. I remember watchinghim drink that bottle and thinking, holy

shit.Then, when we would go out drinking

after the show, it would never end. Hispersonality changed. He was a messydrunk. He would just get loud and inyour face. I would go to one bar withhim, and then he’d ask me if I was goingto Burton Place, this bar that was openuntil five in the morning. I’d say, “No, Idon’t like that place.” There was just abad vibe in there, a lot of people whowere involved in heavier drugs. I usedto call it Satan’s Den, and he wouldalways tease me about that. “You wannago over to Satan’s Den with me?”

TIM O’MALLEY:When you drank or got high with Chris,it was like corralling a tiger. I was doingcoke on a regular basis, and I knew Iwas an addict. I don’t know if Irecognized Chris as being worse off thanme, though. Guzzle and pour, guzzle andpour, slobber and puke. That was aboutit for us. We’d sleep all day. If we hadrehearsal, we’d haul out of bed andmake it there by eleven. We’d always tryand get home by sunrise and get somesleep, but some days we were partyingright up through to rehearsal, then try andget a nap and some food in before theshow. Then, sometimes, we were just

high for days.

TED DONDANVILLE:The first hour of drinking with Chris wasfun. The second hour was the best hourof your life. The rest of the night waspure hell.

DAVID PASQUESI:He was taking it as far as someone couldwhile still making it to work, and he wasbeing rewarded all along the way. Sothere was no reason to stop.

TOM GIANAS:Chris came in to rehearsal one day, andhe was really out of it, kind of fallingasleep. I took him aside and told him hehad to go home. But Chris could alwaysturn on the charm. He talked me intoletting him stay. I always regretted thatone moment. It was just a minor incident,but it was one instance where I had anopportunity to exert some disciplineover him, and I didn’t do it.

JOE LISS:Second City sees itself as a family, and

we were a pretty codependent family,too. There could have been a bigintervention from the cast, but it didn’thappen. We were all doing drugs.

The one thing we did crack down onwas drinking during the show. Thatwasn’t okay. One time I caught Chris inbetween sets. There’s the greenroombackstage, and then there’s anotherdressing room on the other side with apass-through between them. I’mbackstage, and I look down the pass-through and see Farley at his locker. Helooks around, reaches into his locker,takes out a big tumbler, takes a big sip,and then hides it back in his locker.

I’m like, “You motherfucker.”

So I wait for Chris to leave and goand get a big box of salt from thekitchen. I take the drink, fill it with salt,stir it up and let it dissolve, put it back,and head back to the other room andwait.

Chris comes back for the next show,reaches into his locker, gets the drink,takes another big sip of it and just doesthis beautiful spit take, spewing the drinkall over. There was no more drinkingduring that show.

CHARNA HALPERN:We had a couple of meetings with Chris

where Del Close told him about theclinic where he went through aversiontherapy and stopped drinking. It’s ahorrible process, like something out ofThe Twilight Zone. They shoot you upwith this chemical and then they makeyou drink this watered-down alcoholuntil you vomit. Then they throw youback in your bed, and a couple of hourslater they shoot you up and make you gothrough it again. They keep doing thisuntil even the smell of alcohol makesyou throw up. It sounds futuristic, but itworks.

So Del told Chris about this therapy.“You need this,” he said. “Try it. Itworks.”

And Chris was like, “Nah, that’s toopermanent.”

PAT FINN:We were at a bar in Chicago once, Chrisand me and his dad. Chris’s dad goes,“Finner, you want a beer?”

“Oh yeah that’d be great, Mr. Farley.”“Christopher?”“Uh, yeah. Thanks, Dad,” Chris says.“All right,” he tells the bartender.

“Two Old Styles for Finner, and acoupla Old Styles for Christopher. AndI’ll have a scotch. Tall glass. Rocks.

Leave the bottle.”The guy just kind of stares at him. Mr.

Farley stares back. Then he finally turnsaround to get the drinks.

I go, “Wow, Mr. Farley, really? Whatare we, in the Old West?”

“Look, Finner,” he says. “I likescotch, and when I want a drink, and thisbartender’s talkin’ to his gal pal down atthe end of the bar, I’m not gonna wait forhim. So I get a bottle, and I can havescotch whenever I want it. On top of thatit’s kind of fun to see what they chargeme, because they never know how manyshots are left in the bottle.”

TOM GIANAS:When his dad would come to the shows,they’d go to That Steak Joint, which wasthis steak restaurant right next door to thetheater. They had this thing called theTrencherman’s Cut, which was thisungodly cut of meat, just an unholy-sizepiece of Chicago beef. You would buy itfor the table and eat it family style.When Chris and his dad would go,they’d each order one.

TIM MEADOWS:His father used to tease him if he

couldn’t finish his. It was funny to seeChris when his parents came to town,because it was the only time you’d seehim dressed up. The pressed shirt, thesport coat, the slacks. He’d have ahaircut and a shave. He wantedeverything to go right.

TIM O’MALLEY:He was still a kid. His parents paid hisrent for him. We told him to save somemoney and pay his own rent so he’d feelmore responsible for himself. “But mydad wants to pay for everything,” he’dsay.

JOE LISS:It was like they were still treating himlike a kid at college, and he wasembarrassed of it, or tired of it. Hewould get these care packages from hismother, and he would get visiblyangered by them. She would send himfood and slippers, new clothes fromBrooks Brothers, and he’d be like, “Aw,dammit.” But if you looked at his privatelife, you were like, “Chris, you neednew clothes. You need a cleaning lady.”

HOLLY WORTELL:

One time I tried to get Chris to open abank account. He didn’t have one. Hewould just cash his checks and havecash on hand. He was very generous,would buy everybody drinks, but hewouldn’t save anything. I said to him,“Look, just walk with me up the streetand open up an account.”

“No.”“Chris, you can’t just spend all your

money. You’re spending all your moneyon food, drugs, and alcohol. You have toput some away for rent and bills andsavings.”

And he wouldn’t do it. He would notset foot in the bank with me.

JILL TALLEY:We all took turns bringing him home. Iremember being shocked that he didn’treally have anything, nothing that youwould associate with a home. It wasreally sparse, just a bare mattress and abig trash bag full of clothes. That was it.

JOEL MURRAY:I had an apartment above Los Piñatas,this Mexican place by Second City. Ialways believed that Joyce Sloane hadsomething to do with Farley all of asudden having the apartment next to me.

She knew that I would watch out for him.He was like Pigpen from Peanuts. We

had mice, too. The mice would comethrough my apartment and stop and giveme this look, like “We’re just on ourway over to Farley’s place.”

JOYCE SLOANE,producer:

He always talked about how he wanted agirlfriend, and I said to him, “Do youthink you could bring a girl up there? Tothat apartment? You gotta clean it up.”

I tried to tell him that Bluto was just a

character John Belushi played in AnimalHouse; that wasn’t what he was reallylike. When John’s widow Judy was intown, I introduced him to her, and I said,“Do you think a lady like this would’vebeen married to him if he was really thatcharacter that you saw?”

I thought that was a good thing to do,to let him know what John was reallylike. It didn’t sink in, obviously. So Ihired a cleaning woman for him to tryand fix his place up. She came everyweek.

TIM O’MALLEY:

For all the trouble, everyone wanted totake Chris under his wing. The alumnithat came in, like Bill Murray, wouldjust adopt him immediately. It just oozedout of him: “Love me. Please love me.”He got so much love. He got a ton of it. Idon’t know how he was even able toprocess it.

DAVID PASQUESI:It was pretty obvious that there wereproblems for Chris from the word go. Idon’t think we realized that it was asdetrimental as it was, but we could allsee it. Then there was some odd

behavior that was a bit obsessive-compulsive. We just thought it wasweird, and we were right. That wassome weird shit.

JOE LISS:Before he put his pants on, he’d lick thetip of the belt, then the buckle, then he’dput on his pants. Before he went onstage,he’d touch the floor twice, touch thewing of the stage twice, and then go on.Every time.

BOB ODENKIRK, cast

member:

I cannot express to you how much helicked everything. He’d open his walletand lick everything inside it, thepictures, the money. He had to lick hisshoelaces to tie them. He’d lick hisfinger and touch the stair, lick the finger,touch the stair, and do it all the way upthe staircase. It was totally nuts.

HOLLY WORTELL:One night I was onstage, and I said a cueline for Chris to enter. He should havebeen standing right at the door, but I

could see him off in the greenroom, andthat meant he had to go all the way downthe corridor backstage and enter from theother side. I remember thinking, he’s gotto cover all that distance, touching everydoor twice, touching every stair twice,touching all the coats twice. It’s going tobe an hour before he gets there.

One day we were walking down thestreet, and he kept bending down andtouching the sidewalk twice, touchingthe parking meters twice. I said to him,“Chris, why do you do that?”

And he said, “I’m just trying to eveneverything up.”

JOE LISS:He was superstitious, too. There wasthis Ouija board backstage. “Get thatthing out of here!” he’d say. He wasafraid of it. So, of course, someone tookthe Ouija board and put it on his pile ofprops in the back. “Who did this?!” heyelled. Then he took a towel—hewouldn’t touch it with his hands—and hepicked it up and threw it aside.

TIM MEADOWS:I was surprised by Chris’s faith. He’d goto mass all the time. I always admired

that about him. I grew up in a Christianhousehold, but once I got to Chicago Ididn’t go to church anymore. I justprayed whenever I wanted something.

HOLLY WORTELL:We would do charity gigs sometimeswhere they would pay us a hundreddollars, which was huge for us; the mostwe ever made was $435 a week. Butwhenever we would do those charityshows, Chris was the only person in thecast who turned down the money. Hewould always say, “Please keep this andmake sure it gets to the people you’re

helping.”

JUDITH SCOTT:He had a moral code, a sense of rightand wrong. There was something in himthat was correct and proper andMidwestern. If we were in a meetingand somebody’s idea got shot down,Chris would immediately take up for thatperson and defend them.

HOLLY WORTELL:In a show, you do the scenes, the

director gives you notes on those scenes,and then you build on that the next night.I was so excited that I was going to getto work with Del Close, but what I cameto learn was that Del hated women,didn’t think they were funny, didn’t wantthem in the show. At a certain point Iwas like, “What is this guy doing? He’snot coming up with any ideas. He’s notpushing us. He’s not doing anything.”He would say to us, “No notes after theshow tonight.”

Then, after several weeks, Chris cameto me and said, “Holly, I know Ishouldn’t be saying this, but I’ve just gotto tell you something.”

“What?”

“When Del says we aren’t havingnotes after the show, we are. We’re allgoing over to Joel’s apartment, and he’sgiving us notes. Del says that you andJudith are evil witches and you’re tryingto ruin our show.”

And what was happening was thatJudith Scott, Joe Liss, and myself, whohadn’t worked with Del over at theImprovOlympic, would go home everynight, not knowing what was going on,and Chris, Tim Meadows, Joel Murray,and David Pasquesi were all going overand working on the show with Del. ForChris to go behind Del’s back and betrayhim was huge. Chris would never goagainst any authority figure, but he did it

because he felt what Del was doing toJudith and me was wrong.

JILL TALLEY:Once in a blue moon I’d make it tochurch, and I would always see Christhere. I always got the biggest kick out ofwatching him come back from takingcommunion, because it was like he kneweveryone there, all the parishioners.He’d nod and smile at them, and they allreally liked him. The priests really likedhim, too. He was very much a part ofthat community. It was just a pious, quietside of him that you’d never know unless

you saw him there. Then, fourteen hourslater, I’d be carrying him home from abar and putting him to bed.

FR. MATT FOLEY:Chris and I would sit and talk all night.He would ask me about God, about faith.His biggest questions always related tohis struggles with evil, with hisaddictions. Drugs were Satan, to Chris.Fighting that took a lot out of him.

HOLLY WORTELL:

When he was drunk, he might do or saysomething he shouldn’t have done. Butone day he told me, “I went to churchand I confessed, and now it’s over so Ican do it again.”

And I said, “Chris, I’m Jewish. ButI’m pretty sure that’s not how yourreligion works. That doesn’t even makesense.”

One night, Matt Foley came to see theshow, and the three of us went out after. Isaid to Matt, “I have to ask you this.Chris says if you sin and go to churchand confess and say your Hail Marys,then you can just do it again.”

And Matt said, “No, of course youcan’t do it again. You have to try not to

do it again.”I punched Chris in the arm and said,

“See?”

FR. MATT FOLEY:There are two ways to look atconfession. One is to say, “I’m in a stateof grace. God has blessed me, but in themidst of that greatness I have treated mybrother or sister poorly and need tomake atonement.”

The flip side is to say, “I’m a sinner.I’m not worthy. I have to find Christ tofind my way out of my natural state,which is sin.”

I’m not sure which side Chris workedfrom, but I suspect it was the latter. “Iam not worthy to receive You, but onlysay the word and I shall be healed.”That’s what Chris believed. And that’snot wrong, but it needs to be balancedwith an understanding of the good side.

Chris was grateful for each day of thelife God had given him. He never sawhimself as an equal of God, and manytimes we do. A lot of our humanism isvery arrogant. It says, “I’m God. I’mequal to God.” Chris was never like that.He stood in awe of God.

BOB ODENKIRK:

He saw things in a very simple way,good and evil, right and wrong. I wasraised Catholic, too. I can rememberbeing scared of the devil, of hell. It’sreal in your head.

One time at Second City, Chris wasviolently drunk at a party. He waspicking up these chairs and throwingthem across the room. Me and mygirlfriend brought him back to his place,and he started throwing the furniturethere, too, chucking it across the room.Then he just stopped, looked over at me,and said, “Odie, do you think Belushi’sin heaven?”

It was sad, and chilling, and I didn’tknow how to answer him. It made me

think that those myths that you live withas a kid, they don’t always help youwhen you’re an adult. They don’t helpyou deal with grown-up things.Even as Chris’s personal troubles beganto mount, his professional fortunes onlygrew. Every night the audience favoredhim more and more. His reputationbegan to draw interest from the talentscouts at Saturday Night Live as well asrepresentatives at Brillstein-Grey, thepower-house management firm inBeverly Hills. In the spring of 1990,Chris was signed by Brillstein’s MarcGurvitz, who would manage him for hisentire career.

On March 24, 1990, Saturday Night

Live flew Chris to New York to attend ataping of the show and to have aninformal meeting with executiveproducer Lorne Michaels. It was the firstsolid indication of their interest in himand of things to come. At the same time,work had begun on Chris’s third SecondCity revue, Flag Smoking Permitted inLobby Only. For this show, producerJoyce Sloane brought in Tom Gianas, ayoung director from outside the SecondCity universe. Gianas in turn hiredactress Jill Talley and SNL writer BobOdenkirk to join the cast. It was afortuitous meeting for all. At Gianas’srequest, Odenkirk helped Chris createthe signature character that would take

him to Saturday Night Live and beyond.

TOM GIANAS:When you’re lined up to direct a show atSecond City, you just go in and watch theperformers. You make notes, jot downinspirations. Night after night, I wouldgo there to work and make notes, andevery time I saw him onstage, hetransformed me from a director into anaudience member; I forgot to take notes.I would just sit back and laugh and laughand laugh. That’s never happened to mebefore or since.

I’ve worked with a lot of great people

over the years, from Jack Black to SteveCarell, and this is something I can onlysay about Chris: From the moment hestepped onstage, the audience wascompletely invested in him. There wasjust a sense of “He’s gonna causetrouble, and I want to be here when ithappens.”

When I arrived, he was doing theMotivational Speaker guy, but it wasn’tas a motivational speaker yet, becausethat idea didn’t exist. It was just thatguy, in a million different contexts,usually a coach, or maybe an angry dad.It would destroy the audience everynight. I said to Odenkirk, “We cannotopen the show without that character.”

And that’s when Bob came back witha sketch about a family with pot-smokingkids who hire this Motivational Speaker,a guy who lives in a van down by theriver, is thrice divorced, and uses thecomplete disaster of his life as anexample of what not to become.

BOB ODENKIRK:I sat down to write it, and the sketchcame out pretty much whole the way itwas done. I handed it to Chris, andwatching where he took it was insane.

TIM O’MALLEY:Chris could never remember his linesduring rehearsal. He’d get so amped upwith the energy of that character, doingthe hips and the arm-pumping thing. Hescrewed it up every night for eightweeks. Odenkirk and Pasquesi sat downwith him and went over and over hislines. He was like, “This is hard. This islike learning the Our Father.”

Then, on opening night, we were allworried he was going to screw it up—and he nailed it. When he came offstage,I said, “Why the hell did you finally getit tonight?”

“Big game,” he said. “Coach is here.”

Del was in the audience.

FR. MATT FOLEY:I was in the audience that night. When hesaid, “My name is Matt Foley, and I ama motivational speaker!” I was probablyas red as a beet. I smiled and slid downa little further in my chair.

After the show we went and hung outin a bar for a time. Chris told me that hewas never going to change the name, thatit was always going to be Matt Foley.I’m honored by it still.

TOM GIANAS:To this day, it’s got to be the funniestthing I’ve ever seen. It never stoppedmaking me laugh, and that’s rare.

NATE HERMAN:Chris was never captured in eithermovies or TV as good as he wasonstage. He was too explosive. He justseems flat in all those movies. It’s likewatching a large wild animal in a cage.

BOB ODENKIRK:

The Matt Foley sketch was basically thesame every night, but he was always onthe edge of that character, forgetting hislines, making up new ones, changing theblocking. He was never content to mimiclast night’s performance, which a lot ofactors do. Sometimes, you try to makethe performance fun and surprising againfor the people onstage, who might be alittle tired of it. Chris was doing a greatshow for the audience, but he was doinga completely different show for the restof the cast. I can picture it in my headright now like it was yesterday. Nightafter night I’d stand there, four feet awayfrom him, and just watch in completeawe.

HOLLY WORTELL:I used to have to hold my cheeks with myhands because my face hurt from tryingso hard not to laugh.

TIM MEADOWS:Just watching him adjust his tie, or hitchup his pants, was enough to make youlose it. He’d get closer and closer toyour face every night when he wassaying his lines. I played the son. Hestarted picking me up and tossing me upin the air, flipping me around. Then outof nowhere he’d kiss me. He just had a

ball doing it.

JILL TALLEY:He was so into the character that he’d beswinging his head around and his glasseswould go flying off. Then he’d proceedto act like he couldn’t see for fiveminutes, stumbling around looking forhis glasses, and that would become thescene. Funny things would just happenorganically. Even if he did the scriptword for word, it felt new every night.

BOB ODENKIRK:

I just remember thinking, no one else inthe world will ever be able to do thischaracter.

TIM MEADOWS:After Farley left for SNL, Ian Gomezfilled in for him. Every night he tried todo a different character to make thatscene work, and he could never do it.Finally we said, “We gotta cut it.”

TOM GIANAS:The night that SNL came to scout him, he

was nervous but confident. I remembersaying to the cast, “The set’s yours. Youcan put up whatever you want tonight.” Iwanted Chris’s strongest pieces to go upso he’d have a good shot at it.

TIM MEADOWS:We had a great show that night. And itwas great for me. Chris and I worked sowell together. That helped me getnoticed, and I got hired at SNL about sixmonths later.

JILL TALLEY:

He was nervous about SNL. He wentback and forth with everyone. “Whatshould I do?” He called his parents, hispriest, the entire cast. We were all like,“What do you mean, ‘What should I do?’You take it.”

But he went round and round on it.Chris had his apartment, his bars, hischurch, and Second City right in thislittle four-block radius. That was hisworld, and I don’t know that he everreally left it. He was scared to leave thatbehind, to leave his family, to leaveeverything he’d ever known.

KEVIN FARLEY:

I was at the airport when Chris left.Chris was crying, and Dad was crying. Itwas sad to watch. When you’re from theMidwest, you don’t really ask for thespotlight. You just have your SundayPackers game and that’s about asexciting as it gets. But I think Dad knew,we all knew, that after this nothingwould ever be the same.

PAT FINN:I got married the Saturday of Chris’sfirst night on the show, and he was allbummed out that he wasn’t going to getto be in the wedding. He called me early

in the week and was just apologizingprofusely because he had to miss it.“Maybe I can make it,” he said. “Getthem to put me on next week.”

“No! You’re doin’ the show!” I said.“I know. I sorta got to. I mean, I

shouldn’t ask if I could skip it, right?”“Chris. C’mon. It’s Saturday Night

Live!”“No, but it’s your wedding.”And that’s the great thing about Chris:

SNL was his dream, but if he could haveskipped that first show to make mywedding, he would have.

The night of the ceremony, we wereall at the Hilton. At ten-thirty, with

everyone out on the dance floor and thewedding in full swing, about ten of us,including me in my tux and my wife inher wedding dress, snuck out and wentover to the bar in the hotel and watchedChris make his debut on Saturday NightLive. It was so strange, so surreal. We’dall grown up with this show, and Chriswas the first one we’d ever known tojoin those ranks. Just a few weeksbefore, he’d been hanging out in ourapartments, and now he’d made it.

CHAPTER 6

Super Fan

CONAN O’BRIEN, writer:When Chris first got to the show, I methim hanging out in the conference roomoutside Lorne’s office. He was dressedkind of like a kid going to a jobinterview. We chatted for a bit. I likedhim right away.

I came in and out of that conferenceroom several times during the day, andChris was still waiting. Lorne would do

that to you, make you wait a long time.At the end of the day, I was feeling badfor him, so I said, “Hey, kid. I’ll showyou around the studio," and I led himon kind of a mock tour where Ipretended to be in charge of everyone.Chris fell in and started playing alongwith me. After that I left and wenthome. I came back to work the next day,and Chris was still waiting outsideLorne’s office.

He had this energy, even when hewas sitting there waiting for hismeeting, rocking back and forth in hisill-fitting sports jacket with his tie allpulled off to the side. He seemed reallyearnest about doing the show. You just

had the feeling that he was going to bea lot of fun and he belonged here. Itwas like the show—and I don’t meanthis to sound condescending—but itwas like the show had been given thisnew golden retriever puppy.From the day he arrived at SaturdayNight Live, Chris Farley was alreadysuffering comparisons to the otheroutrageous, larger-than-life figure inSNL history: John Belushi. When Chrisdied seven years later, eerily, at thesame age as Belushi, those comparisonsbecame gospel. In truth the two menshared far more differences thansimilarities. Still, in life and in death,Chris has borne the accusation of trying

too hard to follow in Belushi’s footsteps—an accusation with varying shades oftruth. Yes, Chris looked up to andadmired his predecessor, but whateverinfluence Belushi’s ghost had on a youngChris Farley paled in comparison to thetruly dominant forces in his life: hisfather, his family, and his faith. As far asdrugs and alcohol went, Chris’s badhabits were very much his own, seededin his DNA and showing up at kegparties long before Belushi’s demise.And if Chris followed Belushi in morepositive ways, he was hardly alone.

In the comedy epidemic of thetwentieth century, John Belushi wasPatient Zero. The twin blockbuster

successes of Saturday Night Live andNational Lampoon’s Animal Housefundamentally changed the landscape ofbeing funny. Movie studios beganchurning out huge blockbuster comedieslike Ghostbusters and Beverly HillsCop. Stars like Eddie Murphy, MikeMyers, and Jim Carrey beat a well-trodpath from sketch-comedy cult status toHollywood fame and fortune. SecondCity and ImprovOlympic grew fromregional theaters into multiheadedcorporate enterprises, churning outhundreds of aspiring comedians everyyear and spawning scores of otherschools and venues across the country.Chris Farley and his friends were the

first generation born into and weaned onthat era. Their reverence for it andobsession with it was the commondenominator that bound them together.

It all began in 1975 when producerLorne Michaels assembled the originalcast of SNL and took to the air live fromNew York every Saturday night.Following his departure in 1980,producer Dick Ebersol took over theshow. Ebersol presided over somedifficult years but also cultivated thestardom of Eddie Murphy and assembledthe all-star cast of Billy Crystal,Christopher Guest, and Martin Short.

In 1985, Lorne Michaels returned.The show needed new direction, and he

needed a job. After a rocky start, hewent back to the drawing board in 1986and assembled the cast—Dana Carvey,Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn,Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, VictoriaJackson, and Weekend Update anchorDennis Miller—that would breathe newlife into the show. Mike Myers cameaboard in ’89, but otherwise no visiblechanges where made, or needed, for therest of the eighties.

Then, in the fall of 1990, a slowtransition began to take place. NoraDunn and Jon Lovitz left; Chris Farleyand Chris Rock entered. Far youngerthan the established cast, the two becamefast friends and soon found themselves

sharing an office. Farley and Rock werethe only performers added that fall. TimMeadows, Chris’s Second City castmate, would come on board atmidseason.

Back in the writers’ room, JimDowney, a freshman writer in SNL’searly years, had assumed the reins ofhead writer and producer. At the core ofthe writing staff was a group that had ledthe resurgence from the show’s mid-eighties nadir: Robert Smigel, JackHandey, Bob Odenkirk, and ConanO’Brien. Meanwhile, Tom Schiller, AlFranken, Tom Davis, and MarilynSuzanne Miller—also veterans of theshow’s original writing staff—had all

come back for an additional go-round.Added to that was a very young team ofstand-up comedians—Adam Sandler,David Spade, and Rob Schneider—whose age and sense of humor wouldultimately bring about a generationalshift at the show. Both on camera andoff, SNL found itself with a varsitysquad and a junior-varsity squad. It wasan odd mix of talent, but it worked well.For a while.

Chris arrived in New York inOctober. His older brother, Tom, hadlived in the city for many years, andtogether they found an apartment forChris on Seventh Avenue, just north ofTimes Square and right around the

corner from the show’s Studio 8H inRockefeller Center. The canyons ofmidtown Manhattan were a strikingcontrast to the cozy comforts ofChicago’s Old Town, but Chris soondiscovered the Carnegie Deli, St.Malachy’s Church on West Forty-ninthStreet, and a fine Irish pub called TheFiddler’s Green, all within a smallwalking radius. He had made his homeagain, scarcely able to believe what thatnew home was. As many latter-day SNLwriters and performers have said,anyone who works at the show is a fanof the show, first and foremost. AndChris was surely that.

ROBERT SMIGEL,writer/coproducer:

I was a coproducer as well as a writer,and so I got to go with Lorne to Chicagoto scout the Second City show. HiringChris was probably the easiest castingdecision Lorne’s ever had to make. In allthe shows I scouted before or after, I’dnever seen anybody leap out at you fromthe stage the way Chris did. Lorne hiredhim the next day.

JIM DOWNEY, headwriter/producer:

There was so much buzz about Farleythat our checking him out was almost proforma. It was kind of automatic.

LORNE MICHAELS,executive producer:

I’d had something of a concern thatmaybe he was too big, personality-wise,to play on television. Theatrically, hewas sort of playing to the back of thehouse. But after we saw him, there reallywasn’t much doubt.

ROBERT SMIGEL:Lorne invited me to be in on his meetingwith Chris. Chris showed up, and hewas in full altar-boy mode, lots of “yes,sirs” and bright-eyed alertness. He wasso transparently on his best behavior thatyou kind of had to laugh and wonder if itwas inversely proportional to his worstbehavior. Lorne talked about the showand what would be expected of him, andChris just kept sweetly nodding his headin agreement. Lorne had been told, atthat point, about Chris’s problems. Idon’t remember exactly what he said,but he told Chris, in so many words, thatit wouldn’t be tolerated. He even said

something to the effect of “We don’twant another Belushi.”

LORNE MICHAELS:It wasn’t presented to us that Chris hadany sort of problem, just that he was stilla little young and liked to party toomuch.

TOM FARLEY:All the cast and writers were sort ofstrolling in over the course of that firstweek. Chris immediately gravitated to

this younger, newer crowd of writersand actors: Rob Schneider, AdamSandler, and David Spade. They werecoming on as writers. The only two newcast members were Chris and ChrisRock. They got all the press.

DAVID SPADE, castmember:

I had done four shows as awriter/performer. Then it was summerbreak, and when I got back Farley andRock came on as featured players.Sandler came about six months later.

I met Chris the first day, walking over

from the Omni Berkshire, where SNLhad put us up. I saw him downstairs, andI’d heard about him. We talked and thenwe walked over to 30 Rock together. Ithought he was funny. He was a niceWisconsin dude, a genuine, sweet guy. Iwas out from Arizona. I’m not really abad guy. We just gravitated to hangingout all the time and stayed buddies eversince.

MARCI KLEIN, talentcoordinator:

I first met him the day he started. He waswearing this English driving cap and

looking very Irish. He was very quietand deferential, very nervous, like I wasthe person in charge or something, whichI thought was funny, because I wasn’t.He would get so nervous; that was oneof the things that was really charmingabout him.

CHRIS ROCK, castmember:

We both got hired the same day, whichwas probably one of the greatest days ofmy life. We were the new guys, and theythrew us together. The funny thing wasthat everyone was worried about me—I

lived in Brooklyn and didn’t want tomove to Manhattan, because I couldn’tpark on the street and I couldn’t get acab. I said it in the Live from New Yorkbook: Two guys named Chris both gethired on the same day and share anoffice. One’s a black guy from Bed-Stuyand one’s a white guy from Madison,Wisconsin. Now, which one is going toOD?

KEVIN FARLEY:When he got the show it was sort ofstrange, kind of scary in a way. Chrisalways liked the camaraderie of Second

City, so a high-pressure situation likeSaturday Night Live seemed mean andcutthroat. Dad was nervous. We allwere. Chris could barely flush the toilet.How was he going to handle fame andtelevision and New York City?

TOM FARLEY:I was working at Bear Stearns in thosedays, at Forty-sixth and Park. Chris and Iwent out to lunch one day, and afterwardI had to go back to work. We werestanding on Park Avenue, right where itgoes into the Met Life Building. Chrisasked me about some good places to go

shopping. I pointed him in the directionof Fifth Avenue. Then he said, “Look, Idon’t have any money. I’m staying at thisfancy hotel, and I’ve got this nice, bigsalary, but I haven’t gotten paid yet.”

So I went to a cash machine, got out$160, gave it to him, and went back towork. I got a call about a half hour later.“Uh, Tommy, I had a little problem,”Chris said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.“Well, I went up to Fifth Avenue like

you told me and I was walking down thestreet and I saw these guys playingcards.”

And I was like, oh no. “What did you

do?” I said.“Well, these guys were playing cards

for money, and they were winning.”“Yeah, okay.”“And the guy looked at me and he

said, ‘Where’s the card? Take a guess.How much you got, buddy?’ And I said,‘I got $160.’ And he said, ‘Well, put itdown.’ ”

“Let me guess, you lost the wholenut.”

“Uh, yeah . . . can I get some moremoney?”

So I went and met him at the cashmachine and said, “Don’t do that again.Stay away from the guys playing three-

card monte.”He said, “But I don’t understand. How

were all those other guys winning?”“They were all part of the scam,

Chris.”“Oh.”

AL FRANKEN, writer:Chris was very shy and self-effacingwhen he showed up. That never reallychanged too much, though he did get lessshy. He was also one of these guys whocame in with an incredible amount ofrespect for what had gone before him.

He was just genuinely awed to be there,and wanted to know everything about theshow. I don’t want to name names, butsome people would come in saying, “Iwas destined to be here! Get out of theway, old man!” That was not Chris.

CHRIS ROCK:You could just tell he was funny.Normally you meet a guy, and you’reautomatically skeptical about him.You’re basically not funny until provenotherwise. But there was somethingabout Farley where you could tell hewas funny when he said hi.

TOM FARLEY:Chris called me up the first week he wasthere and said, “Hey, they’re going tofilm me for the opening montage. Do youwant to come down and watch?”

I said, “Sure. Where are you doingit?”

“Well, you can pick anywhere youwant,” he said, “so I was either going todo the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral orMcSorley’s Ale House.” Two verytelling choices, and no question as towhich one won out.

“Which is it going to be?” I asked.“McSorley’s.”

So I met him down there at like twoA.M. on a Tuesday night after it closed.We kept drinking beer after beer duringthe shoot. “Draining our props,” as wecalled it. We were up till five in themorning.

My parents came into town for thefirst show. We had a blast showing themthe whole New York thing. They stayedat the RIHGA Royal. We went toGallagher’s Steak House, which wasDad’s favorite. Dad stayed in the hotel.He didn’t go to the show. With hisweight it was just too much trouble. Sowe all went to the dress rehearsal andthen went back to the room to watch thelive show together.

KEVIN FARLEY:We were just excited as hell. It was sortof surreal, sitting there waiting for hisfirst scene. Kyle MacLachlan was thehost, and they did this Twin Peaksparody. Chris was the killer. He reallydidn’t have anything to say, any reallaugh lines in the sketch, but of course hefound a way to milk a few laughs bygiving a look or drawing a word out. It’sstrange to see your brother on nationaltelevision. I just sat there going, “This isweird.”

TOM FARLEY:

I remember walking out of RockefellerPlaza after the first show on our way tothe after party. There were all theselimos lined up. Chris said, “Wow! Lookat all those limos! Ain’t that something?”Pause. “I wonder if we can get a cab.”

“Chris, who do you think these limosare for?” I said.

“What do you mean?”I saw some guy with a clipboard and

walked over to him. “Is one of these carsfor Chris Farley?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Right over there.”“Wow,” Chris said, “How did you

know that?”“Because that’s how it works here.”

MIKE SHOEMAKER,producer:

The first show he didn’t have much,because nobody knew him to write forhim at that point. But that always takes awhile. We knew he was going to hit big,and he did it pretty quickly. The“Chippendales” piece was only hisfourth show.

JIM DOWNEY:The thing that suggested “Chippendales”was less Farley and more PatrickSwayze being the host. You had a guy

who was sort of built like—to the extentthat I notice these things—like a malestripper. And he obviously could dance;that was how he’d come up in showbusiness.

The second element was that nothingmade me laugh more than the bandLoverboy, whose big hit was “Workingfor the Weekend.” So you had PatrickSwayze, male stripper, you hadLoverboy—just add Farley.

KEVIN NEALON, castmember:

I played one of the judges, and my

experience was the same as anyonewho’s seen it on television. I can’t eventhink of the word to describe it.Incredulous, maybe? I did everything Icould to keep a straight face.

JIM DOWNEY:We didn’t know it was going to be aspopular as it was. You never do. In read-through Chris is just sitting fully clothedat the table while Lorne reads stagedirections. We didn’t know until he didit at dress.

MIKE MYERS, castmember:

I knew in rehearsal that a star was born.

DOUG ROBINSON, agent:Adam Venit and I were agents at CAA.We’d known about Chris from Chicago,and we had been talking to Marc Gurvitzat Brillstein about signing him. At CAA,you have to get a consensus from theentire group of agents if you want to signsomeone. All we did was showeveryone a video of the “Chippendales”sketch, and it was done. We signed him

right then.

BOB ODENKIRK:I didn’t like the fact that the first thing hebecame known for was thatChippendales thing, which I hated.Fucking lame, weak bullshit. I can’tbelieve anyone liked it enough to put iton the show. Fuck that sketch. He nevershould have done it.

TOM DAVIS, writer:When you get laughs like that, there’s

nothing wrong with what’s going ononstage.

ROBERT SMIGEL:It was a fantastic sketch—I’d say it’sone of the funniest sketches in the historyof the show—because of the wayDowney wrote it. If the sketch had beenwritten that a fat guy was trying out forthe Chippendales and everyone wasmaking fun of him or acting like it wascrazy, then yes, it would have been just acheap laugh at the expense of a fat guy.But the way it was constructed, witheveryone sincerely believing that this

guy has a shot, the judges studiouslyscribbling notes on his dance moves,that’s what makes it original andcompletely hysterical.

JIM DOWNEY:My overriding note to Chris was,“You’re not at all embarrassed here.They’re telling you, ‘Our audience tendsto prefer a more sculpted, lean physiqueas opposed to a fat, flabby one,’ but yourfeelings are never hurt. You’reprocessing that like it’s goodinformation. Like you’re going to learnfrom this and take it to your next

audition.”Of all the pieces I’ve done it’s one of

the most commented upon, and that’s ofcourse because of Farley. I can’t takeany credit for that except casting him. Hewas also very nimble and a good dancer,which made it impossible to feel like itwas just a freak show.

Later in that show, Jack Handey hadwritten a sketch about a mouse-trap -building class. It was one of those groupscenes where everybody has a verysmall part to play. Farley had only onelittle bit to do, but he had so won theaudience over with “Chippendales” thathe got the biggest reaction in the piece.They had already adopted him as their

own.

CHRIS ROCK:“Chippendales” was a weird sketch. I

always hated it. The joke of it isbasically, “We can’t hire you becauseyou’re fat.” I mean, he’s a fat guy, andyou’re going to ask him to dance with noshirt on. Okay. That’s enough. You’regonna get that laugh. But when he stopsdancing you have to turn it in his favor.There’s no turn there. There’s no comictwist to it. It’s just fucking mean. A morementally together Chris Farley wouldn’thave done it, but Chris wanted so much

to be liked.I wanted to be liked, but I had no

problem saying something was racistand I wasn’t doing it. Imagine if they’dhad me in that sketch and then said at theend, “Oh, we can’t hire you. You’re anigger.” Would I have done a sketch likethat? If I had, ten years later I’d want toshoot myself.

That was a weird moment in Chris’slife. As funny as that sketch was, and asmany accolades as he got for it, it’s oneof the things that killed him. It really is.Something happened right then.

TIM MEADOWS:You had to prove yourself to get airtimeand to get your sketches on. It wasobvious after “Chippendales” that hewas going to be one of the standouts. Ican’t remember too many read-throughswhere he didn’t have something to do.

TOM DAVIS:During the early read-throughs, I wasshocked when I heard him struggle toread scripts he was seeing for the firsttime. He struggled with reading in theway of someone who was not schooled

well. But on the stage he was brilliant,absolutely brilliant. He was a star. I sawit the first day he walked in the office.There was some quality that shonebrightly. Despite his shortcomings assomeone who hadn’t honed his skills yet,it was clear that he had the raw talent towork on that show successfully, whichhe did.

ALEC BALDWIN, host:In the cast of Saturday Night Live youhave people who’ve come from improvtroupes, and you have people who’vedone a lot of stand-up comedy. You can

distinguish the real actors from thestand-ups, and Chris was a good actor, avery good actor. He could have had acareer for the rest of his life. Fat, thin,old, young, he was a really talented guy.

JIM DOWNEY:Farley was like an old-school castmember. The first cast was a repertorycompany. They weren’t comedians; theywere funny actors, and they were calledupon to do lots of different things. In thenineties, we got those with more of astand-up background. And that’s not toknock the stand-ups. Nobody has ever

made me laugh harder than David Spade.But the danger is that a stand-up can doan absolutely devastating ten-minuteaudition, but that might not help you twoyears later when you need a SenatorHarkin in your congressional hearingspiece. As a general rule, we’ve alwaysdone better with the old Dan Aykroydtypes.

LORNE MICHAELS:I used to say that he was the son thatJohn Belushi and Dan Aykroyd neverhad. When Chris was a kid, he used totape his eyebrow up to try and figure out

how Belushi did it.

TOM SCHILLER,writer/short-film director:

It was very shortly after he arrived thathe asked me about Belushi. I could tellby the gleam in his eye that he was veryexcited to find out as much as he could. Idon’t recall exactly what I told him. Iguess I told him a lot. But there was animmediate bond, and he wanted to be inone of my films to take part in thatheritage.

MARILYN SUZANNEMILLER, writer:

Chris would come up to me and say,“You knew John. What was he like?How did he dress? Just tell meeverything you knew about him.” He justhad this reverence, and it was alwaysabout real minutiae.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:He always idolized Belushi, but when Ilooked at him I saw more of Aykroydand Murray.

TIM MEADOWS:Chris would always throw in bits oraccents inspired by the older guys, moreBill Murray than anyone. He stole his“Da Bears” character from Aykroyd.Todd O’Connor, that’s basicallyAykroyd’s Irwin Mainway, that cheesysalesman who sold all the dangeroustoys.

ROBERT SMIGEL:I had moved to Chicago in 1982 to takeimprov classes with the Second CityPlayers Workshop. Today it seems you

can take them anywhere, but back thenthat was the only place to go.

I was always a huge sports guy, and Iwanted to see all the iconic Chicagosports landmarks, so not long after Imoved there I went by myself to a Cubsgame at Wrigley Field. I just walked upto the box office about a half hour beforegame time and said, “Give me the bestticket you’ve got.” It was right behindthe dugout, so I was pretty excited.

But during the game I noticed that thefans in the crappiest seats— thebleachers—were the ones having all thefun. I got a better look at them outsidethe ballpark after the game. They hadtheir Cubs T-shirts on over their

collared, button-down shirts; it was likea uniform. They all seemed to wearaviator sunglasses, which had been outof style for a good five years. And theyall had these big walrus mustaches,which I think to them were some sort ofsymbol of virility, probably passed onfrom Dick Butkus to Mike Ditka. Theyhad a swagger to them, even though atthe time all their teams pretty muchsucked, which made the whole thingfunnier.

Years later, at Saturday Night Live,there was a writers’ strike that shut usdown after February. Bob Odenkirk andI decided to go back to Chicago and do astage show we’d talked about. The

original sketch as we did it then wasthree of these guys sitting on a porch,talking about the Bears. It was moreabsurd, just guys talking about stuff andthe conversation always going back to“and I’ll tell ya who else will be ridinghigh come January. A certain teamknown as . . . da Bears.” It was a hit inChicago, but we never thought aboutdoing it on SNL. Too local, we figured.

Then in 1991, Joe Mantegna hosted,and Bob suggested we do it. To make itmore accessible, we set it in a sports barand made it a parody of the Chicagosportswriters show, only with theseridiculous fans and their outrageouspredictions given as sincere, cogent

game analysis. Their idea of predictingan upset was to say that the Bears wouldonly win by thirty points, instead ofseven hundred.

Jim Downey is from Joliet, Illinois,and he was really insistent that theChicago accents be dead-on. He felt thatwas really important to the joke. Theonly person in the cast who could reallydo the accent was Chris. Mike Myerscould do a pretty decent accent, becausehe’d lived there awhile. Downeyactually thought my accent was the best,and he wanted me to play the third guy.

So we did that original sketch withMantegna. It did well, and that, I thought,was it. But it caught on in Chicago. A

popular deejay named JonathonBrandmeier played excerpts from it allthe time. By spring the Bulls wereheaded for their first championship, and,coincidentally, George Wendt washosting our season finale. It made senseto do another one. It was fine, but inChicago it had a life of its own. “DaBulls” was suddenly the rallying cry ofthe team. It’s funny, because I had neverthought of it as a catchphrase. In thescripts, it was always spelled “theBulls”; the “da” just came out in thedelivery.

That summer in Chicago, MichaelJordan was honored by Comic Relief.George, Chris, and I were invited to do

the Super Fans onstage with Jordan atthis benefit at the Chicago Theater.Jordan had a lot of fun doing it and gotcomfortable with the idea that he coulddo comedy. That led to him hosting theseason opener in the fall, where we didanother one. It just took off from there. Ithink we did eight or nine in total.

It was fun to do on the show, but wehad even more fun doing things atChicago events. Chris and I starteddoing predictions every Thursday nightfor the local Chicago NBC affiliate.We’d tape them via satellite from 30Rock in New York. Chris’s managersnever liked the idea of his doing theseChicago appearances if he wasn’t getting

paid, so he only did a few. I alwaysthought that was ridiculous. Some ofthem were once-in-a -lifetimeexperiences.

When the Bears made the playoffs, inDecember of ’91, Chris, George Wendt,and I actually stood at the fifty-yard lineat Soldier Field and made a pregamespeech. Half the fans went nuts and halfwere just weirded out, I think. Then theylet us stay and watch the game on thefield. I felt like a moron wearing mycostume out there during the game, but Iwasn’t going to pass up the chance towatch from the sidelines.

At halftime they had a contest wherethey let kids try and make a field goal

from a tee on the ten-yard line. Quitespontaneously, they asked us if wewanted to participate. We said sure, andsuddenly on the PA it was, “Ladies andgentlemen, we direct your attention toour additional contestants.”

We let Chris take the first kick. Helined up to make the field goal, took arunning start and then slipped andnosedived right into the mud. The wholestadium went crazy. George and I didn’tknow what to do. We’d let the funniestguy go first, and now we had no way totop it. I figured the only thing I could dowas to try and actually make the kick.So, with beer in hand, I lined up andkicked the ball and somehow I made it.

The crowd loved it.Then it was George’s turn, and by

now he’d figured out a topper. He hadChris snap the ball to me. Then insteadof placing the ball down, we ran a“fake” and I lateraled to George. I“blocked” Chris, and George ran it infor a touchdown, as the announcer calledit on the PA. That was just so much fun.The stadium was packed, and everyonewas cheering and going crazy for a fatguy running ten yards. It was one ofthose perfect moments in life, where allyour hard work comes together in a waythat’s better than anything you could haveimagined.

TIM MEADOWS:It was a great time during those firstcouple of years. We were young. We allhad money, we lived in New York, andwe were on Saturday Night Live. Wewould always have dinner after theread-throughs. Saturday nights after theshow we would hang out. We all playedgolf. We’d go to movies. We got invitedto a lot of stuff, basketball games,baseball games. We all immediatelybonded with each other.

CHRIS ROCK:

We just had fun. There was a lot ofMcDonald’s, a lot of going out to eat, alot of watching MTV. We’d watch themusical guests rehearse. “Let’s run downand see Pearl Jam.” We got to see a lotof the grunge stuff before it really tookoff; all those bands made their firstappearance on SNL.

KEVIN NEALON:More and more, the older cast membersstarted to realize we had our own littlewest wing going on with Spade, Farley,and those other guys. You’d go over andthere’d be Playboy magazines lying

around and it’d be a bit of a mess.They’d all be talking about what modelsthey’d gotten laid with, and then youwent into Dana or Phil’s office andthey’d be talking about their 401(k).

DAVID SPADE:We would just hang out and get introuble. We shared an office, me andChris. You’d have to go through ouroffice to get to another little office forRock and Sandler. There was alwaysSmigel around, or whoever else. Wewere all back there, screwing aroundand staying up late, trying to write and

think of ideas and brainstorm and dowhatever you gotta do to stay alive onthat show.

MARCI KLEIN:You just spend so many hours there, andso much time of your life. We were allsort of the same age. We were all alwaystogether. It’s just inevitable that thisgroup forms. We go to the party, thenhang out at somebody’s apartment, andthe next thing I know, it’s six A.M. andChris and Adam are crashing in myliving room.

TOM FARLEY:The guys at SNL, they were like Chris’snew rugby team. Not nearly as wild buta lot of fun, and they gave Chris thatfraternity atmosphere that he alwaysthrived in. And then, somewhere alongthat first year on the show, Chris starteddating Lorne’s assistant, this girl namedErin Maroney. Erin was great, just a lotof fun. And I thought it was the start of awhole new thing for Chris, a really gooddirection. It was the first time I’d seenhim in a real relationship, you know,ever.

DAVID SPADE:We’d always be outside Lorne’s officewaiting for whatever, so we had a lot ofinteraction with Erin. Chris would hideunderneath her desk, and he’d pop outand surprise her when she got back. Heflirted with her all the time, and it paidoff. They started dating. Erin was verycute, very sweet.

She went back to Wisconsin with himonce, and she’d tell hilarious storiesabout what it was like around that dinnertable. She’s kind of a preppy East Coastgirl and there she is with seven Farleysfighting over chicken and steak, and themother’s passing around a “yuck bag”

where they throw all their extra bonesand corncobs. I don’t think I ever wouldhave put those two together, but I thinkshe saw through all the other stuff to seethat he was a good guy and a fun guy, andas history shows sometimes that’senough.

TOM ARNOLD, friend:Chris was in love with Erin. He talkedabout her all the time. She was verysmart. Actually, she had the best lineever. They were all flying back from LosAngeles to New York, and Chris keptcoming up and talking to Lorne, sucking

up. So, after the third or fourth time hecame by sucking up to Lorne, she turnedto him and said, “Pace yourself, Tubby.It’s a long flight.” I think that’s why heloved her. A funny woman who’sattractive and smart, now that’s whatyou want.

TODD GREEN, friend,Edgewood High School:

Chris really wanted to end up with anIrish Catholic girl that his family wouldapprove of—and Erin fit the bill.Despite the fame, and despite the accesshe had to all these beautiful women, he

really just longed for, as he would say,“a nice Irish gal.” He was in love withthe idea of them together.

TIM MEADOWS:It was the first time I’d ever seen him ina serious relationship. It was surprising.I could see why he was attracted to her.They both had a similar sense of humor.She was also very cute, just had a reallysweet personality, and she’s really funny.I really liked that time of his life,because it was nice seeing him withsomeone who cared about him. He hadsomeone who was actually going to

make a home for him.

LORNE MICHAELS:He saw in Erin someone who liked himfor who he was. They would go to masstogether on Sundays. He took her hometo meet his parents, and I know she didthe same. Her mother loved Chris. Ithink they just genuinely liked and caredfor each other. But it was always moreof a brother-sister thing than aboyfriend-girlfriend thing, from myperspective.

TIM MEADOWS:Basically, that first year, we only hadeach other. And we all had one thing incommon: We couldn’t believe that wewere doing this show. The people fromSaturday Night Live, they were ourheroes. It’s like if you dreamed of beinga Major League Baseball player and yougot your chance to do it— only there’sreally only one baseball team in thecountry, and they’ve drafted you.

After the first season wrapped in May,we had this party at the restaurantdownstairs at Rockefeller Center. Abunch of us went back up to the officefor a little after party. Then, about four in

the morning, Farley and I were bothleaving at the same time. We werewaiting for the elevator, and he said,“Timmy, can you believe this is ourlife?”

I said, “Chris, I think that every day.”Then he just grabbed me, and hugged

me. He couldn’t believe where his lifewas going.

CHAPTER 7

The Place in Alabama

LOVERBOY, band:Everybody’s workin’ for the weekend.Everybody wants a new romance.Everybody’s goin’ off the deep end.Everybody needs a second chance, oh.Chris Farley’s life was going in twowildly different directions at once. With"Chippendales,” "Super Fans,” and anumber of solid turns in supportingroles, he had established himself as oneof the standouts at Saturday Night Live.But his problem with drugs and alcohol

had worsened severely. Around theoffice, Chris was always happy andhardworking, determined and focused.The sloppy, crazy party guy showed upat social functions here and there, but hewas no longer a nightly fixture. Chris,knowing what was at stake, had learnedhow to hide his problem. And safelyhidden, it festered.

The summer following his first yearon the show, Chris returned to Chicagoand dropped by Second City to see hisold friends. He had clearly been usingand was in no condition to perform. Thecast pleaded with him not to go onstage,but during the improv set he burst outfrom behind the curtain anyway. The

audience greeted him with a huge cheer.But as he began to stumble his waythrough a scene, his inebriation wasobvious to everyone. People began toboo. After one scene, an audiencemember yelled, “Get the drunk off thestage.” Even in his failed stand-upcomedy routines at Marquette, Chris hadat least come off as affable and good-natured. He had never sufferedwholesale rejection quite like this. Thecrowd’s reaction cut deep.

On June 16, 1991, worried that themanagement at SNL would hear of theincident, Chris checked himself into theHazelden recovery facility in CenterCity, Minnesota. It was the first time he

sought treatment for his addiction.Red Arrow camp counselor Fred

Albright once observed, in his uniqueWisconsin vernacular, that “Chris wasextremely complex, and yet as easy tounderstand as a ripe watermelon.” Thedoctors and therapists at Hazelden, insomewhat more sophisticated language,came to the same conclusion. Theirdiagnosis of Chris would come as nosurprise to anyone who’d ever spent fiveminutes with the boy:Chris’s inclination is to be compliant. .. . Whenever Chris has been confrontedfor not meeting unit expectations hehas apologized and assured that thiswill not happen again, [but he] does

not appear to be willing to fully acceptresponsibility for his behavior. . . .Chris allows his fear to dictate theterms of his recovery. . . . Chris hasidentified that his use of humor servesthe function of diverting attention fromissues that may be painful. . . . that it’swith humor that his family deals withconflict and pain. . . . Chris sees his lifeand his drinking as a benefit to hiswork as a comedian, and this maycomplicate his motivation to get helpfor these issues. . . . [Aftercare issuesinclude] compulsive overeating,possible obsessive compulsivebehavior. . . .

Diagnosing the problem was easy. But

unlocking it and treating it would proveto be a complex proposition indeed.After twenty-eight days, Chris checkedout of Hazelden, but the program hadaccomplished little, and his destructivebehaviors quickly resumed.

That fall, Chris returned to New Yorkfor the 1991-1992 season, his second, onSaturday Night Live. He moved from hisapartment near Times Square to a placenear Riverside Drive on Manhattan’sUpper West Side. Along with ChrisRock, Chris was promoted from featuredplayer to repertory player, andescalators in his contract pushed hissalary from $4,500 to $6,500 per show.That year, Adam Sandler, David Spade,

and Rob Schneider graduated from thewriters’ room to join Tim Meadows asfull-fledged featured players.

Despite the unusual influx of so manynew performers, Saturday Night Livestill belonged very much to its seniormembers. Kevin Nealon took over theWeekend Update desk from the departingDennis Miller; Mike Myers’s long-running “Wayne’s World” sketch hadspawned a hit movie; and Phil Hartmanand Dana Carvey would dominate thecoming election year with their laudedtakes on Arkansas governor Bill Clinton,President George H. W. Bush, and feistycontender Ross Perot.

Chris, always happy to be a team

player, continued to do his best in small,supporting parts, such as Todd O’Connorin the “Super Fans” sketches and as JackGermond in the McLaughlin Groupparodies. He took on starring roles innow-classic sketches like RobertSmigel’s “Schmitt’s Gay.” And veteranwriters Jim Downey and Tom Davis sawa unique side of Chris underneath all ofhis wild-man antics and brought itbrilliantly to life in Chris’s signaturepiece, “The Chris Farley Show.”

Through all of this, most of the castand crew of Saturday Night Live failedto see the true nature of Chris’s spiralingaddiction. But over time, deep cracksbegan to appear in the wall he had built

up between his personal andprofessional lives. It soon becamereadily apparent to all that Chris Farleywas headed for a serious reckoning.

TOM DAVIS:Saturday Night Live had really changed.The smell of marijuana no longer hit youwhen you stepped off the elevator; thatsort of thing just wasn’t toleratedanymore. However, Fiddler’s Greenwas a bar down on Forty-eighth Street. Itwas the nearest watering hole to theseventeenth floor. Not literally. Therewas the Rainbow Room and one other

really high-end restaurant that sort offrowned on long-haired, beardedcomedy writers dashing in for a quickRémy Martin. But Fiddler’s Green wasan Irish bar, like a real Irish bar. A lot ofNBC people, mainly the union guys,they’d go there to drink. So it became aconvenient place to duck out to. Aroundten-thirty at night, when everyone elsewas eating candy bars and drinkingcoffee, you’d excuse yourself, grab yourcopy of The Gulag Archipelago, say youhad to take a dump, and then sprint upForty-eighth Street to get booze.

Chris discovered this fairly early on,and so I had the experience, on morethan one occasion, of running into him

there. I’d see him doing shots of tequila,literally throwing the shots back in away that made me cringe. I like drinking,but you can’t drink like that. He wasgoing for oblivion. On one such night Itold him, “Chris, don’t go back to theoffice. Don’t let them see you like this.”

“Okay,” he said.Twenty minutes later we were both

back in the office. He was obviouslydrunk in front of these younger writers,and it was funny to them. He wouldentertain them and they would all laugh.But if you were aware of what wasgoing on, it wasn’t so funny. He wouldslap himself so hard that you could seethe mark on his face, and that would get

a laugh from those writers, but I wouldsee the mark on his face, and I just sawdisaster.

DAVID SPADE:We saw him drinking, but then everyonewas drinking, so who cares? I started tonotice it was a problem more when I’dleave him at night. I’m a lightweightwhen it comes to that. I couldn’t keep up,and he’d get angry when I’d leave him atthe bar. He’d start getting mad that Iwouldn’t stay and drink with him. Like,really mad.

Then I started noticing that when we

would walk down the street, strangers atsidewalk bars and restaurants wouldrecognize us from the show and go,“Hey, Spade and Farley! What’s up!Come and have a drink with us.”

And Chris would go, “Okay.”I’d be like, “Are you kidding?”Even the people at the table, who’d

been half joking, they were like, “Wait,he’s actually coming over?”

And so he would go drink withrandom people. Then the drugs kicked inand it escalated.

TIM MEADOWS:

In Chicago, everybody socialized anddrank at a bar after the show. And that’sjust part of Chicago; there’s a bar onevery corner. In New York, he mademore money and the drugs got harder.That was the big difference.

CHRIS ROCK:He got high and we didn’t, so he stayedaway a lot.

STEVEN KOREN, writer:I had a different perspective than most. I

saw things that other people didn’t see. Ieventually became a writer, but whenChris got to the show I was still areceptionist. I would answer the phonesuntil eight or nine at night and then staylate and write jokes to try and get themonto Weekend Update. Sometimes I wasthere until four, five in the morning. I’dbe hunched over a desk in some darkoffice and I’d hear the elevator, andChris would come in with some shady-looking characters, people I’d neverseen before. They’d go back into someoffice, turn on some music, and Iwouldn’t see or hear from them for acouple of hours. I didn’t know what wasgoing on, nor was it my place to say

anything.Then there was one incident where an

office got messed up, and I got yelled atthe next day. They thought I’d done itbecause I was the only person there thatlate. Turned out it was Chris and a bunchof these people. That was really thebeginning. That was when I was like, oh,he’s doing other things, beyond thenorm.

KEVIN NEALON:I remember seeing him being a littlemore sweaty in sketches. His moodswould change more. When he first

showed up he was that lovable Chrisguy. Then you started to see sides of himthat were a little more irritated, moreimpatient.

TIM MEADOWS:Tom Davis was the first one at the showto say something.

TOM DAVIS:And when Tom Davis is the one doingthe intervention on you, that’s when youknow you’re in trouble.

TIM MEADOWS:He got me and Sandler and Spade andwe all went over to Chris’s dressingroom. We sat him down and said,“You’re hurting yourself, and you needto stop.” We were young. We didn’tknow much about interventions. We justtold him that we loved him and wedidn’t want to watch him doing this tohimself, and that it was time to grow up.

TODD GREEN:Chris and I had stayed close throughcollege, and I moved to New York about

nine months after he did. We tried to doan intervention in New York pretty earlyon. Me, Tom Farley, and Kevin Clearyall went to lunch at P.J. Clarke’s. Wetried to say to him that we loved him andwe were worried about him, and he justdidn’t want to hear any of it. It was veryconfrontational. “Who are you guys tojudge me?” That sort of thing. It wasn’teasy. Kevin, Mike Cleary’s brother, wasthe other big part of Chris’s life in NewYork. Kevin died on 9/11, but in thosedays the three of us were alwaystogether.

MIKE CLEARY, friend,

Edgewood High School:Kevin was Chris’s sounding board forthe first three years of SNL. They wereincredibly close. Kevin and I never wenta day without talking to each other atleast once, and so the few times we didgo two, three days without talking, itwas always because of Chris. AndKevin would never, ever talk about it.All he’d say was, “I had to deal withsomething.”

TOM FARLEY:Any time I was called in to bail out

Chris, Kevin Cleary was there. Icouldn’t deal with Chris without Kevin,but I know Kevin bailed Chris outseveral times without me. He was theguy. He kept the pieces together.

Right before Christmas during Chris’ssecond year on the show, Erin Maroneycalled me and said I needed to comedown to Chris’s apartment. He’d trashedthe place. Kevin and I went over, and itwas a mess. Chris stumbled out and waslike, “What’s up with you guys?” Tryingto play it off like it was nothing.

Erin had also called Al Franken, so hecame as well. Franken had a talk withhim, but he was still pretty out of it.Franken also said he knew some people

at Smithers, a rehab facility in NewYork, that he could get Chris in there.But I called my dad, and he said, “Justget him home. Get two tickets and flyhim home and we’ll deal with it here.”

I got him up to my apartment inWestchester. My wife drove us to theairport. This was on a Sunday. I got himon the plane, this little puddle jumper.He immediately said to the stewardess,“Gimme a screwdriver.” So I gave himone. That’s what they tell you to do.Give them anything they want to keepthem pacified until you can get them tothe rehab facility, to avoid aconfrontation. So he drank thescrewdriver and then just crashed out in

his seat. There were some mechanicalproblems, and we sat out on the tarmacfor an hour. He was out cold the wholetime. Finally, they came on and said theflight wasn’t going anywhere any timesoon, and we all had to deplane back tothe terminal. I woke him up and draggedhim down the stairs out onto the tarmac.He looked around and said, “Damn,looks just like Westchester.”

“Chris, it is Westchester. We haven’tgone anywhere.”

“Oh.”We went back in. There was no bar in

this tiny airport, so there was nothing todo but sit. Chris started getting loud,like, “What’s going on here? Why are

we just sitting here?” And I kept tryingto keep him quiet. We waited for anotherhour, and then finally they canceled theflight entirely. I called my wife. Shecame back to pick us up. After we gothome, she took our daughter and said,“Look, I’m going to my sister’s whileyou figure this out.”

So she took off, and Chris went insideand just crashed in our bed to sleep itoff. It was a long, long night. I calledhome and told my parents he’d be a daylate. I took him back to the airport thenext day, but I didn’t go with him. I hadto go back to work, so I just put him onthe plane. I figured by that point he couldfly home by himself.

Chris rolled off the plane in Madison,and of course the first thing out of mydad’s mouth: “Hey! You look great! Thata new blazer?” No acknowledgment ofthe problem. No discipline. No nothing.Refused to deal with it. It was only at mymother’s insistence that he agreed tocheck him in to the local hospital for afew days, and then, after Christmas, afterthe incident at the hotel, they sent himback to Hazelden.

KEVIN FARLEY:Around Christmas, me and my girlfriendwere in Chicago, and we went out with

Chris and Robert Smigel. They’d justdone the halftime show at the Bearsgame at Soldier Field. We went out tothe Chop House, and Chris was gettinginto it pretty hard. He was just ripping itup. Smigel eventually left, because Chriswas too much to handle. I took him backto his room at the Westin Hotel. I said,“Chris, just go to bed. Let’s just go tobed and sleep this off.” And I left him inhis room, assuming that he would staythere.

HOLLY WORTELL:Chris called me up and said, “Come and

meet me at Carly’s.” So I went and methim. That night he got really drunk reallyfast. People around us were starting toleave. It wasn’t fun anymore. It wastrouble. We got out onto Wells Street andI said, “Chris, where are you staying?”

He told me his hotel, which wasdowntown. Even if I’d told the cab-driver where to go, I doubt Chris couldhave made it back. So I went with himand got him up to his room. I didn’t thinkI could leave him alone, so I said, “Canyou call your brother? Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”Then Chris got into the minibar, taking

out all the little bottles and just shootingthem. I yelled, “Chris, stop it!”

“No!”He downed a few more of them, and

then he looked up at me and sort oflunged at me. I stepped aside, but hismomentum kept him careening forward.Now, we were about fifteen stories up inthis high-rise hotel, and the room hadthese large picture windows that startedabout four feet up, went all the way tothe ceiling and ran the whole width ofthe room. Under the window was thiswaist-high radiator. Chris ran smack intothe plate-glass window and smashedright through it. His body was hangingout at a ninety-degree angle, and if notfor this radiator that caught him at hiswaist, he would have crashed right

through and fallen to the street below.He hung there for a few seconds. Then

he lurched back in, and I screamed—hisarm was sliced open all the way fromhis shoulder to his wrist.

And at that moment I sort of lost allmy emotions. I said, “Chris, we have togo to the hospital right now.” I walkedover to the phone, I dialed the hoteloperator, told them there’d been anaccident in one of the rooms and theyneeded to call an ambulance. I grabbedChris and said, “Let’s go.”

“I want to put my jacket on first,” hesaid.

“No, let’s go.”

“I wanna put my jacket on!”So I said okay, helped him put his

jacket on, we walked out, got in theelevator, went downstairs, and therewere three security guys waiting for us.They hadn’t called an ambulance,because they said they didn’t knowexactly what the situation was. I said,“Well, someone’s been hurt, and weneed one right now! I could sue thiswhole hotel!”

I walked outside and hailed a cab. Wegot in, and I said, “NorthwesternHospital. Emergency room.Immediately.”

We took off and drove as fast as wecould to the hospital. I remember the last

block was a one-way going the wrongway. The cabbie stopped and turned andlooked at me, and I said, “Just go.”

He took off going the wrong way onthis street, did a U-turn, and got us to theemergency room. I got Chris out, tookhim in, and did what I could to fill outthe paperwork to get him admitted.Someone came up to me and said, “Isn’tthat the guy from Saturday Night Live?”

I said, “Yes. Please keep this quietand tell the next shift to keep it quiet.”

“Absolutely.”I sat there for a while. Then I asked if

I could see him. They were calling in aspecialist to look at him, but they said I

could go in and visit first. I walked intohis room, and the curtains were drawnon either side of his bed. I pulled themaside and looked in and he was lyingthere. His arm was laid out and themuscle was just hanging open. With hisother hand he was just lifting up the flapof skin and poking around and lookinginside. I told him to stop. He was stillinebriated, and obviously in some stateof shock.

The doctors came in. I went back tothe waiting room and called the family.Then, when they started to arrive, I wenthome.

KEVIN FARLEY:Holly called, and I went to see him. Hewas sitting there, still hammered, withhis arm all bandaged up. He had alreadytried to sneak out of the hospital thatmorning to go get a bottle of vodka. Ilooked him in the eye and said, “Chris,you can’t do this anymore. You’ve got tosober up. It’s time to sober up.”After slicing his arm open in Chicago,Chris agreed to go back to rehab, but itwas a brief visit. He returned to NewYork—too soon, in the eyes of many—toget back to work on the rest of the SNLseason. He joined an outpatient program,but used and manipulated the system

beyond the point of any realeffectiveness. Chris’s near-deathexperience in the hotel may not haveopened his eyes to the full extent of theproblem, but it did open plenty ofothers’. When he returned to New York,his arm tied up in stitches and swathedin bandages, his friends and his familycould ignore the problem no longer.

TOM FARLEY:When I walked into his apartment thatChristmas and saw that it was trashed,that was the first time I woke up to thereality of the problem. I was a big

drinker, and what had brought mybehavior under control was having awife and settling down; she justwouldn’t tolerate it. And here Chris hadthis really nice girlfriend. They seemedto have a nice relationship. When I sawthat she wasn’t doing the same for him,that’s when I realized his problem wasof a whole different order.

Mom had known for a while. She sawit way before everyone, but after thatnight, seeing his apartment and puttinghim on the plane, that’s when I startedgoing over to Mom’s camp.

JOHN FARLEY:

No one educated the rest of the familyfor a long time, and we didn’t educateourselves. I’ve got seven years sobernow, but at the time? Recovery? Whatwas that? I didn’t know. I was chuggingbeers right alongside Chris, saying,“Gee, sucks for you.” It was like Chrishad a net thrown over him, and he wastaken away from the party, but the partyjust kept on going.

KEVIN FARLEY:The first step is to recognize it and totalk about it, and when Chris almostwent out the window we at least started

to talk about it. We all acknowledgedthat Chris had a problem. Except forDad. He would never even mention theincident. And of course there was nodiscussion that Dad’s drinking might bea problem. Never.

Then, it’s one thing to talk about it. It’sanother thing to do something about it.

CHARNA HALPERN:I got a phone call from Chris’s manager,and he said, “I know that you have somekind of hold on Chris. You gotta talk tohim. And you gotta talk to his family,because we don’t know what to do

anymore.”So I called Mr. Farley and said,

“We’ve really got to help Chris. Whenhe comes home, he can’t drink. And youcan’t drink, either, because it’s so mucha part of your relationship.”

And Mr. Farley said, “I don’t have toquit drinking. I’m not the one with theproblem. Del Close stopped drinking. Ifhe managed to do it, Chris is gonna haveto do it.”

“Yes, but he can’t,” I said. “Maybewe can help him if we all stop drinking.”

“I’m not gonna do that.”

FR. MATT FOLEY:You liked Mr. Farley. You really likedthe guy, but his world was very blackand white. He was very caring, but therewas the right way and the wrong waywith him. There was no middle ground.

Growing up, we were always told youcan be critical inside the home, but don’tever bring it out in the street. That’s anIrish Catholic thing, a clan thing. InChris’s case that aversion to dealingwith matters openly would be even moremultiplied, because if Chris had aneating and a drinking problem, thatwould mean somebody else in the roomhad an eating and a drinking problem.

TOM FARLEY:Chris was sent back to rehab, but it wasreally more of a quick fix. Get him in,patch him up, and send him back on theroad. Nothing was really accomplishedby it. But when he went back to the showin January with his arm covered inbandages, it was a wake-up call foreveryone else, too. Nobody could hidefrom the problem anymore.

TOM DAVIS:The story was that he’d gone through aplate-glass door, not a high-rise hotel

window. That story was accepted at thetime, because, well, going through aplate-glass door is bad enough on itsown.

Chris knew that he had fucked up andthat he was going to have to answerquestions about what had happened. Hewas not unintelligent. He was veryaware of all these forces swirlingaround him. Rather than have rumorsfloating around, he chose to reveal theproblem to us, to go on the offensiveabout it and try and make a joke out of it.

He came into the writers’ room andtook his shirt off and went “Behold! ”doing this shticky, horror-movie kind ofthing. We all saw the Frankensteinian

stitches up his arm—and nobodylaughed. It was horrific. It was maybethe first time that those young guys didn’tgive Chris a laugh when he wanted it.We were all just like, “Holy shit . . . oh,fuck.”

JIM DOWNEY:Farley always reminded me of the lyricsto that old Irish wake song, “The PartingGlass”: “All the harm e’er I’ve done,alas! it was to none but me.” That wasFarley. I don’t think he knowingly everhurt another person in his life, and, quitehonestly, the drug problems are not

remotely the first thing that I think ofwhen it comes to Farley; I think of himbeing goofy and funny around the office.I didn’t notice that it affected his work atall.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:It was never a problem in the office, andit was never to the point where it was anembarrassment, ever. You knew that hewas drinking, but he was alwaysfunctional. And there were neverproblems Saturday night when the showwent to air.

TIM MEADOWS:The only time he would drink too muchand it would be noticeable and annoyingwas at the party after the show everyweek. And he was never an angry drunk,which is kind of an easier drunk todiagnose. That person obviously needshelp. But Chris would just get sloppyand tell you how much he loved you, andhe wanted to hug you and make youlaugh. What I think, and this is just myopinion, is that he would drink when hegot home after work every night, afterread-through and after rehearsal.

TODD GREEN:He may not have let on anything up at 30Rock, but those times in New York,those were rough. He was over at KevinCleary’s a lot, either trying to hold ittogether or coming off a binge. I knowErin dealt with a lot of the fallout, too.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris wanted to marry Erin. He evenbought a ring. And she was just a superperson, had a lot of patience. But shecouldn’t handle the ups and downs. Ithink she was probably scared to death.

Who wouldn’t be?

TOM FARLEY:I couldn’t tell you exactly when, but atsome point the relationship was justover. She was staying with him a lot, andthen she wasn’t anymore. He’d gottenthat ring, but I don’t know if he evereven proposed. Ultimately that wasnever in the cards.

TODD GREEN:Erin was so young then. I mean, she was

a kid. But she really tried to help him. Iremember going up to her parents’ placein Westchester—me, Kevin Cleary, andher—and trying to figure out how wecould help Chris. We just talked andlooked at each other like, “What are wegoing to do?” Not a whole lot wasaccomplished.

It’s funny. Mrs. Farley would call meand say, “If there’s anything you can doto help him . . .” And, naturally, I woulddo anything, but you’re so ill equipped atthat age. The gravity of it is enormousand really beyond your understanding.You just think, I’m his friend and I’mdifferent and I can get through to him.

Labor Day after his second year on

the show, Chris and I went up toNewport and stayed with his cousin. Hewas holding it together, but I knew hewas using. He cleaned up a bit, and wewent into town, where we ate at theBlack Pearl, which is the restaurantwhere his dad and his mom went on theirfirst date. Chris called his parents to tellthem he was there, and he was reallyhappy about it. He seemed leveled out,and I was trying to rationalize it in myhead. Oh, he’s okay. Things are betternow. Things like that.

But when we got back to New York, Idropped him off at his apartment on theUpper West Side. As I pulled away, Ilooked back down the street. I saw him

turn away from his front door and hop ina cab going downtown, and I knewwhere he was going.

TOM ARNOLD:I’d seen a sketch Chris had done onSaturday Night Live where heimpersonated me when I was married toRoseanne. It was very funny. I talked tosome of the other guys from the show,and they said, “Oh, you have to meetChris. You guys have a lot in common.”So Roseanne and I went on and wehosted the show and I realized that Chrisand I had an extra lot in common; I’d

been sober since December 10, 1989.Chris came out and we spent some

time together. He worked on my HBOspecial, and he did stuff on Roseanne.As I got to know Chris, Lorne Michaelstalked to me about him, saying he wasafraid Chris had a problem, was kind ofcaught up in the Belushi thing.

In September of 1992, Chris wasstaying with me and Roseanne for aweek. I had a show called The JackieThomas Show, and he came in andplayed my brother and, you know, Icould tell. There were times when hedidn’t want to be around me at all. Hedisappeared a couple nights. We shot theshow Friday night—he was great on the

show, by the way—and after the taping Isaid, “Hey, why don’t you come upstairsto my office real quick before you takeoff back to New York.”

“Sure,” he said.He came up, and me and Rob Lowe

and some other guys did an interventionon him. Everybody told him how muchthey loved him and how they wereworried about him and how we wantedhim to go to rehab right now. He said,“Well, I’d like to go back to New Yorkfirst.” Which, you know, is a classicaddict thing to say. “I just want to goback and get my clothes and stuff.” Whatthey mean is: “I want to go see mydealer to get high before I go in.”

We said, “Well, you know, when yougo into rehab, they give you other drugsthat kind of detox you from the drugsyou’re on now, so it’ll get you fuckedup.”

“Oh, really?” he said. “So you’retelling me if I go right now to this place,I can get fucked up?”

“Yeah, pretty much, for a coupledays.”

“Well, let’s go.”So we all drove down there, and he

went in.

TOM FARLEY:

After Tom Arnold’s intervention, Chrisfinally seemed to get serious about it. Hestayed at a facility out there, came back,and spent time at Hazelden’s New Yorkinpatient facility. Then he moved to thishalfway house that had just been opened.It was on Sixteenth Street and SecondAvenue. It was transitional housing forpeople trying to regain their footing insociety. I wasn’t even allowed in there.He might have had a room, but I believeit was just a bunch of cots in thebasement, and they had their meetingsupstairs. He was living there full-timeand going to perform on national TVevery week.

TODD GREEN:Kevin and I met him over there a lot. Atthe time it was like, “Holy shit. This iswhere Chris is living?” But Chris likedit. He was glad to have it.

AL FRANKEN:When he was living at Hazelden, he’dbring guys from the halfway house to seethe show. Chris came to me a lot,because I often wrote about twelve-stepstuff. I would talk to him about it andencourage him to go to meetings and stayon the program. I understood the ins and

outs of the program, because I go to Al-Anon, which is for family members andfriends of alcoholics. Chris knew Ibelieved in the program, and he believedin it, too. And that’s the aspect of thisthat people may not know. He tried. Hereally tried.

TODD GREEN:It was a cycle. There were times whenhe was in really good shape, but othertimes there would be so much pressureto drink, and he’d ask me and Kevin totake him home; he was incapable ofpulling himself out of a social situation

that was bad.

ALEC BALDWIN:I’ve done a lot of drug and alcoholrehabilitation work, privately, withfriends over the years. Chris knew that,and so he really reached out to me for abrief period of time. I talked to him aftera show and said, “Here’s my phonenumber. I want you to call me.”

And his persona offstage was exactlylike the “Chris Farley Show” sketch. Hewas like, “Whoa, this is your phonenumber? And it’s okay if I call it?”

“Yes, Chris. It’s okay. Just call me,

and we’ll talk about whatever you’regoing through.”

That lasted for a couple of months.He’d call and we’d talk. Then he’d goback to his old habits, and we’d stop.

DAVID SPADE:Everyone wanted to take care of Chris.The hosts would hear about the problem,and they’d say, “Can I take you tolunch?” And I think Chris liked theattention of that more than the actualconversation. I used to do an imitation ofChris going, “Alec Baldwin, are you inrecovery? We should go to lunch.”

“Okay.”“Tom Hanks, you’re in recovery, we

should go to lunch.”“No, I’m not.”“Well . . . do you do drugs?”“No.”“Are you afraid of the dark?”“No.”“Have you ever seen a scary movie?”“Yes.”“Me, too! Let’s go talk about it.”

FR. MATT FOLEY:

He wanted to find a nice woman, go andlive in the suburbs, and start a familyand be like everybody else. I think hefelt if he did that he could escape it. Butto stay in the environment he was in, hewas never going to. They find you, thosepeople. They always find you.

One time I came to visit New York,and Chris sent a driver to pick me up.The driver didn’t know who I was. He’sjust going off about Chris’s women, andhow he always hooked Chris up with hotgirls. All this wild and crazy stuff. Thenhalfway through the ride he says, “Sowhat do you do?”

“I’m a priest.”Well, the conversation came to a dead

halt after that. I’m not naïve, certainly,but it was a window into the kind ofworld Chris was in. How do you notfind trouble in that world?

ALEC BALDWIN:Chris’s problem was that everywhere hewent, people thought he was Falstaff.Chris was going to be the jolly fat manwho would hoist a beer with you andsnort a line with you. Everywhere hewent someone was shoving a mug in hishand.

MICHAEL McKEAN,castmember:

While we were filming Coneheads, Iwas talking to Lorne, and one of usmentioned the fact that Chris waskeeping clean at the time, and Lornesaid, “Yeah, he’s being good. That’s thedeal. We’ve already done the fat guy inthe body bag.”

TOM DAVIS:I said to him once, “Chris, you don’twant to die like Belushi, do you?”

And he said, “Oh, yeah, that’d be

really cool.”And I actually started crying. I wept

for him. He said, “Davis, you’re crying.”“Yes, Chris. I’m crying for you.”He said, “Wow. Thanks, man.”I didn’t say you’re welcome.

TODD GREEN:I never bought in to the fact that Chriswas obsessed with Belushi. The pressjust seemed to make such a huge thingabout it. I watched Animal House withChris. I watched Saturday Night Livewith Chris. Sure, we all thought Belushi

was great, but I can’t ever rememberChris being obsessed with the guy.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:I think he romanticized Belushi’s death,but that’s not the same thing as having adeath wish. Chris also wanted to bewhat Belushi couldn’t be. He wanted tohave the Chris Farley story be its ownstory. So I think he was of two minds onit.

LORNE MICHAELS:

Chris romanticized Belushi’s life and hisdeath, to a certain degree, but I told himthere was nothing romantic about it. Isaid, “John missed most of the eighties,all of the nineties, and I don’t think thatwas his intention.” I was pretty brutalwith Chris. I mean, we buried John.

KEVIN FARLEY:When Chris finally cleaned up, thedifference was that for the first timeLorne looked him in the face and said, “Iwill fire you. I’m not going throughanother Belushi, and I will fire you.”And he meant it.

STEVEN KOREN:Chris had really been doing well. He’dbeen clean for a while. Then we weredoing the Glenn Close show just beforeChristmas. We were in the middle of thisread-through, and Chris had written asketch. I thought it was hilarious, butChris didn’t seem to think it went well.We had a half-hour break in the middleof the meeting, and Chris just didn’tcome back for the second half.

TOM FARLEY:Chris left the show and went over to

Hell’s Kitchen and scored some heroin.

DAVID SPADE:I found a bunch of bags of coke or heroinin a drawer in our office. I said, “Whatare these?” I didn’t even know.

He said, “Get the fuck out of here!”And he kicked me out of our office.

Adam came in and asked what wasgoing on. I said, “Farley’s out of it, andthere’s some shit in there. I don’t knowwhat it is.”

Chris was pretty good with Adam, soAdam said, “Let me talk to him.”

Adam went in the office.“Fuck you, Sandler! Get out of

here!”Adam came back out and said, “That

didn’t work too good.”I said, “Let’s talk to Marci and see

what she can do.”Marci came in and said, “Where’s

Chris?”“Fuck you, Marci!”She said, “I’m telling Lorne.”

JIM DOWNEY:Lorne said, “I think we have to fire

him.”

TOM ARNOLD:Lorne called me. He said, “Chrisrelapsed. He’s in his office, weeping.He’s crying out for help so loudly thatwe can hear him out in the hallway.”

LORNE MICHAELS:It was a very adolescent cri de coeur, anattempt to play on everyone’ssympathies. But as soon as I heard it washeroin, I was having none of it. I had

been through it with John, and I wasn’tdoing it again.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:I don’t remember Chris actually beingfired. He was suspended. But we neversaid “Empty your office.” Because thenwhat could Chris do but go on a binge?But it was severe, and there was anultimatum attached. Either you comeback clean or you don’t come back. Wenever said, “You’re outta here,” becausethe problems always manifested when hewas “out of here,” because this was theonly thing he cared about.

TODD GREEN:The week he was kicked off, he watchedthe show with me and Kevin at Kevin’sapartment. It killed him not to be on.

JIM DOWNEY:I just sat there in the meeting with Chris,being somewhat cold about the wholething. It was easier than being warm, andprobably more effective. He would startto shake and cry, and I would just tune itout. It was a manipulation. He was tryingto get your sympathy so you’d let itslide. He had plenty of people wanting

to play that motherly role, and he neededpeople to say, “This is real simple: Fixthe problem or you’re out.”

LORNE MICHAELS:I basically just told him, “This is what itis, and I’m really, really disappointed.And you have to get some help, becausethis is not a problem that you can solveby yourself.”

I don’t know where I had heard aboutthe place in Alabama, but I thought itwas exactly what he needed. It was areal stripped-down, no-nonsense place. Ihad also seen enough of the Hollywood

version of rehab where nothing actuallyhappens. I wanted a place to get hisundivided attention. That and the threatof losing the show were the only thingsthat could do it.

TODD GREEN:Kevin Cleary and I drove him to theairport. That was really hard. It wasright before Christmas, and that wasalways an important time of year forChris, to be with his friends and hisfamily. No matter where any of us were,we always made it a point to be togetherin Madison for Christmas. So it was just

heartbreaking knowing he was goingaway to spend it in Alabama at the kindof place he was going to.

We were driving to LaGuardia and itwas really quiet in the car, and the song“Bad” by U2 came on. And while wewere sitting there, listening to this song,Chris out of nowhere just asked, “What’sthis song about?” And it wasn’t likeChris to ask something like that. Kevinand I were like, oh shit. We didn’t reallyknow what to say, so we just told him.“It’s about trying to save a friend whodies from a heroin overdose.”

“Oh.”Nobody said anything else. We just sat

back and listened to the rest of the song.

We got to the airport, and in those daysyou could still walk with someone allthe way to the gate, so we went throughsecurity with him and walked through theterminal to meet his plane. After we saidgood-bye he walked over to the gate,and, right at the entrance to the jetway,he stopped and looked back at us for amoment. He had this deadly seriousexpression on his face. He gave us athumbs-up, turned around, and walkedonto the plane.

ACT II

CHAPTER 8

A Friendly VisitorTOM SCHILLER:He was a kind of secret, angelic beingwho tore too quickly through life,leaving a wake of laughter behind him.As corny as that sounds, it’s the truth.For the next three years, Chris Farleystayed clean and sober. At LorneMichaels’s behest, he had spent theentire Christmas break at a hard-core,locked-down rehab facility in Alabama.Unlike the celebrity resort and sparecovery units of Southern California,

this joint was one step above prison, andit was staffed by, in the words of TomArnold, “a bunch of big black guys whodidn’t take any of Chris’s shit.” And itworked.

Chris’s puppy-dog personality andendearing sense of humor had allowedhim to weasel his way out of just aboutany difficult situation he’d faced in thepast. But the people in Alabama weren’thaving any of it. And, finally, Chriswasn’t having any of it, either. Herealized he could no longer bullshiteveryone, and he knew it was his lastchance to stop bullshitting himself. Hetook the program seriously, took itsmessage to heart, and took a new

direction in life when he returned toNew York. He moved into an apartmenton the Upper East Side in the samebuilding as Dana Carvey. A year later hewould move back downtown to a newapartment on Seventeenth Street, a placechosen specifically for its proximity tohis old halfway house and its steadyavailability of meetings and supportgroups. As the hoary cliché goes, Chriswas a changed man. He was calmer,more thoughtful, and more focused.

He was also funnier. Chris missed thefirst show of 1993, but he was soon backin full swing, and over the followingyear he would establish himself as theshow’s new breakout star. That

February, the writers resurrected “TheChris Farley Show,” this time with oneof Chris’s childhood idols, formerBeatle Paul McCartney. The very nextweek Chris got to share the stage withreturning SNL legend Bill Murray. Thecoming months brought some of Chris’smost memorable characters, includingthe blustery Weekend Updatecommentator Bennett Brauer, theoutlandish man-child Andrew Giuliani, aravenous Gap Girl, and the titularheroine of Adam Sandler’s “LunchladyLand.”

And on the second-to-last show of histhird season, with Bob Odenkirk’sblessing, Chris dusted off an old script

lying around from his Second City daysand brought it in to the weekly read-through. It was a hit, both at the table andon the air. That Saturday night, with oneunforgettable performance, the phrase“van down by the river” assumed itspermanent place in the national lexicon.

STEVEN KOREN:Chris had been doing the MotivationalSpeaker character at Second City, but Ididn’t know what it was. Since BobOdenkirk had already written it, they justneeded a writer to babysit it throughproduction, check the cue cards and all

that. It was never anyone’s favorite jobto get. Little did I know.

So I was sitting there watching therehearsal, making sure the camera angleswere right, and I said to Chris, “Youknow, you’re gonna hurt your voicetalking like that. Are you sure you wantto do the voice that way?”

He was like, “Don’t worry, Steve. Igot this one down.”

That was a good lesson for a youngwriter: just trust the actors. When he didit live the place exploded.

DAVID SPADE:

In rehearsal, he’d done the thing with hisglasses where he’s like, “Is that BillShakespeare? I can’t see too good.” Buthe’d never done the twisting his belt andhitching up his pants thing. He saved thatfor the live performance, and so none ofus had ever seen it. He knew that wouldbreak me. He started hitching up hispants, and I couldn’t take it. Andwhenever the camera was behind himfocusing on me, he’d cross his eyes. Iwas losing it.

Once we started laughing, Chris justturned it on more. And we’re notsupposed to do that. Lorne doesn’t like itat all, but Chris loved to bust us up.Sometimes after the show he’d say, “All

I’m trying to do is make you laugh. Idon’t care about anything else.”

NORM MacDONALD,writer/Weekend Update

anchor:Lorne didn’t like us cracking up on air.He didn’t want it to be like The CarolBurnett Show. He hated that. Whenpeople crack up on Saturday Night Live,it’s normally fake, because we’vealready done the sketches and rehearsedthem so much. But it was always Chris’sgoal when it was live on air to make youlaugh, to take you out of your character,

and he always succeeded. You couldnever not laugh.

He would do little asides, especiallyto Sandler, even if Sandler wasn’t in thesketch. One time Chris was in aJapanese game show sketch, and whenhe went to write down his answer for thegame, he just took a big whiff of theMagic Marker and did a look to Sandleroff camera. Sandler wasn’t even in thesketch, but if you watch the tape you canhear him laughing offscreen.

MICHAEL McKEAN:It was nice to share the stage with that

kind of manic energy. For one thing, youknew the focus was elsewhere. No onewas watching me. I could have sat downand eaten a sandwich during some of thesketches we did together.

CHRIS ROCK:You never really shared the stage withhim. It was always his stage, anddeservedly so. The weird thing is thatnobody got mad about that. There’s a lotof competition on that show, but no onewas competing with Farley. We’d all getupset if someone else had a sketch onand we didn’t, but I can’t think of one

person who was ever upset about Chrisgetting a sketch on. No one evercomplained.

ALEC BALDWIN:Whenever I was watching Chris performI would think, “How do I get where he’sat? How do I get to be as funny and ashonest and as warm?” There are comicsthat I’ve worked with who are the mostself-involved bastards you’ve ever metin your life, and they can’t fake the kindof decency Chris had. Chris wassomeone who was very vulnerable; itwas a card he played. It was a tool in his

actor’s repertoire, and yet it wassomething totally genuine. Even when heplays Matt Foley, and he’s hectoringpeople in this totally overbearing way,there’s a tinge of the character’s ownneediness. Even underneath that, there’sChris.

KEVIN NEALON:He was so fallible. People just felt forhim. Women felt protective of him,because they could tell he wasn’twatching out for himself. And menrelated to all his anxieties andimperfections.

LORNE MICHAELS:One time we were in the studio, andChevy Chase came by. Chris waspracticing one of his pratfalls. Heshowed it to Chevy, and Chevy said,“What are you breaking your fall on?”

Chevy always had something to breakhis fall; you plan these things out. ButChris had watched Chevy and bought theillusion of it. How do you fall? You justfall on the ground and you don’t mind thepain, because that’s the price of doing it.So there was an honesty and astraightforwardness in him that peopleresponded to.

NORM MacDONALD:What I would do with Chris, when itcame to writing a sketch, was just listento him and observe him. There was thisone thing he did. He’d tell a story—andI’m not doing this justice—but he’d tella story like, “Anyways, Norm. Did I tellya I seen my friend Bill the other day,and I says to him, I says, I look him rightin the eye and I says to him, I says, I saysto Bill, I says to him, get this, what Isays to him is I says, get this, what Isays, you won’t believe what I says tohim, I says . . .”

And of course the joke was that he’dnever get to what he’d actually said to

the guy. And Chris could keep this goingfor twenty, twenty-five minutes straight.He’d do it two hundred different ways. Itwould just get funnier and funnier andfunnier. When you can reduce somethingto four words and be funny for twenty-five minutes without an actual joke or apunch line, that’s genius. It’s not evenreally comedy anymore. It’s almost likemusic, like jazz variations.

I always liked comedians who justkeep repeating things until nobody’slaughing anymore, but then they take it sofar that eventually it’s funnier than it wasin the beginning. There are only a coupleof performers on the planet who can dothat. Andy Kaufman could do it, and

Chris Farley could do it.So I had him do it on Weekend

Update. Lorne had decided that the “Isays to the guy” segment would last forthirty seconds, which I knew wouldnever work. At dress, I told Chris to doit for four minutes. So he did, and it wasjust like I thought. People weren’tlaughing for a while, but then right as hehit the four-minute mark it was reallystarting to kill. That’s when I realized heshould have done it for eight minutes.

But he never got to do it on air,because Lorne went ballistic on me thatI’d let Chris go so far over time. I triedto explain to Lorne that it wasn’t funnyfor thirty seconds, but Chris understood

it completely.

ALEC BALDWIN:There are people who are smart in away that has no applicability toperformance, but Chris’s brains and hisquickness inside of performance wereamazing. He knew exactly how to scan aline, exactly what inflection to have,how to time it, what expression to make.A great performer is someone who putstogether a half a dozen things in aninstant, and Chris was one of the mostskilled performers I’ve ever seen in thatrespect. And he knew that his

opportunity would come. He wasn’tsitting there, calculating how he wasgoing to trump you or dominate thescene. He just patiently waited for hismoment and then arrived fully in thatmoment.

STEVE LOOKNER, writer:When it came to performing in yoursketches, Chris was never someegotistical guy who was going to takeyour material and do it however hewanted to. He wanted to make sure hewas getting the sketch the way youwanted it.

FRED WOLF, writer:The highlight of my career, still, was thefirst sketch I got on at Saturday NightLive, this thing called “The Mr.Belvedere Fan Club.” Chris had a bigturn in that sketch where he played acrazy person obsessed with Mr.Belvedere . He brought down the house.Afterward he came up to me, saying,

“That was funny. Thanks for the goodstuff.” I couldn’t believe that about him.To me, it was the other way around. Ishould have been thanking him.

DAVID MANDEL, writer:

He always went out of his way to makesure people knew what material wasyours, that they were your jokes, and hewas just the guy who said the lines.

IAN MAXTONE-GRAHAM,writer:

I worked on some of the MotivationalSpeaker sketches, because BobOdenkirk was gone by then. Matt Foleywas very much Chris’s character, butChris was also very loyal. We alwayshad to call Bob up and read it to himover the phone and get his blessing.

SIOBHAN FALLON, castmember:

There was always an air of competitionat Saturday Night Live. At read-through,people would purposefully not laugh atsomething even though it was funny,because they wanted something else tomake it on the show. But Chris wouldlaugh no matter what. If it was funny, hegave it a big, big laugh. He didn’tdiscriminate. He was honest.

NORM MacDONALD:I don’t think Chris knew how to hate. I’d

feel bad sometimes, because I’d becomplaining and I’d go, “You know whosucks?” And I’d go off about so-and-so,some guy on the show. And Chris wouldimmediately go, “I think he’s funny,Norm. Why don’t you like him?” So thenI’d just feel like a jerk.

DAVID MANDEL:The show was in a very weird spot atthat time. During the election year,everything was Phil Hartman and DanaCarvey doing Clinton and Bush andPerot. Chris was a full cast member, andincredibly popular, but in those sketches

he’d just do small, memorable turns asJoe Midwestern Guy. Al Franken and Iwrote the sketch where Bill Clinton goesjogging and stops in at McDonald’s. Inthat one Chris played Hank Holdgrenfrom Holdgren Hardware in Fond duLac, Wisconsin. In a lot of those smallsupporting roles I think you saw the roadnot taken for Chris. If he hadn’t foundcomedy, you could totally see him beingthe friendly hardware-store guy.

TODD GREEN:When Chris interacted with celebrities,the guest hosts, he would always

introduce me by saying, “This is myfriend Todd. We met in second grade andgrew up together.” He was proud that hewas my friend, and he wanted to sharethat. I remember him regaling GlennClose with stories of Madison, and youcould see that she saw the genuineness inhim. She just looked at him and said,“You really are an amazing guy.”

I’m a huge, huge Beatles fan, and sowhen Paul McCartney was on the show,that was a really big deal. Ten yearsearlier, Chris and I had been listening toBeatles albums in our basements. Hecalled me during the week at like two inthe afternoon and said, “What’re youdoing?”

“What am I doing?” I said. “I’mworking, like most people.”

“You know what I’m doing?”“What?”And then he took the phone and held it

up, and I could hear Paul McCartneysinging “Yesterday.”

“I’m just here, hanging with PaulMcCartney,” he said. Then he giggledand hung up the phone.

The night of the show, he said,“Listen, I want you guys to hang out inmy dressing room tonight. I have asurprise for you.”

So, Kevin and I wait and watch on themonitor in the dressing room. McCartney

comes out and does the first song, andwe watch him, wondering, “What’s thesurprise? Why didn’t he come and getus?” Whatever. Didn’t matter. It was oneof his new songs. Then the second songcomes and goes, another new one, andstill no Chris. Just before the end of theshow, when we’re pretty sure Chris hasforgotten about us, he barrels into thedressing room and says, “Okay, Greenie,you’re on! Follow me!”

We go running down the hallway tothe studio. Paul and Linda McCartneycome out. Chris introduces me to them.I’m in a state of shock, and the four of uswalk out to the stage together. Chris andI stop just short of the cameras, and Paul

and Linda go out and he sings “HeyJude.”

And at that moment, Chris wasn’t amember of the show anymore. It was justtwo buddies from Wisconsin who grewup on the Beatles, listening to PaulMcCartney. Chris literally forgot that hehad to go back onstage for the good-nights.

I think, deep down, all of the guysfrom Edgewood figured that one daywe’d end up back in Madison and itwould be just the way it was. I thinkeven Chris believed that. Even rankedagainst all the fame and money andstardom, he felt the days back atEdgewood were the best days of our

lives.

KEVIN FARLEY:When you come to the conclusion thatyou’re an alcoholic, and you go to thesestupid meetings, they’re filled withdown-and-out people right off the street.I’d go to Madison, and I’d see Chris,who was on Saturday Night Live, hadmoney, had fame. He’d go and drinkcoffee and talk with these regular folk,and he could talk to them more easilythan he could talk to Mick Jagger or PaulMcCartney. He felt more at ease with theaverage Joes.

What he loved was the honesty.Nobody is as honest as they are in one ofthose meetings, when they’re admittingtheir faults, admitting that they’re brokenhuman beings. Contrast that with theSaturday Night Live after party, whereeveryone wants you to think they’re hotstuff. They’re putting on airs, and it’s allbullshit because we’re all just brokenpeople anyway. To witness people beinghonest about themselves and withthemselves is a life-changing thing,because it’s something you so rarely see.That’s what’s truly amazing aboutrecovery, and amazing about how itchanged Chris.

TOM FARLEY:He was a lot more fun to be around. Hewas much, much funnier. You could havethoughtful, engaging discussions withhim, and he wouldn’t get mad ordefensive. That was a huge differencefrom when he was drinking.

For Chris, being in recovery was alittle like being at camp. That’s how hetreated it. Make your bed every morningfor inspection, that sort of thing. And thatcarried over once he got out of rehab,too. As disgusting a slob as he wasbefore, he was that clean and organizedonce he got sober. He turned into a neatfreak.

BOB ODENKIRK:After all the years of being in and out ofrehab, I never thought that Chris couldtake it seriously. But one time I was atthis party out in L.A., and I saw him turndown a beer. He was saying no, and hemeant it. I thought, oh my God, hefigured it out. He knows how dire thisis, and he’s really taking charge. Itwasn’t about pleasing everyone else. Itwas about him and his choice. I wasreally impressed, and I thought, wow,nothing is going to stop this guy.

TOM FARLEY:

Toward the end of Chris’s SaturdayNight Live run, my son was born, and hehad to stay in intensive care for a week.One day I asked Chris to watch the twoolder girls while my wife and I went tothe hospital. We went down to hisapartment, and we were ringing thebuzzer, waiting for someone to let us in.There was no answer. I was starting towonder where the new, reliable Chriswas. Then, around the corner here hecomes with these huge bags of Cheetosand ice cream and these enormousBarney dolls, walking down the street. Itwas just a great sight. Chris was sohappy that we’d asked him to look afterthe girls, that we trusted him with that

responsibility. He was so proud that hecould be a better part of their lives.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris paved the way for the rest of us.When he went down to Alabama, Istarted to look at myself. I was doing thesame stuff he was—coke, pot, drinkingall the time. I saw where I was headed. Inever went into rehab. I just walked intoa meeting one day. That’s when Irealized we all are alcoholics, the wholefamily. My mother stopped drinking then,too, at the same time I did. We would goto meetings a lot together. We realized

Dad was an alcoholic, and we saw thepatterns very clearly once we’d changedour own. But Tommy, Johnny, and Dadwere still drinking. Barb was theexception. She was never a drinker atall.

TOM FARLEY:When I look back, or when people askme what regrets I have, what I realize isthat I always felt that Chris’s problemswere his own. I was still drinking, and Ididn’t take an active role in hisrecovery. It was his deal, and that wasthat. Then one day he asked me to come

to his second-anniversary meeting,which he was going to lead. I said,“Great, where do you meet?” He givesme the address of this place down onEleventh Avenue and Forty-something,the real fringe of Hell’s Kitchen. You godown there and you think, Jesus, whatam I walking into?

But that’s where Chris liked to go. Hehad his choice between meetings on ParkAvenue and in Hell’s Kitchen, and hewanted to be with the desperate, hard-luck cases to remind himself that hiscelebrity didn’t put him above them inany way. He stood up there in front ofthem and said, “Look, I woke up thesame way you guys did this morning,

wondering if I was going to stay sobertoday. My disease is no different thanyours.” And it wasn’t bullshit. He justseemed so wise and intelligent and incontrol. I just sat there thinking, this ismy brother? I looked at him in a wholedifferent light from then on.

NORM MacDONALD:What’s hard for a comedian is that theymake a living on their anxieties and theirself-doubts, but in real life they try andseparate themselves from that. Chrisdidn’t do that. He was absolutely honestin what he was.

CONAN O’BRIEN:You got the sense with Chris that hewasn’t punching a clock. And,obviously, that isn’t always a fun way tolive. But it was fun for everybody else.

DAVID MANDEL:Emilio Estevez hosted the show insupport of Mighty Ducks 2, which wewere given a screening of. We saw it ina private screening room. No one reallycared about Mighty Ducks 2, so only acouple of us were there.

Now, in Mighty Ducks 2—which, if

you need your memory refreshed—they’re training for the Junior Olympics,and they let some street kids from L.A.join the team. So now they have someblack kids on the squad, and they do agiant musical montage where they takethe rap song “Whoomp! There It Is” andchange it to “Quack! There It Is.” And ofcourse it was the actual musicianswho’d sung “Whoomp! There It Is.”They’d sold out to Disney and done“Quack! There It Is.”

It was so ridiculous that those of us inthe room started clapping along andjumping up and down and dancing withthe music in the middle of the screeningroom. The next thing you know, Farley’s

pants are down around his ankles, andhe’s standing up on a chair, smacking hisass in time to “Quack! There It Is.” Ihave never seen anything funnier in mylife. And yet when you look backsometimes you think, you know, maybethat was a cry for help.

SARAH SILVERMAN, castmember:

The cast was on a retreat, sitting arounda campfire, and Chris sidled up to JimDowney. I overheard him say in thislittle-boy voice, “Hey, Jim? Do youthink it would help the show if I got even

fatter?”Jim said, in his parental voice, “No,

Chris. I think you’re fine.”Chris said, “Are you sure? ’Cause I

will. For the show.”Chris was fucking around for sure,

and seeing the back-and-forth of theconversation was hilarious, but therewas an element of truth in it: He woulddo anything to be funny.

NORM MacDONALD:I never thought about it as needingattention, because Chris laughed at

everybody else, too. He loved Sandlerand Spade and me, guys who were muchless funny than he was. And he wasalways more generous in giving you alaugh than in taking one for himself.

His greatest love was just the act oflaughter itself. As much as he made otherpeople laugh, to watch Chris do it wasthe most beautiful thing you’d ever see.Nobody could laugh with as muchunbridled glee. He’d just go into theseparoxysms of mirth. If Chris laughed atone of your jokes, you felt like the kingof the world.

STEVEN KOREN:

Chris was really smart. He knew exactlywhat he was doing. It’s the same withJim Carrey. He knows the exact degreesto which he’s being big or small orclever. When they’re that good, theyknow the difference between beinglaughed at and laughed with. There’s adefinite awareness. I guess Chris was avictim of his own desire to make peoplelaugh, but also I think his heart was sobig that if he was the butt of the joke itwas okay. He wanted to give peoplelaughter so much that it was okay if ithurt him a little bit. It was a consciousdecision, I think.

JAY MOHR, cast member:No one was laughing at Chris. Everyonewas laughing with him. Show mesomeone who was laughing at ChrisFarley, and I’ll show you a realcocksucker.

DAVID SPADE:I would have to write sketches all weekto try and stay alive on the show, andChris would be written for, so he didn’twrite a lot, or read. So while I wasbusting my hump, he’d be bored behindme trying to amuse himself. One night he

goes, “Davy, turn around.”“I’m busy,” I say.“Turn around.”“Dude, if this is Fat Guy in a Little

Coat again, it’s not funny anymore.”“It’s not.”“Really?”“I promise.”So I turn around and he’s got my

Levi’s jacket on, and he goes, “Fat Guyin a Little Coat . . . give it a chance.”

And the coat rips, and that’s how wewound up putting it in Tommy Boy.

TIM HERLIHY, writer:When comedians get together . . . Iwouldn’t call it one-upsmanship, but it islike a game. Who can be the funniest?When I knew Chris, he was surroundedby the elite of comedy. Sandler’s a huge,funny star, but you always knew Farleywas going to top him. He was thefunniest among a group of very funny,talented people. All of us who workedwith him are richer for it. We’re betterwriters, better performers.

FRED WOLF:

Comics are a pretty strange breed. Putall of us in a room and we can fightamong ourselves and disagree with allour bitterness and neuroses. But when itcame to Farley, it was unanimous: Hewas the best.

NORM MacDONALD:What astonished me about Chris was thathe could make everyone laugh. He couldmake a child laugh. He could make anold person laugh. A dumb person, asmart person. A guy who loved him, aguy who hated him.

IAN MAXTONE-GRAHAM:

He was a very funny, jovial presence inthe office. He’d be very, very outgoing,and then he’d have this very cute, shything he’d do where he’d sort of retreatinto himself. Hugely outgoing and hugelyshy. That was the rhythm of his behavior.You can see that in some of his sketches.

BOB ODENKIRK:Most of my memories are just of hangingout with Chris and him making me laughso hard. But then, if Chris wasn’t being

silly, if he was just listening to youquietly, that was as funny as when hewas worked up. “The Chris FarleyShow” on SNL, that was Chris behavinghimself.

JOHN GOODMAN, host:“The Chris Farley Show,” that wasChris.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:That was Chris.

STEVEN KOREN:That was him.

JACK HANDEY, writer:He was basically playing himself.

TIM MEADOWS:That’s how he acted whenever he wasaround someone he admired. Until he gotto know you, he really was that guy—shyand asking a lot of dumb questions butnot wanting to be too intrusive. It was a

very endearing quality.

TOM DAVIS:I thought of that sketch originally. Ithought, what the fuck are we going to dowith this guy? He’s just over the fuckingtop all the time. I buttonholed Downeyand said, “Let’s do ‘The Chris FarleyShow’ and just have him talk as he reallyis so he doesn’t go over the top.”

JIM DOWNEY:Farley was such a comedy nerd. He

knew all the old shows, better than I did.He’d come up and say, “Do youremember that superheroes sketch on theshow where they were having thatparty?” Then he’d proceed to do theentire sketch for me, his versionprobably longer than the original. He’dfinish that and be like, “You rememberthat?”

“Yes, Chris,” I’d say, thinking thiswas all leading up to somethingsignificant. “What about it?”

“That was awesome.”So we decided to put that in a talk-

show format, with some poor sap beingtrapped on a talk show with Farleyasking him retarded questions. We

submitted it, actually, as a joke at read-through. I thought it was too inside, andso would never make it on the air. ButLorne liked it immediately, and seemedto have big hopes for it.

At dress, Steve Koren was watchingit, grinning ear to ear and laughing. Andof course the audience loved it. I don’tthink it was just Farley being adorable. Iguess there was just something universalabout it, and I didn’t appreciate theresonance it had.

The first one was with Jeff Daniels.Then we did Martin Scorsese. By thetime Paul McCartney came around, Iactually didn’t want to bring it back atall. I just thought, what can you do that’s

different? If you just do the same thingover again just because people liked it,they might stop liking it. But Lorneinsisted on doing it.

LORNE MICHAELS:Actually, I think Chris was the one whowas adamant about doing it withMcCartney.

ALEC BALDWIN:We were just dying. We couldn’t believehow perfect it was. How hard is it to

make Beatlemania funny again? Howhard is it to make gooing overMcCartney funny? We didn’t know if thatwould work. But Chris came on, and wewere sobbing with laughter it was sofunny. It was going along, and then Chrissays, “You remember that time you gotarrested in Japan for pot?”

And McCartney just suddenly changedhis tone. “Oh, those are the things I’dlike to forget, Chris.”

They played it perfectly.

JOHN GOODMAN:The funniest bit that I ever saw him do

was that McCartney interview. When Ifirst met him he was like this kid whokept staring at me, just like that characterdid. I don’t know why, but he seemedgenuinely thrilled to meet me. It wasn’t acelebrity type of thing, either; it was justthat he couldn’t get enough of otherpeople, of their stories. He wasendlessly curious.

BOB ODENKIRK:I said once—and it was misquoted inthat fucking Live from New York book—that Chris was like a child. How it readsin that book was that I meant Chris was

like a little baby, which wasn’t what Isaid at all. The whole quote—whichthey didn’t include, because they’redicks—was, “Look, don’t take this thewrong way, but Chris was like a child.He was like a child in his reverence andawe of the world around him.” And hewas. He was so respectful of everyone,like he always had something to learnfrom you.

JAY MOHR:I learned from Chris how to have morefun. Nothing is that serious. Acting isreally a ridiculous way to make a living.

You’re playing make-believe, and Chrisnever got away from that fact. Kidsnever come home and say, “I was over atMichael’s house and we played make-believe. It was awful. We were in aspaceship and I had a helmet on andthere were Martians and then we chasedthem through the woods—and it justwasn’t my thing.” No kid has ever saidthat. It’s make-believe. You paint as yougo. I have a three-year-old son now. Iopen up his coloring book and say,“What color are these footprints going tobe?”

“Green.”Great fucking idea. Green footprints,

that was Chris.

MARILYN SUZANNEMILLER:

I would write songs and musicalnumbers for SNL, and when KelseyGrammar was host I wrote a sketchcalled “Iron John: The Musical.” Chrissang in that one, and he came up to meafter the performance and said, “I lovethose musical things. I just love them. Ireally want to do more of them.”

Musical numbers are very emotionalthings, and it’s a very childlike desire towant to have that kind of honest, sincereoutlet. He wanted to share as much ofhimself with the audience as he could.He was not a great singer, as I recall.

During the rehearsals, beads of sweatwould literally drip down his foreheadas he was trying comically hard to hit allhis cues and hit all his notes. He so muchwanted to succeed. And when you see ayoung guy working like that, with sweatrunning down his forehead, that’s kind ofa wonderful thing. When the old castwould get laughs, we were practicallycounting them. We were verycalculating. Chris wasn’t a calculatedperformer. He was out there for the love.

IAN MAXTONE-GRAHAM:

They have a meeting with the host everyMonday night, and there were alwaystwo jokes that we used to do everysingle week. Let’s say Kevin Bacon wasthe host, and Tom Arnold was set to hostthe next week. Lorne would announce,“Everyone, this week’s host is KevinBacon.” And everyone would applaud.

Then Al Franken would say, “ Andnext week: Tom Arnold.” And everyonewould applaud much louder. That wasthe little icebreaker they’d do to set thehost at ease and poke fun at him a bit.

The other thing that would alwayshappen was that at the very end of themeeting, Farley would jump in—kind oflike that determined kid on the football

team that’s never won a game—he’djump in and say, "C’mon, let’s do it thistime!” It was always very funny and sortof combined his childish eagerness withgreat comic timing and a great sense ofthe moment.

ALEC BALDWIN:When you were on the set with Chris,he’d be giggling and pinching you andsaying, “Where you want to go after theshow, man?” It was like being inhomeroom in high school. There’s aquotient of people at Saturday NightLive for whom the show is like

operating an elevator. We go up. We godown. What’s the big deal? Then therewere the people like Chris who made ittheir mission every week to make it thebest show possible, and enjoy it.

ROBERT SMIGEL:Just seeing Chris at the door of my officewould put a smile on my face. Heradiated this earnestness, and he reallybelieved in the work that he did. Chriswas also unique among comedians inbeing so open about his faith andspirituality. Most people in this industryare so caught up in being sarcastic or

casually ironic that they’re loath to admitthat they actually care about anything.Admitting that you believe in God is thesame as admitting that you like BobSeger. Okay, even I’m not crazy aboutSeger. But I like Springsteen, and evenBruce is just too earnest for lots ofcomedy writers to give it up for.

CONAN O’BRIEN:There are a lot of us in comedy who area lot more Catholic than anybody knows.Our Catholicism is sort of under ourskin. People were surprised at the depthof Chris’s faith; to me it made perfect

sense. A lot of people think that they’remutually exclusive. How can you bedancing in a Chippendales thong andgoing to mass at the same time? But ifyou’re Catholic you think, of coursethat’s how it works.

TOM FARLEY:Pretty early on, Chris told me he’d foundthis church, St. Malachy’s. “They call itthe Actors’ Chapel,” he said. He totallyate that up. In his mind it was this placewhere all these old Broadway stars andvaudevillians had come to mass andprayed and found guidance. The first

time I went with him, these old ladieswho were sort of scattered about thepews would break out with the mostbeautiful voices during the hymns.They’d really belt it out, and you couldpicture them singing in their oldmusicals and operas. It was reallyspecial for Chris in that way.

MSGR. MICHAELCRIMMINS, priest, St.

Malachy’s:He used to come on Tuesdays andThursdays to the noon mass. He went toconfession regularly. He’d bring his

mother and his family to mass wheneverthey were in town.

Sister Theresa O’Connell was reallyhis mentor and spiritual adviser. Sheknew him well. Unfortunately, she’spassed on, and they kept theirrelationship very private. But shesuggested to him that he volunteerthrough our Encore Friendly VisitorsProgram, and he did.

SIOBHAN FALLON:Chris lived close to me, and we went tothe same church, Holy Trinity on theUpper West Side. He’d go to St.

Malachy’s from work and Holy Trinityon the weekends. As he did everythingbig and great, he’d be in the back ofchurch, praying intensely, bowed downin this dramatic position, practicallykicking himself over whatever he’d donethe night before. I’d say, “Hi, Chris.”

And he’d say, “Well, God’s gonna bemad at me this time!”

I have no doubt that Chris is sittingpretty up in heaven, entertainingeverybody. He was a good guy. He’staken care of. You can say that addictionis a selfish disease, but Chris wasn’tselfish. He always looked outside ofhimself. At that stage of someone’scareer, in your twenties and early

thirties, you’re so selfish and so self-consumed—especially actors. I thinkyou’d be hard pressed to find anyone atthat age who was thinking about anythingother than getting themselves ahead. Andso for Chris to be doing the work he wasdoing was amazing.

TIM MEADOWS:A kid from the Make-A-Wish Foundationcame to SNL once to meet Farley. I gotto see that, but I had no idea that he wasa part of this program at St. Malachy’s.He never talked about it. I was one ofhis best friends, and I didn’t know about

it until after he’d passed away.

NORM MacDONALD:It was amazing at the funeral to hearpeople talking. It was like, “My God,this is a person I never knew.”

SR. PEGGY McGIRL,executive assistant, Encore

Community Services:Whenever he came here he was veryregular and without any airs. He had a

quiet way about him; he didn’t like tohave any attention focused on him at all.His main concern was just to be there tohelp the seniors. We have parties twice ayear for people who are homebound,seniors and people with disabilities.One is in the spring and the other isaround Halloween. If Chris was in town,he was always there.

KEITH HOCTER,volunteer, Encore

Community Services:I met Chris through the parties at St.Malachy’s. We worked the door

together. He was just extremely friendly,not at all hung up about who he was, andhe was pretty famous by that point. Hejust showed up and did what the rest ofus did, which was whatever the sisterstold us to do.

For a lot of the seniors, this was theirbig social event of the year. The partywould have about a hundred and fiftypeople. A lot of them were inwheelchairs and walkers, and back thenthe church didn’t have an elevator. Theparty was in the basement, and the onlyway down was this old, narrow set ofstairs. It had one of those side-rail lifts,but the thing never worked.

Chris and I and the other volunteers,

we’d each grab a corner of thewheelchair, tip them back, and then justtalk to them and keep them calm whilewe took them down. We never droppedanybody; I guess that’s the first measureof success. And we never had anyonefreak out on us, either. Half of our jobwas to get them down safely. The otherwas to make them feel good while wewere carrying them down. Then, at theend of the evening, we would stay and,one by one, help carry them all back upto the street again.

JOHN FARLEY:

One time we were in Chicago, comingback from filming this HBO specialwhere Chris had this quick little cameo.As we get out of the limo at Chris’sapartment, there’s an old womanstanding on the corner, begging for aquarter to get on the bus. Two minuteslater, she finds herself in the back of alimousine with a hundred dollars in herhand. And Chris tells the limo driver,“Take her anywhere she wants to go.”

The next day the same driver comesback to pick Chris up, and he says, “Doyou have any idea where that womanwanted me to take her? Please, let’s notdo that again.”

ALFRANKEN:Tony Hall is a former congressman fromDayton, Ohio. His son Matt hadleukemia, and a mutual friend asked meto go and visit him at Sloan-Kettering.The second time I went there I said,“Who’s your favorite cast member onSNL?” It was Chris. So I asked Chris ifhe’d come and visit him, and he did.

Matt just loved it. His parents arevery Christian, especially his mom, andChris and I were just swearing up astorm. Matt laughed. His mom didn’tknow whether to be happy or shocked orwhat.

After we’d spent a while with Matt

and said good-bye, Chris went aroundand visited every single kid in the cancerward. He stayed there and entertainedevery last one of them. Then at the end ofthe day, as we were walking out of thehospital, Chris just broke down andstarted sobbing. I think it was all sort ofwrapped up with his own issues that hewas dealing with at the time. I said tohim, “Don’t you see how much joy youbring to these people? Don’t you seewhat you just did, how valuable that is?”

Chris went back and visited Mattagain. When they had Matt’s funeral, Iwent, and they had made a bulletin boardof “Matt’s Favorite Stuff.” In the middleof it was a photo of him and Chris from

that day.

FR. JOE KELLY, S.J.,priest, St. Malachy’s:

He believed that comedy was a ministryof its own. Anything that made peoplelaugh was worthwhile. But at the sametime, he wanted a little more than that.He was a bit of a disturbed guy. I’mtalking personally, now. A bit of adisturbed guy.

He used to come up to my room here,just to sit and chat and talk aboutdifferent things, especially about howimportant the Friendly Visitors Program

was to him. He felt that without theprogram, without the work he did here,his life wouldn’t have much meaning.Doing what he did here gave him apurpose outside of some of the trivialwork he was doing in entertainment.

Anybody who’s constantly making afool of himself and getting laughs out ofthose crazy facial gestures and so on,very often they’re hiding something theydon’t want to face themselves. I thinkthat was the case with Chris. He was amuch deeper person than he let on. Onegift he had was the ability to makepeople laugh. The other gift he had washimself. Just being the person he waswas a gift for others. And I don’t think

he realized that for quite some time.

SR. PEGGY McGIRL:We have a residence, a converted hotel,that is now a home for the homeless andthe mentally ill, and Chris used to visit aman named Willie. He also spent timewith another resident, a woman namedLola, but it was mostly Willie.

Willie was about seventy years old,and he had been homeless before comingto our residence. Chris took Willie out todinner every week, and to famousrestaurants. Chris treated him as anequal, always. He would take him to

Broadway shows, take him out to ballgames. If Chris was walking down thestreet on the way to his office, he’d stopin to see how Willie was doing.Whenever he had to go away for work,he’d send Willie postcards, andwhenever he came back he alwaysbrought Willie a souvenir. They werefriends for over five years.

TODD GREEN:On the one-year anniversary of Chris’sdeath, St. Malachy’s was having amemorial mass for him, and I went withTommy and Kevin Cleary. There was an

elderly black guy there with a ChicagoBulls hat on. He was not quite homeless,but clearly one step away from it. Hestood up to speak. He said his name wasWillie, and he talked about Chris andabout all the things he had done for him,all the time Chris had spent with him.Kevin, Tommy, and I, we just looked ateach other—we had no idea.

The man spoke for a little whilelonger. Then he started to break downcrying. He said, “This hat, this is the lastthing Chris ever gave me, and I reallymiss him.”

SR. PEGGY McGIRL:

After Chris passed, Willie became veryquiet. Eventually, some time later, hemoved back down south to be with hisfamily, to let his family take care of him.Whatever problems had put him on thestreet and made him homeless, heovercame them and went back home.

When you receive love, it releasesyou from the things that trouble you. Justknowing that someone cares about youcan give you strength and courage. And Ialways believed that it was Chris’s lovefor Willie, and the things he did forWillie, that finally set him free.

CHAPTER 9

The Magic Sixty-six

FR. TOM GANNON, S.J., friend:People always ask me what kind of guyChris Farley was, and I say, “Go andsee Tommy Boy.” That’s Chris Farley.In the summer of 1991, directorPenelope Spheeris was working atParamount Studios, preparing to shoot afeature-film version of "Wayne’sWorld,” Mike Myers’s popular SaturdayNight Live sketch about two kids with acable-access television show. LorneMichaels approached her about using

Chris Farley in the movie. Chris wasstill a relative unknown. He had onlyone year of television under his belt, andSpheeris had no idea who he was. But,she says, “Lorne told me we should givehim a part because he’s going to be thebiggest thing ever.” On thatrecommendation she cast him sightunseen as a security guard at the movie’sAlice Cooper concert. As film debuts goit was a small one, but Chris carried itoff well.

Wayne’s World, meanwhile, carriedoff buckets and buckets of money. Thelow-budget comedy shattered everyone’sexpectations, earning $121 million at thebox office. Paramount immediately

ordered up Wayne’s World 2, as well asanother SNL franchise movie,Coneheads.

SNL alum Dan Aykroyd sat down withwriter Tom Davis, and the two begandrafting the story of Beldar and PrymattConehead as a movie. Aykroyd,impressed by what he’d seen in Chris ontelevision, wrote a part for him asRonnie, the love interest of youngConnie Conehead. Over the followingyear Chris took on other supportingroles, as a roadie in Wayne’s World 2and as a security guard in AdamSandler’s Airheads.

By the end of Chris’s fourth year onSaturday Night Live, he was hands

down a cast favorite, and LorneMichaels felt that the young star wasready to carry his own feature—anoriginal story, rather than another SNLfranchise picture. Drawing on personalexperience, Michaels laid out the centralpremise of the plot: a father who diestoo soon and a son forced to take onresponsibilities for which he is notprepared. SNL writers Bonnie and TerryTurner took on screenwriting duties, andParamount bought the idea immediately,based largely on the casting of ChrisFarley and Rob Lowe as brothers.

Very little of the original concept andscript made it to the screen. The Turners’draft was largely discarded, and SNL

writer Fred Wolf wrote the bulk of thefinal screenplay, receiving no credit forit. Wolf wrote most of the story on the flywhile director Peter Segal andproducers Bob Weiss and MichaelEwing scrambled at record speed to getthe film off the ground.

The story that ultimately emerged wasthat of young Tommy Callahan, heir to aMidwestern auto-parts manufacturer.When Tommy’s father dies, he has tomake his dad’s annual sales trip to savethe company and his hometown. Joininghim on the trip is his late father’sassistant, Richard Hayden, played by theacerbic David Spade. Lorne Michaelshad paired up the two close friends on a

hunch that their complementary talentsmight make them the best comedy duosince John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd hitthe screen in Blues Brothers, fifteenyears earlier. Brian Dennehy took on therole of Big Tom Callahan, with BoDerek as his bride. Doc Hollywood’sJulie Warner was cast as Chris’s loveinterest, Michelle Brock. Aykroydplayed the heavy, a competing auto-partsmagnate named Ray Zalinsky. And Kevinand John Farley also turned up in smallroles as their older brother endeavoredto give them a leg up in show business.

Few on set knew it at the time, butthey were working with Chris at thesingle high point of his life. He was

confident and self-assured, and itshowed in his performance. Thanks in nosmall part to Chris’s commitment,Tommy Boy lives on today as a minorclassic, a staple of cable-TV comedy,and a brief glimpse of what might havebeen.

BOB WEISS, producer:I got a call from John Goldwyn atParamount saying, “We have this picture.Would you come in?”

“Do you have a script?” I asked.“No.”

“Whaddya got?”“We’ve got thirty pages and a release

date.”“Okay.”So I met with Lorne, and a lunch was

set up at the Paramount commissary forme to meet with Chris.

He sat down at lunch, and he wasreally like an enthusiastic kid. He wasjust thrilled about being there and wasn’tjaded in any way. How refreshing it wasto have someone like that inside theParamount commissary. You told himany piece of what was going on and itwas “great.” It was “cool.” It was“exciting.” And that’s infectious. You

can build on that.Originally, there was another director

involved. I acquainted him with the factsof our shooting schedule, and he left thepicture; he was afraid his head wouldexplode. Then Pete Segal agreed tocome on board.

MICHAEL EWING,associate producer:

Tommy Boy, at that point, was calledBilly the III: A Midwestern. It waschanged because Billy Madison wasbeing shot at the same time. Bonnie andTerry Turner had written the first draft. It

was a sweet script, but it was a bit of amess—and it was a famous bit of mess,because now Chris Farley was attachedto it and it was going to get made. Iwalked in to the office the first day, andPete said, “Well, what do you think ofthe script?”

I said, “I think we have work to do.”

FRED WOLF:I shared an office at SNL with Spade,Sandler, and Rock. Farley was alwayscoming over to our office to hang out. Italmost seemed like he was a part of theoffice, too. I was the quiet guy who

observed them, and so it seemed like Imight be a good guy to bring a little oftheir sense of humor to the page.

Jim Downey and I were hired to do apolish of the Turners’ script. We wereworking on it literally as the pages camein. Then Downey had to go back to theshow, leaving me to do what amountedto a full rewrite. We all went up toToronto, and I started commuting backand forth to the show, just like Chris andDavid did. I got married while the filmwas being shot, and at one point I waswriting pages from my hotel room inHawaii and faxing them in. It was crazy.

PETER SEGAL, director:Even though there was no script, I reallybelieved in Chris. One night beforeproduction started, I was driving him tothe Palm in L.A. to meet Brian Dennehy,who was to play his father. This was at atime when Saturday Night Live was inits nadir. People were writing all thearticles about “Saturday Night Dead”and so on. And here we were with amovie with a fixed start date and nofinished script. Chris turned to me andsaid, “Pete, everyone expects us to fail.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think you’re right.”“Our only victory will be a success.”And at that point I knew we were

bonded, because we were both taking aleap of faith in each other, that we weregonna go through this as comrades. FredWolf had given us sixty-six pages. Icalled them the Magic Sixty-six, becausethat’s all we had. We left for Torontowith very little to go on. It was liketaking the pin out of a grenade and goingjogging.

FRED WOLF:It was my first movie. I didn’t knowenough to know that it was abnormal,though obviously it was. Pete and Iwould write until three or four in the

morning, and then he’d have to be on theset by six. Then, while they wereshooting what we’d written the nightbefore, I’d be in the hotel room writingthe scenes for the next day.

PETER SEGAL:Fred and I would meet for dinner, or lieout on the floor of the hotel room withnote cards, talking about things that’dhappened to us. Fred would say, “I onceleft an oil can in the engine, and the hoodflew up in my face.”

And I’d say, “Great, put it down on acard. It’s in.”

Then I told him how I was oncebacking up at a gas station in Glen-daleand I hyperextended my car door on thecement post. So that went in. We juststarted building these stacks of cards.

After that, Fred and I would go todinner and watch Chris and Daveinteract, and we’d literally just starttaking notes on things that they wouldsay to each other. One day on the set,Chris came out with a new sport coat,and he said, “Does this coat make melook fat?”

And Spade said, “No, your facedoes.”

I stopped what I was doing and said,“Wait, wait, wait. What was that? Say

that again! That’s gold! We gotta put thatin the movie!”

Unfortunately, we ran into troublewith the start date. We were warned thatif we started past a certain day in Julywe would run into the Saturday NightLive season and then we’d be splittingtime with the show, which we ended updoing.

ERIC NEWMAN,production assistant:

Lorne had Paramount give us a plane thatwould shuttle Chris and David and meback and forth from Toronto to New

York. It was my job to accompany themwherever they went. Mostly Chris.David didn’t really need theaccompaniment. We went back and forthtwice a week. We’d shoot on Tuesday,fly down Wednesday morning, do theread-through, fly back up to Toronto,work for two days, then fly back downon Friday for blocking, do the show, thenfly back to Toronto at four in themorning.

MICHAEL EWING:To have Chris and David flying back andforth was actually lucky for us. We had a

chance to write material so we’d havesomething to shoot when they got back. Iwould get calls at two in the morningfrom Pete and Fred. They would call andsay, “You gotta call the casting director.We need a police officer for this newscene.”

So I’d have to call casting, thenwardrobe, then do everything to makesure that actor was ready first thing inthe morning. The scene when Chris andDavid drive the car up to the airport,ditch it, and throw the guy the keys?That’s that guy. He was hired at two-thirty in the morning and had to be on theset at sunrise. And that happened on adaily basis.

BOB WEISS:It was rough, but the beautiful thing inTommy Boy of course is the chemistrybetween Chris and David Spade. Itwasn’t like, “Hey, let’s invent a comedyteam.” It’s not that easy. There was just ahunch that their personal relationshipwould really pay off. And it did. A lot ofwhat you see in that movie is who theyreally were. We started filming, and Iwas like, “Fuck, this is funny.” They justhit home run after home run.

PETER SEGAL:

When Tommy Boy came out it wasresoundingly dissed by every critic. Buta couple of them, and one in the L.A.Times, said these guys were the newLaurel and Hardy. I was too young toreally appreciate the Hope and CrosbyRoad movies, but there were certaincomedy teams that were produced in theeighties, like Eddie Murphy and NickNolte, or Gene Wilder and RichardPryor. It was kind of neat to think, Godforbid, that these guys could become likethem.

MICHAEL EWING:

We were having a reading of the scriptup in Canada. The studio had flown infor the occasion, and we knew we didn’thave a third act. It was a fucking mess. Itdidn’t go so well. But Chris was beinghis wonderful, boisterous self, kind ofthe life of the party, and at one pointDavid Spade turned to him and said,“Chris!” Then he made this hand gesturelike he was turning down his hearing aida little bit. That was the firstintroduction that I had to them and theirrelationship.

DAVID SPADE:

We got close just by spending twenty-four/seven together. He trusted meenough to know I was a really greatfriend. And I was a huge fan—fan’s anodd word, but I really thought he wastalented, and he knew that I genuinelybelieved that. During Tommy Boy, andeven during SNL, I was always trying tocome up with ways for him to score, tothink of jokes for him, and that’s asacrifice you maybe don’t see a lot of inshow business. When we presentedtogether at the Oscars, I came up with apunch line so I could set him up and hecould get the laugh. Over time we justbuilt up a mutual trust and respect.

ERIC NEWMAN:Chris and David were somewhatcompetitive, which comes from being onSaturday Night Live. They all have that.

David was always looking to get outof work, wondering when he’d get daysoff. So we’re on the plane one week, thethree of us, and I get out a schedule. Ihave a copy, I hand David a copy, I’mtaking David through it, and Chris goes“What is that?”

“Oh, David wanted a copy of theschedule,” I say.

Chris rips my schedule out of my handand says, “I get whatever David gets!”

Then he starts looking at it—sideways, because he can’t figure it out—flips it upside down, can’t figure itout, then drops it and abruptly pretendsto fall asleep. It was hilarious. He’dacted out a little bit, and he knew it, sohe tried to make it into a joke. He knewthere were guys who became moviestars and became dicks, and he didn’twant to become that guy.

LORNE MICHAELS:I always said that while making themovies, Chris would put on thirtypounds and David would lose thirty

pounds, but no matter what, the amountof weight in the frame stayed the same.Chris would get bigger, and you’d besaying “Get Spade a banana,” becausehe was wasting away.

ROB LOWE, costar:Chris and David were literally like anold married couple. They could be sopetty with each other in ways that wereso funny and unbelievable that you werenever really sure when it was an act,which it often was, and when it crossedover to become real, which it often did.

The two instances I really remember

were when they fought over me, like Iwas some girl. We were shooting inToronto, and Spade and I had been at thegym at the same time and we ended uphanging out in the Jacuzzi. Then, the nextday, Chris said to Spade, “Where wereyou? I called you in your room.”

“I was hanging out in the Jacuzzi withRob.”

“You were in the Jacuzzi with Rob?”“Uh . . . yeah.”“Why didn’t you guys call me?”And it became this whole thing of

who was in the Jacuzzi with me, and itjust went on from there.

DAVID SPADE:Then, one night after flying back fromNew York, Chris goes, “I got the flu, sowhen I land I’m going right to bed.”

“Okay.”We got in to our hotel in Toronto.

Chris was being cranky and grumpy, andhe went to bed. Rob Lowe called, and Isaid, “Farley’s crashing. You want tograb a drink?” He said sure. So we wentdown and we had one quick drink andwent to bed, because we both had a sixA.M. call.

The next day I’m sitting in makeup.Farley’s staring at me in the mirror,biting his lip, which means there’s a

fight coming. He goes, “How’s RobLowe?”

“He’s all right.”“Huh? How’s Rob Lowe?” And he

kept saying it. “How’s Rob Lowe?”I said, “Uh, I don’t get it.”“Where’s your precious Rob Lowe?”“Oh, you mean last night. Yeah, I had

a drink with Rob Lowe.”“Oh, yeah. I heard all about it.”We’d just been together too much at

that point. So we come to the set, it’stwenty-five degrees and I’m huddling onthe ground, waiting for the scene to start,trying to eat a tuna fish sandwich withmy freezing fingers. Chris walks up and

steps on the sandwich and my hand withhis boot. I yell, “Ow, you motherfucker!”

And he goes, “Huh?! How’s RobLowe?”

“What?!”I throw my Diet Coke on him and he

throws me into a wall and down thestairs and he comes to hit me and theyyell, “Action!”

We both freeze in the middle of thisfight, wait for our cue, and then open thedoor and walk in. I just stare at the otheractors for a moment, and then I say,“Fuck this.” And I walk out.

I just leave and go back to my room,and Farley goes, “What’s his problem?”

Chris was actually jealous of RobLowe. He admitted it later. That’sprobably why I’m not married now; myfirst experience didn’t work out.

MICHAEL EWING:Best friends are always competitive, andcomedians and actors are alwayscompetitive in a certain way. That’s justpart of it, that’s part of the one-upmanship. And that carried over intotheir lives, with women and withfriends. When you get people like Chriswas, like Dave is, those are complicatedrelationships.

PETER SEGAL:David had a boldness about calling outthe elephant in the room where nobodyelse would. It was all playful, but it wasthe kind of humor that unless you knewChris you would never go there. Therewas a lot of honesty in Dave’s jokestoward Chris, and I think Chrisappreciated the ballsiness of it. The guysfrom SNL all tell me that everyone feltChris was the funniest guy. So for Daveto be the one to crack Chris up, well,that was like being the one to pluck thethorn from the lion’s paw. He had afriend for life.

JULIE WARNER, costar:David doesn’t drink or do anything bad.He’s very orderly, very much a grown-up at a young age. That stability is partof what attracted Chris to him. But Icould see David’s frustration. He knewthat there was so much danger for Chris.He felt responsible, and it’s too muchresponsibility for any one person. I’vebeen around enough addicts to know thatyour greatest fear is to be abandoned.Chris knew David was never going toleave him, so there was safety there.

DAVID SPADE:

He trusted me. He also thought I wassmart, whether I am or not. He wouldalways ask my advice on a millionthings, and I would just try and help himin the best way I could. He had hisproblems, and it was a mounting pile ofthem as time went on. It was really hardfor me. It scared me for myself. I wasn’teven half as famous as he was, and I’mhaving my own weird stuff going on. Isthis what it’s like, being famous?Because it’s getting harder and scarier towatch.

KEVIN FARLEY:

At the time of Tommy Boy, Chris was onhis second year of sobriety. He alreadyhad a year under his belt. He was downto maybe 225 pounds, which was apretty good weight for him. He couldmove really well in that movie, and itshowed. That was probably the best heever looked, and his sobriety wasprobably the best it had ever been.Everything was clicking on all levels.

MICHAEL EWING:Every night after we’d finish shooting,I’d take him either to a meeting or tochurch to visit with his priest.

Sometimes both. He would call thepriest also, sometimes late at night. Hewas completely straight during thatwhole shoot. He was dedicated tohelping himself, and he was totallyserious about it.

PETER SEGAL:He was very superstitious, and I think itall tied in to habits that he felt wouldkeep him on the straight and narrow. Hishabit of visiting his priest every day, itwas as much for the routine as for theactual counseling.

DAVID SPADE:He had to pull up his pant leg twice andtap the ground twice before every take,which over the course of an entire moviegets a little annoying, to say the least. Soone time while he was tapping theground like that I said, “You know,Chris, the good thing about the devil isthat he won’t come to you. You have tosummon him like you’re doing now.”

“What are you talking about?” he said.“You see, I like God. That’s just my

own thing. But you like to tap on the roofof hell and invite the devil to join you.”

“Shut the fuck up. That’s not what I’mdoing.”

“Well, there’s no superstition in theBible, Chris, which you’d know if youever leafed through it. That’s somethingthe devil made up so people wouldinvite him into their lives.”

He was fucking stunned. I loved it. Hedidn’t know what to do. Even though Iwas totally bullshitting him, it sort ofsounded like it made sense, and he juststared at me, frozen.

PETER SEGAL:And there was no joking about that stuff,either. Every time he smoked a cigarettehe brought it out backwards to his lips

and touched it, and then turned it aroundand put it in his mouth. If he turnedaround, did a 360-degree turn to theright, he’d have to unwind and doanother 360 to the left, like how you’dspin if you went around the corner andforgot something and came back for it.You’d ask him about it, and he’d say, “Igotta undo. I wound up to the right, and Igotta unwind to the left.” There were allthese habits. For some reason, I thinkthey were comfort factors to Chris.

JULIE WARNER:Chris looked everywhere for safety and

support, and he felt very safe within thefamily he’d found on this film. Whateverfeeling of acceptance he craved, I thinkhe found it there.

Chris was very silly with me at first.He was like, “I can’t believe they castsomeone so pretty to be the loveinterest.” He had this kind of goofy thingthat he did around girls. It was like, “Oh,Julie, I can’t even look at you. You’re sopretty. I can’t even talk to you.”

It was put on, but it was obviously hisdefense for the fact that he couldn’t havea real moment with you. That whole aw-shucks character he did on “The ChrisFarley Show,” that was all verydeliberate. He’d say stuff to me like,

“You were really good in DocHollywood. Especially in the naked part.You remember that time in DocHollywood when you were naked? Youremember that? That was awesome.”

At the beginning it was funny. Then itwent on for weeks, every time I sawhim. I even said to David, “Is it alwaysgoing to be like that?”

He said, “Chris can’t talk to girls hethinks are pretty.”

To be an actor, you have to make itreal, play off the other person, listen andreact. And Chris had that. We reallyconnected when we were actingtogether. Interestingly, when Chris wason camera, it was the only time I could

get him to look me directly in the eye.

PETER SEGAL:We went to a club one night after work.Chris came in a three-piece suit,wearing his black horn-rimmed glasses.There were a lot of pretty women there,and Chris looked really tense. I said,“What’s the matter?”

He was looking at these beautifulwomen at the bar, and he said, “Pete,beauty makes me angry. I can’t tellwhether I want to take ’em home or club’em over the head with an empty winebottle.”

I’ve quoted that line to so manypeople over the years. It was hilarious,but you could tell that he was tortured byhis own insecurities. He was the bravestguy in the room, yet fearful in ways thathe would never let on.

MICHAEL EWING:Chris was very self-deprecating, so self-deprecating. It would leave you alwaysthinking, you know, ouch. You could seethat there was some wound just belowthe surface, just a hair below the surface,and sometimes not even that deep. Onetime on the set, the crew was cracking

up after the take, which happened a lot,and Chris walked by and said, “Yep,everybody likes it when fatty fallsdown.” I was like, oh, there’s the crux ofit.

JULIE WARNER:It’s hard for me not to be able to connectwith someone I’m working with. At acertain point during the shoot, Chris wasdoing his routine, and I stopped him andsaid, “Can I have lunch with you? Can Ijust sit and talk to you?”

So we had lunch in his trailer, and hemade about forty jokes about “I can’t

believe you’re in my trailer” and all that.But eventually it all just went away. Allthe shtick, it was just gone. We talkedabout football, about Madison. I thinkonce he realized I was a safe person hestopped being so sheepish. He had anamazing ability to keep people at arm’slength.

We had one kiss at the end of themovie. It was kind of a throwawaymoment, but he talked about it allmorning. I really wanted to put him atease about it, make him feel like I waspsyched about it. Because I wasn’tunpsyched about it or anything, and Iactually thought Chris was sexy. Talentis sexy. Chris was a big guy, but he was

cute. I hated that he didn’t feel worthy ofthat. The first time we kissed the crewapplauded and ribbed him a little bit. Hewas really embarrassed, but once he gotpast it he was fine.

There was something deeply lonelyabout him. Profoundly and deeply lonely.He was a man. He wanted that kind ofcompanionship, and yet he did not knowhow to get it.

TOM FARLEY:Even though our dad was incrediblyproud of Chris’s career, Chris alwayssuspected that what Dad really wanted

was for him to settle down with a wifeand kids. It’s like, no matter howsuccessful you are, until you show thatyou can raise a good family you haven’treally proved yourself. That was thestruggle that Chris always went through,wanting to be a family guy like Dad wasand yet wanting the success in his actinglife, too. But very few people can makeit work on both ends successfully. If Dadhad had a choice, he would have beenrunning for Congress or making deals onWall Street with all his Georgetownbuddies. He’d given that up. But Chriscould never be content with hisprofessional success, because he wasliving by Dad’s barometer and not his

own.

FRED WOLF:We weren’t trying to write a movieabout Chris and his dad, but I think a lotof it just subconsciously worked its wayin there.

PETER SEGAL:In writing that movie, we pooled ouremotional stories as well as ourcomedic stories. It was all done out ofdesperation, and then, ironically, there

was serendipity to it. I think Chrisbrought a lot of his relationship with hisdad to that movie; he tapped into thosefeelings when Big Tom Callahan died.But it wasn’t Chris’s story. It wasn’tFred’s story. It wasn’t my story. It waseveryone’s story.

BOB WEISS:When Terry and Bonnie Turner werewriting it, Terry would say, “Well, this islike my father’s story.” And Lornewould say that it was like his father’sstory. Turns out it was a lot like Chris’sfather’s story. It made me wonder, well,

whose father is it? I mean, what’s thedeal? But that’s why the film is soaccessible. We all know the dynamic oftrying to struggle under this giantpaternal shadow. It’s universal.

BRIAN DENNEHY, costar:When I got on the set I figured my jobwas to be like Chris, not for Chris to belike me. I had to create this crazy,Rabelaisian character who would be anolder, more settled version of Chris’scharacter. There was never anyconversation about it; it’s just somethingChris and I both understood. When we

did the scene outside my office wherewe did that sumo thing, bumping intoeach other, that was my idea. I said toPeter, “It should be like two crazy-assrednecks or sumo wrestlers who meet ina bar and start tussling like wild bears.”Because that’s what they are, thesecharacters. All that came out of mywatching Chris and thinking what itwould mean to be his father.

I think that character loved his sonand, to a certain extent, spoiled him. Ithink he also represented the ideal fatherfor all of us. Psychiatrists might not callhim the perfect father, but a lot of kidswould.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris always used to say, “I’m onlydoing funny stuff to make one guy back inMadison laugh.” And if you saw my dadaround town, talking about Chris, he’dbe gushing. He couldn’t have beenprouder. But like a lot of dads, he was alittle reserved about actually showingthat to us. You want to have your dad sayyou did a good job. And Dad would dothat. He’d go, “Good job, son.” Reallybrusque and understated. But mostfamilies, especially Irish families, theyjust don’t communicate that well.

BRIAN DENNEHY:We all grow up with that necessity to bewhat our fathers want us to be, andprobably, ultimately, failing. There’s noquestion about that. My father’s beendead now for twenty-five years, andthere’s not a day that goes by that I don’tfind myself thinking about it. Ourrelationship was unusual, my father’sand mine. Our family was classicallyIrish Catholic in the sense that the familywas unquestionably the most importantaspect of all of our lives, and yet wewere not close, if that makes any sense.There is an emotional distance betweenus that exists today.

Philip Larkin, a British poet whom Ilove very much, wrote a poem that reallysays it all: “They fuck you up, your momand dad / They may not mean to, but theydo. / They fill you with the faults theyhad / And add some extra, just for you.”And that’s not a criticism of parents, butI think it says that there’s somethinginevitable about it. Your parents wantyou to know things that they’ve learned,but they can only do so much. You’vepretty much got to learn it yourself.

PETER SEGAL:Knowing more now about his

relationship with his father, I recognize alot of things in hindsight. Chris was areally good athlete. He idolized hiscoach, who was also a father figure. AndI realized that the best way to work withChris was not as a director but as acoach.

For example, take the day he shot thescene where he looks at his grades andsays, “A D plus! I passed!!!” He wasn’tgetting it right, and he was so furiouswith himself. I told him to go out and runaround the quad a couple of times andcome back in. I said, literally, “Take alap.” There were times when he’d be soamped up with coffee and cigarettes thatI’d have him drop and do twenty push-

ups. I just needed him to work it off.He’d go, take the lap, do the push-ups,then he’d come back and he’d look at melike I was about to put him into the game.And that was okay. Every actor isdifferent, and that was how I had to dealwith this particular person. In thatinstance, I was his coach. He wouldhave walked through a brick wall for meif I’d asked him to.

ROB LOWE:Pete Segal is a comedy mathematician.He really understands the timing and thebeats in a way that a lot of other

directors don’t. And Chris’s style wasvery wild and unstructured and, frankly,lacking in technique. So it was a goodmix between the two of them.

JULIE WARNER:I’m sure Paramount wasn’t thrilled aboutthe amount of money that was beingspent, but Pete knew there was a goldmine there, and he was determined to getat it. He knew that the movie was onlygoing to work if Chris was free to havefun, and that meant making sure he feltsafe and not pressured. He gave Christhe trust and patience that I don’t think he

found anywhere else. Once Chris feltthat safety, he was able to shine.

MICHAEL EWING:What people responded to in the moviewas the comedy, number one, but alsothis underlying heart that’s woventhrough it. They’re dancing at thewedding, and Brian Dennehy suddenlydrops dead of a heart attack. I mean,what comedy has one of the maincharacters drop dead a third of the waythrough the movie? This is a comedy thatpeople thought was just light and fun, butit also dealt with real things in a real

way.We were just a little movie, and by the

end of the shoot Paramount didn’t reallywant to spend any more money on musicor anything. They said, “Here’s themoney to make the movie, and not apenny more.”

Then Sherry Lansing saw the firstscreening. I was sitting across from her,and as the lights came up I could seethere were tears running down her face.We went outside; she gave Pete a big hugand gave me a hug and said, “My God,where did all that heart come from? Thatwasn’t in the script.”

It was just one of those rare things thathappens in movies sometimes. It all

came together. Then they approved theextra money to do a real score andeverything.

FRED WOLF:The critics totally missed the point ofTommy Boy, and, of course, history hasproven them wrong. It’s seen as this minicomic gem. A few years ago, Timemagazine listed the “Top 10 Movies toWatch to Make Yourself Feel Better.” Itwent all the way back to Adam’s Rib andCocoanuts with the Marx Brothers, andTommy Boy was on that list. That wasreally great to see. I wanted to fax that to

every movie critic in America.

ROB LOWE:To this day, people stop me on the streetand say they love Tommy Boy. It’s theultimate movie for fifteen-year-old boys.And if you compare Tommy Boy to whatthey’re making today for fifteen-year-oldboys, it’s the fucking MagnificentAmbersons.

DAVID SPADE:Looking back it feels like it was a big

hit, even though it wasn’t. It did all right.It just has nice memories about it. It’s themost-talked-about movie that I’ve everhad any part of, certainly, and that’sninety percent because of Chris.

PETER SEGAL:The premiere was very small. Themovie was about to start and everyonehad gone to their seats. I was nervous ashell, and I went into the men’s room.Chris came in behind me. He said,“Well, this is it.” He was nervous ashell, too. We knew we had been througha real war together. On the same side,

but still a war. To this day it’s the mostdifficult shoot that I’ve everexperienced.

We stayed there in the men’s room andtalked for a little while, knowing that themovie was starting. It was like thatmoment when you buckle yourself in to aroller coaster and you know that, asafraid as you are of going up that firsthill, there’s nothing you can do about it. Igave him a hug, and he said—and hewas very adamant about it—he said,“Please don’t leave me. Let’s do thisagain. Promise me we’ll do this again.”

MICHAEL EWING:

I have a tradition that I get all of theactors to sign my movie poster for me.So one day I gave Chris the Tommy Boyposter. He took it, signed it, and handedit back to me. And what it said just cutstraight to my heart, and really surprisedme. What he wrote on the poster was:“Dear Michael, Don’t give up on me.Chris.”

CHAPTER 10

The Lost BoysMARILYN SUZANNE MILLER,writer:In the years I was back at SaturdayNight Live, I so didn’t belong there. Butthen of course, no one belonged there.The cast didn’t belong there. Thewriters didn’t belong there. And wedidn’t belong there with each other. Thewhole thing was a real marriage ofhope.Just two years earlier, during the run ofthe 1992 presidential election, Saturday

Night Live had been at the top of itsgame, consistently funny and culturallyrelevant. But in the fall of 1994, as ChrisFarley and David Spade flew back andforth from Toronto to film Tommy Boy,they returned each week to find the showslipping further and further intoconfusion and disrepair.

Cast stalwarts Dana Carvey, JanHooks, and Phil Hartman had all left. Intheir place, Lorne Michaels had hired aslew of actors and comedians, bothyoung and old, known and unknown. Inall, the cast swelled to seventeenmembers, more than double the originalgroup of Not Ready for PrimetimePlayers in 1975. But in spite of all the

talent in the room (or because of it), verylittle seemed to work. The cast was not ateam. It was an odd collection of ill-fitting parts. There was little chemistryand no love lost among several of thosesharing the stage. It was not a happytime.

Off-camera the changes were just assevere, and the process just as broken.The younger writers were coming to thefore, but the writing staff as a wholenever gelled, especially with veteranslike Al Franken and Marilyn SuzanneMiller feeling pushed out and stymied bythe new generation. Caught in the midstof this chaos, and trying to manage it,was head writer Jim Downey. Downey’s

experience probably encapsulates bestwhat everyone was going through: At theend of the year he was served withdivorce papers on the same day he wasfired.

With the show in a rut, Chris foundhimself in one, too. He put in a hilariousturn as a lost contestant on a Japanesegame show, and he took on some of theshow’s political humor with hisimpression of House Speaker NewtGingrich—a role that would even takehim to the halls of Congress. But as faras memorable performances go, that fifthyear added virtually nothing original toChris’s SNL legacy. The MotivationalSpeaker came back again (and again).

So did the Gap Girls and the Super Fans.And as Saturday Night Live limped tothe end of a particularly disappointingseason, Chris’s attentions driftedelsewhere.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:It was a terrible year. Everyone wasmiserable. And once it starts getting bad,it almost has to get worse.

STEVE LOOKNER:There was definitely a sense at the start

of the ’94-’95 season that we needed tomake the show better. After every tapingthere was more discussion over whatworked and what didn’t, more of aconscious effort to pull things together.Nobody wanted to be the cast thatbrought Saturday Night Live to an end.

TIM HERLIHY:The ratings plunged. It wasn’t just acritical reaction; it was a popular one,too.

JIM DOWNEY:

My feeling was that the show had beenrunning on vapors for a while, but theratings had been crazily spiked byWayne’s World. It annoyed me that thenetwork didn’t care if the show suckedwhile the ratings were high. They onlycared if the show sucked and the ratingswere low.

DAVID MANDEL:It was just very unclear what the showwas supposed to be. When you look atthe 1992 year, you had Carvey andMyers and Hartman, Jan Hooks andKevin Nealon. Those guys were all-

stars. Hartman used to put on a bald capand play ten different characters with tendifferent voices in ten different sketches.So the beauty of adding a guy likeSandler to that group was that Sandlercould go on Update and do his weird,funny thing and kill with it. Same withChris. He could be a killer supportingpart, like in the “Da Bears” sketches,then turn and have his own starring role,like in the “Chippendales” sketch. Thatwas all you really needed of Farley in agiven show. It was like a flavor ofsomething. Jim Downey used to saysomething very interesting, and I willparaphrase it. He used to say that Farleyand Sandler were like the special teams

on a football team, the great kicker or thegreat punter, the guy you need to comeon, do his thing, and then get off thefield.

After the all-stars like Hartman leftthe show, it never seemed like a workingcast so much as “Here’s the Sandlersketch. Here’s the Farley sketch. Here’sthe Spade sketch.” All of a sudden, wewere playing a football game withnothing but these special teams guys outon the field, and that’s not a team that’sgoing to play well for a whole fourquarters.

JANEANE GAROFALO,

cast member:The system was flawed in a way thatfunneled the cream to the bottom and themediocrity to the top. When we did thetable read-throughs on Wednesdays,there were always funny sketches inthere. Rarely did they hit the air.Downey was still there, but he wasn’tspiritually there. I think there were somepersonal things going on in his life thathe wasn’t fully present, emotionally. Hedidn’t have the reserves needed tomanage the room. The system was justbroken.

MARK McKINNEY, castmember:

People were clinging to the stuff thatworked in a time without a lot of focus.It was really, really hard slogging. But Isaw Chris as ensconced in abrotherhood of his own making withseveral of the writers. He wascomfortable in a way that I never was.

JANEANE GAROFALO:Chris had the luxury of not only beingtalented but also well liked. When hewould come onstage, even just to take

his mark during a commercial break,people would start cheering. It was clearthat he was an audience favorite, andkind of the go-to guy for a laugh.

FRED WOLF:All the writers wanted to get their stuffon the show, and you learned veryquickly that there were guys that youcould count on. You could ride theircharisma onto the air. We would do thatwith Chris.

Ian Maxtone-Graham gave me thisdiagram he’d made of “Fred Wolf’sSketches for Chris Farley.” There were

three different dials on it. The first onewas labeled “Chris is: Dry. Moist.Soaking Wet.” And the dial was set on“Soaking Wet.” The second one waslabeled “Chris is: Quiet. Talking Loud.Screaming at the Top of His Lungs.” Andthe dial was set on “Screaming at theTop of His Lungs.” The third one waslabeled “Chris is saying: Gosh! Oh no!Oh, sweet mother of God!” And the dialwas set to “Oh, sweet mother of God!”

It seemed like every sketch I wrote fora while had Chris getting soaking wetand screaming, at the top of his lungs,“Oh, sweet mother of God!” But Icouldn’t resist writing them, becausethey would always bring down the

house.

ROBERT SMIGEL:When we did the first “MotivationalSpeaker” sketch, I added something thatI thought was really helpful at the timebut that I somewhat regretted later. Thesketch was pretty much word for wordas Bob Odenkirk had written it atSecond City, except for the ending. Thestage version didn’t really have a topperfor Chris, other than “You’ll have plentyof time to live in a van down by the riverwhen you’re . . . living in a van down bythe river!” Chris was so powerful

onstage that it carried you to the end. ButTV flattens stuff out and I thought itneeded something more, so I added thepart where he’s telling David Spade,“Ol’ Matt’s gonna be your shadow!Here’s Matt, here’s you! There’s Matt,there’s you!” And then he falls andsmashes through the table.

It worked really well, but itinaugurated this trend of Chris beingreally clumsy and falling down a lot.There were several more “MotivationalSpeaker” sketches, and all of thoseended with him crashing throughsomething. Then the writers startedhaving him fall through other stuff. Heused to joke about it. “Everybody laughs

when fatty falls down.” Chris and Iwould laugh about how hacky it hadbecome. I’d say, “Chris, give me a tripleboxtop.” And he’d do a certain kind offall for me.

That sort of broad clumsiness wasactually the opposite of what Chris’stalents as a physical comedian were.What really struck me at Second Citywas how graceful and nimble andathletic he was, a brilliant physicalperformer who was also capable ofreally specific, subtle things. But a lot ofthat got buried in this succession ofsketches with yelling and pratfalls. Itwas to Chris’s detriment, and theshow’s.

JANEANE GAROFALO:I think that the writers began to use himas a bit of a crutch, but that’s not entirelythe writers’ fault. There’s a naturalinstinct among a lot of comedians,particularly younger ones, to want to geta laugh. You want desperately to beliked, and sometimes the quickest routeis to be loud and broad in your gestures.I think Chris did that in the beginning,and then, unfortunately, it stuck.

DAVID MANDEL:As much as the writers used him in a

certain way, he also liked working inthat certain way. It was easy for him todefault to the pratfalls and so on. Hecould power through a sketch just byhiking up his pants and playing with hishair. Those were stock Chris Farleymoves. He also hadn’t started wearinghis glasses when he should, and hecouldn’t always read the cue cards.You’d write a quiet, subtler sketch, andhe’d flub a line ’cause he’d miss the cuecard. So maybe you didn’t want to take achance with him on that kind of sketch,and you’d default to something loud andphysical.

There was never any sketch where wesaid, “This sketch isn’t working. Let’s

have Farley walk in to be the joke.” Itwas not a fallback move. But there weredefinitely a lot of sketches, especially inthat last season, that could be reducedto: “Chris yells a lot.”

MICHAEL McKEAN:It paralleled Raymond Chandler’s rule:Any time the action starts to slow up,just have a guy come through the doorwith a gun. That’s how they used Chris.He would bring a lot of juice to whatcould have looked like lazy writing, andhe saved a lot of bad sketches. Therewas this sketch with Deion Sanders—I

mean, the comedy stylings of DeionSanders, first of all—where this flyingsaucer lands and they keep sending menin to explore, and they all either getkilled or anally probed. Then they sendChris in, and he comes out with hisclothes in tatters, virtually naked, havingbeen anally violated. That’s all therewas to the sketch. In fact, I think I’veprobably embroidered it a little. Buteven with that, Chris gave it a shot, andhe was funny.

JANEANE GAROFALO:The Deion Sanders alien anal probing

sketch, it was so embarrassing.

AL FRANKEN:The show was always best when therewas a balance between the writers andthe performers, when both wereoperating at their peak level andworking together. To some extent,Sandler and Spade and Schneider andthose guys were not in sync with thewriters, at least with my generation ofwriters. I was not thrilled with what washappening. But maybe it was just timefor me to go.

MARILYN SUZANNEMILLER:

There was a quality among those guys,Rob Schneider, Adam, Chris, and Spade,that it was “our show.” It was a veryDavid Spade attitude, and it certainlyexcluded me. Also, I think they knewthat, at the bottom line, we weren’tloaded with respect for what they werecoming up with.

For some reason the phrase “analprobe” found its way into virtually everysketch. Most of those didn’t make it toair, but at the read-through table itseemed like “anal probe,” “bitch,” and“whore” had assumed the same status as

“Good morning, how are you?” It wasimbecilic and just as offensive asoffensive could be.

TOM SCHILLER:I think that the humor did change, and Ididn’t get into it that much. And that’sbecause the times changed. But the stuffwe were doing in the first five years ofSNL, I wouldn’t say it was necessarilyso smart. When they talk about this“dumbing down of comedy,” I thinkcomedy just keeps changing with thetimes, all the time. You can trace theevolution of vaudeville to Ed Sullivan to

Your Show of Shows to Laugh-In toSaturday Night Live. And it just keepsevolving.

JOHN GOODMAN:It’s similar to what happened to the guyswho took over National Lampoon afterDoug Kenney and Henry Beard left,when it all fell to tits and racial slurs.Michael O’Donoghue used to say thatcomedy isn’t a rapier; it’s clubbing ababy seal. But you can only club thatbaby seal for so long.

TOM DAVIS:They were taking their cues from AnimalHouse, whereas we had taken our cuesfrom Bob and Ray, Sid Caesar, andJohnny Carson. Comedy just takes theseturns. But that show has to stay young. Itdoesn’t matter if you like it or agree withit or think it’s funny. It has to stay young.

MARILYN SUZANNEMILLER:

Chris was part of this gang, and heidentified with this sort of gang spiritthat they had. When he and Adam and

Spade did those Gap Girls, it was kindof like the gang was getting together toplay, only they were doing it on nationaltelevision. They were like the LittleRascals, or the Lost Boys from Never-Never Land.

I remember being overwhelmed onenight at some of the capers that weregoing on. All these overtly sexual—and,frankly, homoerotic—hijinks. Justconstantly grabbing each other’s asses—and much worse than that. I went into anoffice with Al Franken, and he explainedto me that when a bunch of guys aremarooned on an island together, as wasthe case with that show, you get this kindof behavior. It happens at boys’ prep

schools, on submarines. There was asketch Jim Downey wrote on the oldshow, “The Adventures of MilesCowperthwaite.” It was about this youngboy trapped on a ship with all thesepirates, and it was all about manly menbeing manly and doing manly things atsea to prove their manliness—and theyall turn out to be gay. Everything thesekids were doing was like that.

JIM DOWNEY:It became more of the atmosphere of theshow, because you had this critical massof young guys. I always went to all-boys

schools, so I have to admit it’ssomething that makes me laugh, youknow, when it’s done right. Chris wouldburst through the double doors of thewriters’ room with his pants around hisankles and his privates tucked backbetween his thighs doing the thing fromSilence of the Lambs. He’d start rubbinghis breasts and saying, “Am I pretty?” Itwas just so balls out, so to speak. Imean, you had to give it up for that.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:Comedy people, when we’re alone andinsulated, just get more and more

shocking, and it doesn’t play to the restof the world. It’s the same way to thisday. I’ve seen worse before and since. Alot of it was disgusting, but in the contextof this place it was always funny. Wewere just constantly thinking, oh, this isso damn funny, but if anybody saw itwe’d all be arrested.

JIM DOWNEY:It’s hard not to laugh even if you thinkit’s encouraging irresponsible behavior.Sometimes, to get Chris to stop doingsomething, we’d talk among ourselveswhile he was out of the room and agree

not to laugh no matter how funny it got.Chris’d get perplexed, and eventuallyfrustrated, because no one was laughing.Then he would just escalate more.

Farley liked to do this routine wherehe would jokingly hit on waitresses.He’d say, “Well, little lady, I’ve got aproblem. I’m in from Moline, Illinois—work with a grain elevator outfit outthere—and I’m in town for a coupledays on business. And darn it, if I don’tuse my whole expense account the homeoffice’ll be liable to cut me back. So,how’s about you and me do this town upright.” And so on, using all this weird,Jazz Age lingo. You’d be like, Chris,what the hell are you talking about?

One night we were at this Mexicanrestaurant in Midtown named Jose’s. Itwas one of those places where youbuzzed downstairs and they let you inand the entire restaurant was up on thesecond floor. One night, Farley wasdoing his goofy routine with the waitressall night, and she was kind of rolling hereyes, like, “Yeah, yeah, buddy.”

The rest of us, I suppose, were notgiving him enough attention, so he felt hehad to take it up a notch. He jumped up,scooped her up in his arms, and randown the stairs and out of the restaurant.I turned and looked out the window, andI saw him dashing up Fifty-fourth Streetand getting into a cab with her. We all

hung back, staying in the restaurant, like,“We’re not going to bite. We can’t givehim the satisfaction.” Then I said,“Jesus, we could all be sued.” I wasacting in loco parentis with these kids,so I ran downstairs after him. But Chrisliked to do that, do big put-ons withstrangers who didn’t know who he was.In most cases people realized it was ajoke and were happy to be a part of it.

NORM MacDONALD:Chris would do things with girls, like akid would do. He’d always be like,“You shure are purty. Can I touch your

leg?” It was all for the comic effect ofhow you’re not supposed to approach agirl. It was all harmless, but obviouslybecause he had a lot of money, someextra came on the show and decided thisamounted to sexual harassment.

JIM DOWNEY:The second-to-last show of the ’93-’94season, I had written a piece about BillClinton called “Real Stories of theArkansas Highway Patrol.” We had to goupstate and do some outdoor filming.Some women were extras in the piece,and one of them went up in the car with

us. It was me and her and Schneider andFarley. It was a limo, with that widespace between the two rows and seatsfacing each other. Schneider and I weresitting together, and Farley was next tothis girl. He was doing his usual “Heythere, little lady!” shtick. And he waspoking her and hugging her, but if youknew Chris you knew it was all playful.I finally told him to knock it off—notbecause I thought it was assaultivebehavior but because it was gettingannoying.

Well, this girl went to the talentdepartment and complained, hinting atsome sort of legal action for what Chrishad done. But Chris never did anything

wrong. I know because I was sittingthere, and as the producer of the show Inever would have allowed it. Myimpression, honestly, was that she wasmostly complaining about the size of herpart. She thought she had several lines,and it actually wasn’t a speaking role. Ithink we paid her for a speaking partinstead of as an extra, and that was theend of it.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:Nothing ever came of it. It was actuallya very minor incident. It became a muchbigger story in people’s minds because

of the prank that followed, more so thanbecause of the incident itself.

JIM DOWNEY:So the next week it’s last show of theseason. Farley came in, and we decidedto have some fun with him. It was justcompletely random and totallyunplanned. He came by, and I said to himvery casually, “Chris, you know aboutthe lawsuit, right?”

“What?” he said.“You know, the sexual harassment

suit. Anyway, you’re not going to do anyjail time. That’s—don’t worry about

that. I mean, it’s not one hundred percentyou won’t, but it’s at least a sixty toseventy percent chance you won’t do anyjail time.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”“You know. The girl from the

limousine. Anyway, it’s too early to tell,but NBC’s lawyers are all over it.”

He was really starting to shake andsweat. Then the other writers startedgathering around. Mind you, I’d seenFarley do plenty of similar put-ons toother people, so in no way did I thinkthis was unfair. And also, I thought thathe needed to learn a lesson, that the kindof outlandish behavior he pulled in thelimo can have consequences, even if it’s

harmless and well intentioned.I said, “Now, Chris, I used to be a

process server, so I know how thisworks. If you’re walking down thestreet, for the next two . . . well, for thenext several months, if you’re walkingdown the street and someone approachesyou, do not wait to find out who it is—you run. You flat out run.”

And then Ian Maxtone-Graham chimedin, “Oh yeah, I was a process server fora whole summer. If they even touch youwith the document, you’ve been served.If it touches anywhere on your person.”

Eventually, everyone’s getting in onthis, giving Chris advice on how to hideout and things like that. I don’t know

what happened with Chris in theintervening days, but we went to theprop department and had them make up asubpoena, and I had one of the writers Iknew from Seinfeld serve Farley with alawsuit at the end-of-the-season party.He was devastated. A couple of peoplewere coming up to me, saying, "C’mon,that’s cruel. He’s close to tears.”

NORM MacDONALD:Chris was just ashen, and the evencrueler part was that they didn’t let himin on the joke until an hour or two later.To make it that much worse, his mother

was standing right there beside himwhen it happened. It was really terrible.

MICHAEL McKEAN:It was a really shitty thing to do.

JIM DOWNEY:And I was like, “Now, wait a minute.I’ve seen Chris put many a waitressthrough the paces before. He’s a bigboy.” But finally I said, “Okay, let’s endit.” I went over and talked to him. It tookme about a half hour to convince him that

it was a put-on. As far as I heard, he wasnever mad about it, because he liked toput one over on other people, too. Italked to him a few days later and Ireminded him, “You’re a celebrity now,and people will be on the make. Youshould keep that fake subpoena as areminder not to do anything that could bemisconstrued.”

And he said, “I don’t have it. I burnedit.”

It was like he had to destroy theevidence of the whole thing.

FR. MATT FOLEY, friend:

Chris was very much a man’s man.There were girls who were his friends,but anyone who was being honest wouldsay he did some pretty inappropriatethings with women. He was often meanto them. It was weird. It was the trustthing: Will you love me for who I am?

Chris used to say that every girl hewent out with before he got famouslooked like him with a wig on. Not toslam those women, but it’s probablytrue. Then, all of a sudden, he’s famousand these hot girls are all over him. Soobviously, sexual issues, relationships,were very difficult things for him. I thinkhe trusted God implicitly; I don’t thinkhe trusted people. “Why do these women

want to go out with me?” He was veryconfused by that. He didn’t trust them.He didn’t know who to trust.

TIM MEADOWS:That was something we talked aboutquite a bit. He’d always say, “Howcould any beautiful girl love my fatass?”

MARILYN SUZANNEMILLER:

One of the real differences between John

Belushi and Chris Farley was that JohnBelushi was married, whereas Chriswas sort of the opposite of married. Iwouldn’t even put him in the category of“single.” He wasn’t single; he was theopposite of married.

FR. MATT FOLEY:He went out with this girl named Lorri—her nickname was Kit Kat—this reallyhot girl. I was in New York oneweekend and Chris told me, “I reallylike this Kit Kat girl.” I saw her on theset. She was this five-foot-ten Victoria’sSecret model, long legs, just hot. They

clearly weren’t going to talk aboutsecond-century world history together.Chris said, “What should I do? I don’tknow if she likes Spade or not. I want toask her out, but I’m so confused.”

I said, “Well, Chris, why don’t you goto work today and ask David if it’s okayif you ask her out?”

He did, David said it was okay and heasked her out. So here we are on a date,Chris, Kit Kat—and me, his priest. Thenext night we all went to a movietogether. It was just bizarre as hell. Itwas like I was back in eighth grade.

DAVID SPADE:Lorri lived directly across the streetfrom me. I’d see her at the deli. She wasthis Victoria’s Secret girl, who Ieventually realized was one of theVictoria’s Secret girls back from when Iused to look at Victoria’s Secret andfound her quite striking. She was veryfriendly. I invited her to the show, andwe started talking. I didn’t have a wholelot of friends in New York outside ofSNL, so it was nice to meet someone tohang out with.

We became friends and started dating.Chris would hang out with us. Shethought he was funny, and I didn’t mind

that he’d come along. This happened alot, and he’d always paw all over her,going, “You’re so purdy,” and all that.And I wouldn’t get mad, but I was like,“Dude, be a little more respectful, to meand her. C’mon with that shit.”

Then sometimes Lorri and I would godo stuff, and I’d say, “You know, Chrisisn’t doing anything this weekend. Canhe come with us?”

LORRI BAGLEY,girlfriend:

Chris and I met because we were bothbest friends with David Spade. David

and I had met, and we just clicked. We’dmeet for breakfast, hang out after work.We even wound up living across thestreet from each other. Before Chris andI met, David would always say, “You’rejust like Chris. The two of you are thesame person.”

“I want to meet him,” I’d say.“No, if you do, you’ll fall in love with

him.”Men being men, I think David would

have liked to date me, but for me it wasjust never like that. He asked me to go tothe movies one night, and I said no,because I didn’t want to be alone in amovie theater with him. So he said, “I’llbring Chris.”

For a year, the three of us were justfriends. We were like this fun-lovingthreesome that hung out together all thetime. It was the most fun time of my lifein New York. This was all about a yearbefore Tommy Boy. I was a model, and Iwas doing Victoria’s Secret shoots, andFred Wolf said, “We have to have apretty girl in the movie. It should beyou.” So I did the scene as the girl in thepool at the motel.

After Tommy Boy, we all kept hangingout just like before. Chris and I hadnever really been alone. We werealways with David or a group. But Chriswould always do these little things, likepulling my chair closer to his at the

dinner table—little things that said,“She’s mine.” One night after my actingclass, we were all at the Bowery Bar,just dancing and having fun. Sandler wasthere. It got late, people were goinghome, and Chris wanted to go out somemore. Sandler looked at us and was like,“You guys are baaaaad . . .” He saw theconnection. So Chris and I went outalone. That was the first night he kissedme. He was a very good kisser.

When it all first came up, Chris cameto my apartment and said, “I have towork with David. Until I finish SaturdayNight Live, we can’t see each other,because I can’t go to work every day andhave that kind of stress.”

I said I understood, and we stayedapart for like three days. We justcouldn’t do it. David lived right acrossthe street from me, on West Seventy-ninth, so that didn’t make it easy. Onenight there was an after party for theshow. Chris didn’t go so he could comeand see me, but it turned out Daviddidn’t go, either. He came home and sawChris in the car out front waiting for meto come down.

I was getting ready to head out whenDavid called me. “Is that Chris waitingfor you downstairs?” he said.

“Um . . . yeah.”“You fucking bitch.”

And he hung up the phone.

NORM MacDONALD:It drove a wedge between them. Chriswasn’t a ladies’ man like Spade was.Chris wanted to fall in love and bemarried. Spade’s the opposite. He’s areal playboy. Chris decided that Spadehad a million girlfriends, so he couldhave just this one.

TIM MEADOWS:Spade dates nothing but hot girls, still to

this day. But for Farley she was a coup.

DAVID SPADE:And that was the part that ultimately kindof pissed me off. I had brought him intothe mix. I should have just kept it the twoof us, but I always made sure Chris wasinvolved, because he didn’t haveanyone.

FRED WOLF:I loved Lorri Bagley. She was great. It’sreally fun to walk around with

celebrities and see everyone’s reactions.But when we walked around and LorriBagley was part of it, she definitely didnot detract from the excitement factor.She just had a stunning quality about her.

TODD GREEN:She was so beautiful. Chris would justlook at Kevin and me and shrug hisshoulders like, “Can you fucking believethat I’m with this woman?”

We were playing golf down in HiltonHead. Chris was down there at somediet clinic and a bunch of us went downevery year to play golf. Chris was

actually not a bad golfer, but he wasn’thaving a good game. He was just gettingfrustrated. All day he kept muffing hisdrives and missing putts and gettingmore and more angry. Finally I said tohim, “Farls, why are you so upset?You’re dating Kitty Kat.”

He just howled. He did that reallydeep, guttural laugh he had. And for therest of the entire round, every time hemissed a shot he’d just shrug and say,“Hey, I’m dating Kitty Kat.”

She was flighty, but she really caredfor Chris, and she genuinely loved him.

LORRI BAGLEY:Chris would tell me stories about his lifebefore he was sober, and I just couldn’tpicture it. He liked that. He liked that Icouldn’t even imagine that side of him.He was so organized, and sohardworking. He’d wake up everymorning and make his bed, go to hismeeting. He had the neatest, cleanestapartment.

And he was so romantic, always agentleman. He would always walk onthe street side of the sidewalk, alwaysstand up when you left the table, andalways stand up for you when you cameback to sit down. He was very elegant

that way, chivalrous, like someone froma different time. Once we were meetingfor dinner in New York. We weresupposed to meet at a certain time, and Igot there forty-five minutes late. He hadbeen outside waiting for me the wholetime, just so he could be there to openthe door and make sure he could pay forthe taxi. I mean, who does that? That’sso much better than flowers.

Although when he did buy meflowers, that was always special, too. Iwas in this phase where I was alwayschanging my hair color, and whatever myhair color was, he’d match the roses toit. I always loved that. He never got justred. One time the florist messed up and

sent me plain red roses. He was so upsethe called and bitched them out. He justhated to be typical. He wanted there tobe thought behind everything he did.

Another time I was in Los Angeles,and we’d gotten into this huge fight. Isaid, “Okay, come out to L.A. and we’llwork things out.” I was staying at theFour Seasons. Every hour on the hour hesent something new. One hour it wasflowers. The next hour it was a bottle ofchampagne. It went on for ten hours.

And the first night I spent with him, hegot up to go downstairs to get water. Iwas lying there without any clothes on.He went to his closet and got out hisrobe and came and wrapped it around

me, just so I would feel safe. He was abeautiful man.While things were going well for Chrisprivately, Saturday Night Live hadcontinued to suffer, and it was clear thatmajor structural changes were needed.Early in the year, reporters had begun totake aim at the show’s shortcomings, andby season’s end the media had launcheda full-fledged assault. Particularlyderogatory was a New York magazinearticle by a reporter who had lived inand among the cast for several weeks.While the criticisms in the piece werenot wholly without merit, its perspectivewas rather myopic, and its tone wasunrelentingly foul. The magazine’s cover

featured Chris wearing a television onhis head—the poster boy for the death ofSaturday Night Live. And the headlineof the piece, “Comedy Isn’t Funny,”wasn’t exactly what Chris thought hislegacy at the show would be.

TIM HERLIHY:The stuff with the press that year washeartbreaking. Not only were they sayingbad things, but Phil Hartman was sayingthings to TV Guide, and a lot of us werebeing misquoted here and there. Theshow was just being eviscerated.

FRED WOLF:The worst hit piece was the New Yorkmagazine article. The guy who wrotethat was living in our midst for at leasthalf a season. He was around all thetime. Then all this stuff came out and hejust tore the show apart.

NORM MacDONALD:The guy was really down on Chris in thearticle, but when Chris was tellingstories in the writers’ room, this reporterwas on the floor. He was laughing likecrazy. But the guy had the agenda to

write this hit piece, and he was going towrite it regardless. Even when he camethere and found out that Chris was funny,it didn’t matter to him. And then to haveChris go to a photo shoot where they puta TV on his head and to put him on thecover—to put a guy through all that,completely unknowing of what you’regoing to write about him, it was just low.

Later, when Chris filmed Dirty Workwith me, he was saying he felt bad thathe and Sandler had “ruined the show.”

I said, “No, Chris. That’s insane. Theysaid that at the time, but you guys haveall come out as the biggest comedy starsin the world.”

MIKE SHOEMAKER:The irony is that Farley and Sandlerwere the poster boys for the show’sproblems that year, and yet every weekwe’d do a show and they were the onlyones getting laughs.

JIM DOWNEY:What I didn’t like was the opportunismof the press. It was a lot of late hits andpiling on after the whistle. Basically, tobe honest, I just wanted out.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:At the end of the season, everything wasin limbo. Nobody knew who or whatwas coming back, management included.Nobody thought the show would becanceled, but we thought we might be.There was never a time when Chris andthose guys were officially fired.Everyone just kind of instinctively knewit was time to move on. All the writersjust left, every single one of them.

DAVID MANDEL:I’d love to say it was an ax coming

down, a real housecleaning, which iswhat SNL needed. But it was more thatwe were all just exhausted, working likedogs, and people began drifting away. Ifthere was an ax, it was a very passive-aggressive ax, which is Saturday NightLive in a nutshell.

KEVIN FARLEY:I don’t even know what word you woulduse to describe what happened at the endof that year. Weird? Crazy? The wholeplace runs on rumors and innuendo. ButChris had a lot of meetings with hismanagers, who told him he’d be fine

stepping right into movies. I don’t thinkChris was fired, and he didn’t exactlyquit. He just never went back.

LORNE MICHAELS:Chris’s head had been turned by theexposure he’d gotten from the movies.Starting back when he was in the firstWayne’s World, Chris was only on thescreen for a minute, but the audienceclearly knew him and liked him and wasinvested in him. Gurvitz and Brillsteinwere pressuring him to get out there.There was a Chris Farley business now.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:There’s a sketch at the very end ofChris’s last show, written by Fred Wolf.It’s Chris and Adam and Jay Mohr andall those guys, playing themselves.They’re at the zoo and they’re screwingaround, daring each other to jump intothis polar bear pit. “I bet I can swimacross the moat and back before thepolar bear gets me.” That sort of thing. Itwas the last sketch that those guys everdid on Saturday Night Live, and Ialways remember it as sort of being ametaphor for their leaving the show.Everybody leaps into the polar bear pit,and, one by one, they all get mauled and

eaten alive.

CHAPTER 11

The Polar Bear PitNORM MacDONALD:When Chris left Saturday Night Live, itseemed like he wasn’t ready forHollywood. There was the Cable Guything, the Beverly Hills Ninja thing.Hollywood was just ready to use anaïve guy in any way they could tomake money. And Chris was naïve, buthe certainly wasn’t stupid. He saw whatwas happening, and it hurt him a lot.Perhaps because of his faith, Chris hadgreat confidence in human beings and

their capacity for being good. Andthey’re not, really. Especially not inthis town.Paramount Studios released Tommy Boyon March 31, 1995. Despite a lukewarmcritical reception, it opened number oneat the box office and went on to gross arespectable $32 million. Suddenly therewas a lot of growth potential in the ChrisFarley business.

Paramount immediately ordered up, inessence, Tommy Boy II. No sequel ideasfollowed naturally out of TommyCallahan’s story, but that was noobstacle. The movie’s basic formulawas lifted, reupholstered, and set downin vaguely different circumstances—and

Black Sheep was born. This time,instead of playing the screw-up son of asuccessful father, Chris played thescrew-up brother of a successfulpolitician. David Spade no longerplayed an uptight assistant helping Chrisnot ruin a sales trip; he played an uptightassistant helping Chris not ruin agubernatorial campaign.

Chris had signed a two-picture dealwith Paramount, and the studio’sinterpretation of his contract preventedhim from taking on any other films solong as they presented him with a“viable” project by a certain date. FredWolf was hired to write the screenplay,and on that certain date, under the threat

of a lawsuit, he was compelled to turn inwhatever script he had. Then, literally atthe eleventh hour, Wayne’s Worlddirector Penelope Spheeris was attachedto direct.

Chris was a valuable commoditycoming out of Tommy Boy, and had manyoptions from which to choose.Paramount shut them all down, includinga part in the Farrelly brothers’ Kingpinand the lead in The Cable Guy (a projectthat would involve Chris in a whollyseparate legal imbroglio).

And so Chris was shoehorned into thethankless role of Mike Donnelly, awarmhearted but hapless counselor at acommunity recreation center who’s such

a political nightmare he’s got to be putunder wraps during his brother’s bid forthe governor’s mansion. Ever theoptimist, Chris was determined to makethe best of it. He hired old Red Arrowfriend Ted Dondanville to be hispersonal assistant and constantcompanion, and then turned his attentionto trying to improve the film, bringing inseveral writers to punch up the script.He also sought out Tim Matheson andBruce McGill. Matheson and McGillhad starred as Otter and D-Day,respectively, in National Lampoon’sAnimal House. Hoping their comedytalents would improve the film’sprospects, Chris used his newfound

clout to bring them in for supportingroles.

But no matter how hard Chris tried,Black Sheep was not going to be TommyBoy. Despite the similarities, the filmdidn’t have the same director or thesame producers. Nor for that matter didit have the same stars. The personal andprofessional chemistry of Chris Farleyand David Spade had inspired TommyBoy and come off beautifully on film.But the fabric of that relationship hadbegun to fray. Chris was receiving moreattention, and more money, which wouldsow seeds of discontent in anypartnership. And then there was the thingwith the girl.

LORNE MICHAELS:Black Sheep was an act of desperationby Paramount. Sherry Lansing felt thatthey missed it on Tommy Boy. Theydidn’t know what they had; they hadn’tmarketed it well. Then after its release itgot reevaluated. If nothing else, SherryLansing’s son Jack said Tommy Boy washis favorite movie ever. Suddenly theywanted another. I kept saying, “We don’thave one.”

ERIC NEWMAN:When Lorne was making Wayne’s World

2, Mike Myers had written a script thatthe studio, for legal reasons, couldn’tproceed with. So Mike, as is his style,dug his heels in and said he wasn’t doingit. The reaction from Paramount wassevere. They threatened litigation, andMike found himself with no choice but tomake the movie. That’s probably whyWayne’s World 2 turned out the way thatit did.

When there was a question aboutChris doing Black Sheep, all the samepeople were involved, and it got reallyugly again. Paramount was makingthreats. Chris’s people were reallyangry, and they should have been.

DOUG ROBINSON, agent:Our interpretation of the contract wasthat Chris owed Paramount one of hisnext two movies. Their interpretationwas quite different, and they were reallyfirm about Chris not doing Cable Guy,or Kingpin, which was another possibleproject we had lined up for him. Chriswas being considered to play the Amishkid, the part eventually taken by RandyQuaid. We really wanted him to do that.But Paramount was putting a lot ofpressure on Chris, and he ultimatelydidn’t want to fight it.

FRED WOLF:I got a call from an executive atParamount saying that I had to deliver afinished script by midnight on Sunday,the last day Chris was contractuallyallowed to get out of the movie. If Ididn’t have a finished script—anyfinished script—they were going to sueme. I sat down and wrote forty-fivepages that weekend. Eric Newman metme at Paramount at around eleven forty-five. We made copies and distributedthem to the people at Paramount. Theyhad their script, and they forced Chris todo it.

DAVID SPADE:Now, we’re getting close to summer, andthat’s the only time SNL cast memberscan shoot movies. I ended up going backin the fall, and Chris didn’t know at thatpoint if he was going back or not.

But that summer Chris was alsooffered $3 million to do Cable Guy, andthe Paramount deal was for way, wayless, probably under a million. The thingwas, I didn’t owe Paramount anything. Ididn’t have a two-picture deal. I couldsay no.

So Chris comes to me at Au Bon Painunder 30 Rock on the way in to work.He sits me down and says, “Listen, I

know they want you to do Black Sheep,and I owe them a movie and you don’t.So when you read the script, if you don’tlike it then I’m free to go do CableGuy.”

“Right,” I say.“But if you say you want to do it, I

have to do it, too.”“Okay.”“I read it. I wasn’t crazy about it. You

read it, and you decide.”And so I’m in a tough spot. If I say

yes, Fred Wolf gets paid and gets amovie made, and so do I. If I say no,Fred and I don’t have work, but Chrisgets to go and do the other one.

I say, “Look, I’ll read it, and I’lldecide based on no reason other thanwhether or not I like it. And if I like it, Ihave to say yes.”

“Fair enough.”I read it, and I thought it was actually

pretty good. Coming off Tommy Boy, Ithought Chris, Fred, and I could pull itoff.

ERIC NEWMAN:And so Black Sheep was concocted topreempt Cable Guy, but, unfortunately,at the same time, the Cable Guy dealwas falling apart on its own due to the

Jim Carrey thing.

BERNIE BRILLSTEIN,manager/founder, Brillstein-

GreyEntertainment:It was the worst. Endeavor sent me thescript for The Cable Guy. You can’teven imagine how different that scriptwas from what got made. It was asimple, fun story. Gurvitz and I took itover to Columbia, to Mark Canton. Theybought it with Chris attached. We werethen going through all the preproduction,

and Brad Grey and I got a call fromCanton. “Please be over here at sixo’clock. It’s very important that we seeyou.”

Now, when someone calls you for animportant six o’clock meeting, it’s nevergood news, and it’s never to give youmoney, ever. We went over to Columbiaand Canton said, “Somehow, the CableGuy script made it to Jim Carrey.”

“Somehow?” I said. “Did it fly overthere or did you send it by cab?”

That started the meeting out on a bit ofa hostile front.

“Jim Carrey wants to do it,” he said,“and we want to make it our summer

tent-pole movie.”Brad and I had brought Columbia this

script, and, without our knowing, theyhad brought on Ben Stiller, JuddApatow, and Jim Carrey, who wanted toturn it into a dark, black comedy. Theywere going to pay Carrey $20 million,and it was the first time anyone hadbroken the $20 million ceiling. I wasvery blunt. I said, “You just lost twentymillion.”

So now Canton says, “Here’s whatwe’ll do. We’ll pay off Chris. You twocan stay with the picture as producers,and we’ll pay you.”

It was a tough decision. It was a lot ofmoney. It was our script, so I didn’t feel

bad about taking the money, honest toGod. And they weren’t going to budgeoff of Jim Carrey, so as long as Chris gotpaid, that was the best we could hopefor, for him.

PENELOPE SPHEERIS,director:

One Sunday afternoon, I got a call fromJohn Goldwyn at Paramount. He putSherry Lansing on the phone, and theysaid, “Chris Farley wants to do thismovie called The Cable Guy, and if wedon’t exercise our option on him bytomorrow morning, we lose our rights to

hold him to another movie.” They askedme if I would direct it.

I said, “Well, where’s the script?”“We don’t have one,” they said, “but

we have a great idea.”They pitched me the idea. It didn’t

seem something I really wanted to do.Then they told me what they were goingto pay me—and it was obscene. It wasabout two and a half or three milliondollars. They needed to get the picturedone that badly. So, I hate to soundcrass, but I did it for the money. Plus,after doing Wayne’s World I really didlove Chris and really did want to workwith him. Between those two things, Iwent for it.

DAVID SPADE:And that’s when the trouble started. Ibelieve up until that point we wouldhave had another Tommy Boy on ourhands. But Penelope got paid more thanall of us put together, because she’ddone Wayne’s World. So all the powerwent to her. The problem is, you have togive a lot of credit on Wayne’s World toMike and Dana. I’m sure she didsomething right, but as far as the funny isconcerned, that’s Mike and Dana, in myopinion.

So Penelope says, “I know how tomake you guys funny.” Which is the firstred flag. Chris, Fred, and I knew what

we needed to do. We just neededsomeone to shoot us, but she ripped fortypages out of the script and said, “I’mgoing to work on this with my friend.”All our complaints fell on deaf ears, andFred got fired.

PENELOPE SPHEERIS:There was one point in a meeting whenwe were discussing the script with thestudio people. Fred came up with somestupid-ass idea, and I said, “I’m notgoing to do that.”

Then everybody looked at Lorne, andLorne said, “Well, Fred is the writer on

the show.” Parentheses: The writer isking on Saturday Night Live.

So I said, “Okay, you guys can takeyour two and a half million and shove itup your ass.”

And I walked out. I couldn’t believeI’d done it, but I was walking across theparking lot and I heard the click-click-click of Karen Rosenfeld’s high heels,and she came up to me going, “Penelope,don’t leave. Please, please.”

They didn’t care about me, mind you.They just didn’t want to lose thedirector, any director, for fear ofderailing the project and losing Chris.

ERIC NEWMAN:A movie’s like a train, a five-hundred-ton train, and once it leaves the stationthere’s not a whole lot you can do aboutit. If you’re Jerry Bruckheimer it’s prettyeasy to stand on principle and say, “Thismovie’s not ready.” (Not that he everhas.) But if you’re not at that level, youwork with what you have. Everyonethinks, okay, it’ll all come out in thewash. The process will right the ship.And it never does. And so, despite thebest efforts of Chris, David, Lorne, andFred, Black Sheep is an entirely forget-table movie. It’s a terrible movie. It’s areally bad movie.

TED DONDANVILLE,friend:

Johnny Farley had moved to Chicagoand started performing atImprovOlympic, and he and I weredrinking buddies. He told me Chris waslooking for an assistant. So I just calledChris up and asked him for the job, and Igot it. I wasn’t hired for my secretarialefficiency but because that concrete wallseals off after you become famous. Youcan only trust the people on one side ofit, and I was on that side. And of courseI’d taken care of him when he was thepoor, starving actor at Second City.

We flew out to Los Angeles on the

Fourth of July of 1995, and I was hispersonal assistant from that day on.When we got there we moved into thePark Hyatt hotel. He had a nice suite,with a big living room area. He livedthere for all of Black Sheep, and then forall the time we weren’t on location forBeverly Hills Ninja and Edwards &Hunt. That was his home in L.A. Filmingstarted about a week after we got totown.

Chris, because of his clout, got themto hire writers to work on punching upthe script three or four nights a week.The guys who wrote Edwards & Hunt,which became Almost Heroes, they camein. Those guys would come over to

Chris’s hotel suite, we’d order food, andthey’d sit around for hours going overthe upcoming scenes, trying to make itbetter. Those sessions were a great time,a lot of fun to watch, these intellectualwriters setting Chris up and giving himstuff to work on. He’d act it out a littleand tweak it with them.

The process was more enjoyable thanthe actual product. Not a lot of thatmaterial got worked in, ultimately,because it was all last-second stuff. SoChris knew it was a piece of crap, but hewas going to go down swinging.

TIM MATHESON, costar:

Chris was very positive. Alwaysprepared. You could tell that all theprincipal performers were just doing itby rote, to fill an obligation, except forChris. I didn’t much believe in themovie. I just figured it had to be at leasthalf as good as Tommy Boy, and thatwould be okay. But they just kept addingand changing crap all the time, and neverto make it better. It just got dumber.

FRED WOLF:If you’re going to do something in aslapdash manner, you need the captain ofthe ship to make sure it comes off right. I

think we were all missing that.On Tommy Boy, Pete Segal would call

me in my room and say, “We’re out herewith Chris and Rob Lowe. He’s washinghim off after the cow-tipping scene. Doyou have anything?”

And I knew that any time you hadChris dancing you had comedy gold. SoI’d say, “Why not have him singing‘Maniac’ from Flashdance?”

Then they were able to knock it out onthe spot. On Black Sheep, the directorwasn’t speaking to me, and I was bannedfrom the set. Penelope Spheeris fired mea total of three times. Chris rehired metwice, and Lorne Michaels a third time. Imissed Pete Segal.

TED DONDANVILLE:Chris liked the way that Penelope wasvery open about hearing his ideas. Onthe other hand, he didn’t really trust hercomedy chops. He had a fear of her notknowing what was funny and whatwasn’t, and he was worried about thelack of strong direction. Personally,though, they got along great. He liked thefreedom she gave him.

PENELOPE SPHEERIS:It was actually Chris’s idea to get TimMatheson and Bruce McGill for their

parts, specifically because of AnimalHouse. For me, I trusted him on it, andthen I met the guys and they were justgreat. My first impulse was, “Who’sgoing to believe Chris Farley and TimMatheson as brothers?” But they reallyfelt like brothers.

TIM MATHESON:I went in for the audition, and to mysurprise Chris was there. He was thestar, and I was just coming in for thissupporting part, but he was so graciousand so deferential and so flattering thatyou honestly would have thought it was

his audition. But I got the feeling that hewas responsible for my being there. Iwas very grateful for that, and I wantedto deliver.

He wanted to hear anything andeverything I could remember aboutAnimal House. He wanted to get my takeon the whole experience and what it waslike working with Belushi. I liked tomake him laugh, so I told him as manystories as I could.

Chris had an innocence about him, agolly-shucks-gee kind of thing. John feltlike an older brother. Chris felt like ayounger brother. John had big designs,was always in charge. He grabbed thatball and ran with it. Chris was always

“Golly-gee, what do you think?” Belushiwas also a sweet guy, but Belushi wasvery aware of who he was, the impact hehad on people, and the clout that it gavehim, both in the industry and just overaverage people. John was very savvy.You got the feeling that Chris wasn’t. Or,if he was, he chose to ignore it. He had avery salt-of-the-earth quality about him.When he introduced me to his brother, itwas all about how great his brother was.

BRUCE McGILL, costar:Toward the end of the movie, we allplayed in a golf tournament, so we spent

about six hours out there together. Youusually try and keep humiliatingexperiences down to ten, fifteen minutes,right? But a game of golf is just hoursand hours of ego-bruising degradation,which breaks people down and opensthem up. If you want to know somethingabout a guy, go play golf with him.

And while we were out there we hada very protracted, involved three-wayconversation about what had happenedto John, and how he should avoid thatfor himself. It was fascinating to seehow interested he was in Belushi andBelushi’s demise—and how adamant hewas that he would not go down thatroad. Cut to two years later and he went

exactly the same way. If there was ever amoth to a flame, whether it wasconscious, unconscious, I don’t know.

LORRI BAGLEY:When Chris left SNL, he told me that theonly goal he’d ever had in life was to beon that show, that his father had lovedJohn Belushi on that show, and if hecould make it there, he’d make his fatherhappy. That’s where the Belushi thingcame from—his father.

BRUCE McGILL:

If Belushi made Chris’s father laugh,well, there you go. It’s positively Greek.

PENELOPE SPHEERIS:My problem with Black Sheep was thatthen and to this day I find Chris Farleyabsolutely, brilliantly, hilariously funny.I don’t think I’ve ever even smiled atanything David Spade’s ever done. Chriswas lovable and positive, and Davidwas so bitter and negative. You takeyour pick.

I still have a recording of a messageDavid left on my answering machine. Hesaid, “You’ve spent this whole movie

trying to cut my comedy balls off.”

DAVID SPADE:The main problem was that Penelopeseparated us. She had Chris go off anddo one thing and me go off and doanother. We kept saying, “Look, ourcharacters just need to be together. Weneed to fight and bicker and do all thatshit.”

And Chris wasn’t helping much,because he thought he should be doingmore dramatic stuff, that the movieshould be more about his character andTim Matheson’s character and less about

me. He even hinted that “would I mind”if I got paid not to be in it so they couldmake it more of a dramedy. And I don’tthink he meant it to be offensive to me.He just wanted to act and didn’t want tokeep doing fatty falls down. Personally, Ithought it was too early; we neededmore experience before we tried to dothose things.

So they added a few scenes for Chrisand Tim to be a little more serious, andthey had another writer come in to workon the ending. And I was kind of on myown. I didn’t have anyone to play off of.I didn’t have Chris, and my humor isfunny when I have someone to play offof.

ERIC NEWMAN:Actors need rules, and those rules needto come from the director. Penelopeclearly didn’t get David, and she reallyallowed him to meander. Chris Farleyalone is the comedy team of Costelloand Costello. You needed the sharp-tongued straight man. You can pretendthat you’re just making a Chris Farleymovie, but you’re not. It’s a ChrisFarley/David Spade movie.

TIM MATHESON:I sensed that there was something wrong

with Chris and David, but I thought itwas David not wanting to be the secondbanana.

PENELOPE SPHEERIS:You could feel the tension between them,believe me.

LORRI BAGLEY:I was staying with Chris in his hotelroom, and at the end of the shoot hewould come back and see me and ventout all of his tension. “You’re the reason

me and my best friend aren’t talking.”That sort of thing. It was hard.

TED DONDANVILLE:It was about the girl, basically, and someunderlying jealousy, too, which Spadeactually handled very well. Spade waspissed off about how things went downwith Kit Kat. I think it was one of thosethings where Spade thought she was hisgirl, but they weren’t really dating tobegin with.

DAVID SPADE:

Dating, not dating, whatever. I don’tknow what you want to call it. We werecertainly hanging out a lot. I wasn’t herboyfriend, but we were very close. AndI didn’t find out from them. It was anaccident. For some reason, I wasn’tsupposed to know. So if she and Iweren’t dating, then why was I beingkept in the dark? And whatever. Theproblems with Lorri were that I feltsomewhat betrayed on both sides. I feltlike, here’s my friend. I always madesure he got to hang out with us becausehe said he had no one else to be with,and to have that bite me in the ass laterdidn’t sit right.

TED DONDANVILLE:I talked to Lorri about it a lot, andaccording to her, Chris was guilt-riddenover it. She says that she and Davidwere never more than friends, but whoknows how women revisit stuff.

LORRI BAGLEY:Chris and I were just emotional, crazypeople. Our relationship was alwaysrocky. Up and down, like being on a shipat sea. David always used to say, “Youtwo are going to kill each other.” Thething with Chris, the thing we had

problems with, was intimacy. Any timeyou got close to him, if he let down hisguard and really let you in, then he’dpush you back out. As close as you gotthe night before, you’d be pushed thatmuch further away the next morning.

TED DONDANVILLE:Whenever Lorri would visit L.A., therewas a standard pattern to it. They’d starttalking on the phone a lot, then she’dcome out and he’d send me away. For acouple of days it’d be full-time, lovey-dovey, baby-talk heaven. Then for acouple of days they’d begin to resemble

a calmer, everyday, normal couple. I’dbe invited back in—the third wheeladded to their little bicycle—and we’dall hang out together. Then it’d start todisintegrate into some crazy-ass fight.I’d get a call from Chris in his hotelsuite: “Come up. Come through thebedroom.” I’d go up and she’d be on theother side of his bedroom door, out inthe suite, yelling and screaming, andChris would be like, “Get her her ownfucking room tonight and fly her backtomorrow.”

She’d fly back to New York, they’dignore each other for a month or so, thenthe phone calls would start and thewhole thing would crank up again.

LORRI BAGLEY:In every part of his life Chris had a roleto play. His relationships with peoplewere always predicated on “What doyou want?” And then he would be thatfor them. I actually tried to break allthose different roles down. We’d fightabout it, but then in the end he’d feelbetter that he didn’t have to play somepart. I always felt that he could onlyreally be himself with me.

People would never believe that wewere together. They didn’t understand it,or questioned the reasons behind it. Thatwas until they saw us together. They’dlook back and forth between the two of

us and say, “God, they’re like the sameperson.” One time he was going to do aninterview. We were with his publicist inthe car. She was like, “Chris, you’re socalm.” Then she looked over at me.

“Kitten makes me calm,” he said. Healways said to me, “You’re the only girlI feel comfortable with. I’ve alwaysbeen nervous and anxious aroundwomen, but not with you.”

TED DONDANVILLE:I wouldn’t say Lorri wasn’t attracted tothe fame and success, but she and Chriswere genuinely close. She will tell you

that they had this famous romance for theages. Fact of the matter is, Chris hadother girlfriends here and there. But Iwill give Lorri credit for being the mostimportant woman in his life. That iscertainly true. Unfortunately, of all thegirls I saw Chris go out with, I didn’tthink she was the healthiest or moststable.

DAVID SPADE:Those two together, with Chris in a freefall, it was like nitroglycerine. I don’tknow if Chris was in love with her. Iknow he spent tons of time with her, and

she was okay with the other women, orwhatever his famous life brought him,because they were “soul mates.” I waslike, “Shit, is that how it works? I needme a soul mate. That’s awesome.”

LORRI BAGLEY:Chris attracted control freaks. He madethem feel wanted. And David is acontrol freak. If he’s not in control of asituation, he’ll just get out of it. It gotugly, and it was horrible for the two ofthem.

ERIC NEWMAN:Every partnership has its problems.Costarring in a movie is hard. I thinkChris and David really cared about eachother, and they saw that they were goodtogether. But I don’t think the quality ofthat movie was in any way affected bythe deterioration of their relationship.While their problems may have impairedthe process a little bit, that movie, in itsDNA, was a turd.

FRED WOLF:I grew up in New York City but then

later moved to Pennsylvania, to the townwhere they filmed Deer Hunter, so youknow how dreary that was. I would takethe bus into Pittsburgh to watch the MarxBrothers movies. My dream had alwaysbeen to work with a comedy team, andhere I was. I thought Black Sheep couldhave been a repeat of Tommy Boy, butthe missing ingredient remained missing.The movie isn’t atrocious. It openedbigger than Tommy Boy. Both of themwere number one in the country, but thedrop-off was a lot quicker because,ultimately, it wasn’t the same kind ofmovie.Black Sheep wrapped in late summer,and Chris moved back to Chicago, taking

up residence at his new apartment in theJohn Hancock Center, which he hadbought after leaving Saturday NightLive. Also located in the HancockCenter was the radio studio of Erich“Mancow” Muller, a popular Chicagomorning deejay. Chris frequently poppedin at the show on his way in or out of thebuilding. Along with regular drop-ins atSecond City and ImprovOlympic, theshow gave Chris a stage whenever heneeded one.

That fall, a small group of peoplecoalesced around Chris, forming asometime entourage and de facto innercircle. Ted Dondanville stayed on as hispersonal assistant. Kevin and Johnny

Farley had both moved to Chicago totake classes and perform at Second City.The brothers had never been very longapart, but now they found themselves allliving in close proximity for the firsttime since high school. Chris also met ayoung woman, Jillian Seely. Seelyherself had quit drinking several yearsbefore, and she was a great help toChris. They attended recovery meetingstogether and became fast friends.

And naturally, any decent Chris Farleyentourage needed to include a RomanCatholic priest. Sadly, Chris’s longtimeconfidant Father Matt Foley had leftChicago to do four years of missionarywork in the small town of

Quechultenango, Mexico. The twofriends spoke by telephone often, butChris needed spiritual guidance closerto home. In the months between filmingTommy Boy and Black Sheep, he hadgone to Bellarmine, a Jesuit retreathouse in Barrington, Illinois, just outsideof Chicago proper. There he met FatherTom Gannon, who would meet with himand talk to him on the phone regularlyover the next two years.

Meanwhile, preproduction work wasalready under way on Chris’s next film,Beverly Hills Ninja. He worked with thewriters and producers on finalizing thescript and took daily martial arts lessonsfrom a teacher named Master Guo. For

month after happy month, everythingseemed fine.

JOHN FARLEY:When I graduated from college, thefamily was driving back to Wisconsinfrom Colorado. I was the young sapling,had no clue what direction to take in life.I had Tommy on one side of me andChris on the other. Tommy was saying,“Go into business.” And Chris wasgoing, “Go into comedy.” They werekidding around, tugging back and forthon me.

I went back to Red Arrow Camp to be

a counselor, basically piloted a ski boatall summer. Then I tried to get a jobdriving a Frito-Lay truck. They turnedme down. Maybe it was my DUI. MaybeI was overqualified? But I doubt that. Sothen my mother was buying a new car,and I went with her. I thought, I like cars.Maybe I’ll sell cars. I asked about it.One of the salesmen took me aside andsaid, very seriously, “Son, this isn’t ajob. This is a career. You’re makin’ acareer move here.”

“Wow. Thanks.”And I never went back. I figured,

comedy, what the hell? I went toChicago and did exactly what Chris did,started working at the Mercantile

Exchange and started taking improvclasses at night. Kevin got out of theasphalt business a year or two laterwhen he saw how easily I’d gotten out ofit.

KEVIN FARLEY:I had worked with Dad for six years. InSeptember of 1994, I packed my bagsand moved down to Chicago. I lived onJohnny’s couch, got a running job at theChicago Board of Trade, took classes atSecond City, and worked as a host there,seating people and doing dishes.

Second City has a business theater,

which is upstairs and is pretty lucrative;you can hire players from Second City toperform at your corporate events andwrite material for you. Eventually, theythought I had a little talent, and they sentme out on these corporate gigs. I got tomake a living doing that.

JOHN FARLEY:I did the corporate thing a bit, too,because it paid well, but mostly I was inthe touring company.

KEVIN FARLEY:

Everyone in our family is funny. Mom’shysterical. When you have a large familyyou want to have your own identity, sowe all developed different senses ofhumor. We’re very similar in ourmannerisms, but all unique. Johnny is outthere. His mind works in a really darkbut funny way. I’m a little more goofyand silly. Chris was just outlandish, inyour face and raucous. Tom is verycerebral, and dry. Only he never got uponstage with it.

JOHN FARLEY:If you had to break down the Farley

brothers, I’m Chevy Chase, Kevin isDan Aykroyd, and Chris is John Belushi.And Tommy is Garrett Morris.

TED DONDANVILLE:I’ll be honest: Johnny and Kevin areoften funnier than Chris in real life, inmore normal ways anyway. KevinFarley is the funniest guy in the world ata cocktail party. He tells stories, is veryengaging. Tom and Johnny, too. Thedifference is when you put a spotlight onsomeone, there’s a very different kind offunny you need to deliver, and that’swhere Chris was like Michael Jordan:

He would always make the shot. But atthe same time, a lot of people who’dmeet Chris socially just didn’t get him.

JILLIAN SEELY, friend:I met Chris buying a cup of coffee. Ireally didn’t know who he was. Iremember he had an Elmer Fudd hat on,and he was wearing those electricianglasses he had. He looked like he wasmentally retarded. He’d just finishedBlack Sheep and had moved into hisapartment at the Hancock. I worked at ahair salon in the Bloomingdale’sbuilding at 900 North Michigan Avenue,

and he was there in the building withJohnny. I was looking at Chris and hewas looking at me, and we both startedsmiling and laughing. He asked me if Iwould marry him, and then he introducedhimself. “Hi, I’m Chris Farley.”

He asked me if I’d join him that nightat a restaurant down the street. It was forJohn’s birthday, I think. I showed up,brought some friends, and we all hungout and had a great time. We ended upgoing to a restaurant that was open reallylate and just laughing and talking allnight. The next day he called me at workat around nine in the morning and said,“Hey, I noticed last night that you don’tdrink.”

“Yeah, I quit a long time ago,” I said.“Me, too.”He told me a little bit about his

problems, and then he asked if I wouldgo to a meeting with him later that night.I said sure. We went to the meeting andthen went out to dinner, and we justclicked. From that day on we just startedhanging out all the time. We laughed ourasses off together.

The thing that was great about beingwith Chris was that he started all of hisconversations with “How was your day?What did you do?” Nobody does thatanymore. That’s why Chris was sodifferent from most people. He was notselfish at all when it came to being a

friend. We would stay up until three, fourin the morning, opening ourselves up toeach other, even when we werecomplete strangers to each other. To thisday I don’t know why. I’ve had friendswho made me laugh and friends I couldhave really serious talks with, but I’dnever had all of that in the same personlike I did with Chris.

KEVIN FARLEY:We always thought Jillian was supernice. They did hit it off right away.

JOHN FARLEY:At the time we were busy setting up hisapartment at the Hancock building. Itwas crazy, because the Hancock buildingis literally a retirement community. Thatand the studio for Jerry Springer. Chriswas the only young person in thebuilding. “Dad says it’s the best place intown,” Chris said. And maybe it was,back in the sixties, but the people whowere hip when they moved in were theonly ones still there.

KEVIN FARLEY:

Whenever Chris was in Chicago wewould meet and go out to dinner at theCheesecake Factory, or the Chop House,or Gibson’s. Things were clicking withhis career. It was a really good time.Nobody was worried about him.

TED DONDANVILLE:At that point, sobriety was just part ofhis routine. It wasn’t a chore or aburden. It was a balanced part of hislife. We weren’t hanging out at ragingkeggers or anything, but we’d go out tothings where there was liquor served.People would buy him shots and he’d

accept them graciously. Then he’d handthem to me and say, “Here, Ted. You doit.”

Even when he was enraged or in afoul mood, he’d just go to a meeting, gethimself together, and come back calmer.In the Second City days, drunk or sober,he was always a comedian without astage, always fucking around. Now hewas very much in control of himself. Hedidn’t need to prove something tosomebody all the time. He could turn onthe comedian when he needed to bethere.

JOHN FARLEY:

Chris and Ted, honest to God, were likeFelix and Oscar. They were the OddCouple. Just to watch them interact washysterical. Chris lived to give him hell,and Ted was like, “Whatever.”

Chris would hide things and thendemand them from Ted, just for fun.They’d walk out the front door and Chriswould go, “Where’s the little, you know,my recording thing I need?”

“I didn’t see it,” Ted would say“You didn’t see it? Well, let’s go back

and look for it then!”Then Chris would go back in and wait

while Ted looked for the thing and say,“Look! Here it is under the couch!”

“Uh, okay.”“You idiot! Let’s go!”It was fun for Chris to beat up on him

like you would a little brother, but Tedcould ride out all of Chris’s moodswings without even a blip in his pulserate. He just didn’t care. If you put Chrisin real terms, he was a company makingmillions and millions of dollars, andTeddy was in charge. It was like, HolyLord, this ship is headed for the rocksand nobody’s at the wheel.

KEVIN FARLEY:To be an assistant to a star like that,

you’ve got a lot of people calling you allthe time—agents, heads of studios. It’snot an easy job. Chris would getfrustrated with Ted, because oftentimesTed wasn’t as thorough as he needed tobe. But they were friends, so that’s whythere was never really any employer-employee etiquette to be observed.

TED DONDANVILLE:Chris was such a people pleaser thathe’d give everyone what they wanted,always be so deferential. But he had justas much ego and just as much of atemper as anyone. All of that negative

energy had to get channeled somewhere,and it got channeled to Kevin, Johnny,and me. He’d never let anyone else seethat side of him, and so we’d take thebrunt of it. But we also understood it forwhat it was, blowing off steam. Anyoutburst was immediately followed by ashower of apologies.

JOHN FARLEY:Teddy was a good companion, andhonest. He comes from more money thanChris or any of us had ever seen, so hedidn’t give two shits about Chris’smoney or his fame. He was just doing it

for fun. He was probably the mosttrustworthy guy Chris could have had byhis side. And we all had fun together.We’d go to Second City, work out at thegym. Chris was really into his martialarts training for Beverly Hills Ninja.

TED DONDANVILLE:Master Guo had been a karate championin Communist China and had defected.He didn’t speak very good English, andhe only weighed about a hundred and tenpounds, but he was an amazing teacher.He and Chris used to do this thing wherethey’d stand shoulder width apart, clasp

one hand, and then push and pull, and thefirst one to have a foot pulled off theground would lose. Chris outweighedhis teacher more than two to one, but theguy got Chris off his feet every time,without even trying. He was the realdeal. But he was very impressed withChris for what a fast learner he was.This was the football player in himcoming back.

Thinking back on it, the martial artstraining was something Chris lackedlater on, namely a hobby, something tokeep him occupied. It was a noteworthytime in that there was nothing toonoteworthy about it. He was sober andhappy and having a good time. It was

never that way again.

JOHN FARLEY:None of us saw it coming.

TED DONDANVILLE:Chris was going to have a Christmasparty at the Hancock, but first he had togo to New York to attend a screening ofBlack Sheep. For whatever reason, inthe days before he left for New York, hestarted getting angry. He always had atemper, but this was a little more

consistent, and more fierce. It was agathering storm.

Then a rewrite of Ninja came back,and it really sucked. Following right onthat, I was filming some of his training tosend in to the screen-writers to come upwith jokes, but the battery died on thecamcorder halfway through the trainingsession. Afterward, we went to look at itand it was all fucked up. Chris went intoa rage, yelling and screaming and rantingabout this goddamned script. He leftChicago really pissed off.

LORRI BAGLEY:

I picked him up in New York. The carcame and got me, and I went to theairport to meet him. We were going tostop by the hotel and then go and havedinner. He got into the limousine, and aswe drove off we started talking aboutwork. And while we were talking it waslike a black cloud came over him. I sawthe Chris I knew literally disappear, justvanish into this distant world. I said,“What’s going on?” But he had checkedout.

We went by the hotel and then gotback in the car to go and have dinner.Chris was quiet for a moment. Then heturned to me and said, “Kitten, I’mdrinking tonight.”

ACT III

CHAPTER 12

Raising the White FlagTED DONDANVILLE:That first relapse, that was the big one.The rest were just dominoes.Chris Farley had been sober for threeyears. At a time when his commitmenthad never seemed stronger, he gave it allup with one drink on the flight fromChicago to New York. As news of therelapse spread, Chris’s friends andfamily all asked the same question: why?Some felt it was the gathering stress andanxiety over his career. Others felt that

Chris had never successfully dealt withevery aspect of his compulsive andaddictive behaviors, most notably withregard to food. Still others felt thatChris’s sobriety had always relied toomuch on external motivators, like thethreat of losing his job at Saturday NightLive. Whatever precipitated the relapse,it happened. And it was devastating.

LORRI BAGLEY:I started crying. “No, you’re not,” I said.“You’re not going to do that, and you’renot going to do it with me.”

“I’ve already started. That wasn’t

water I was drinking in the hotel. It wasvodka,” he told me.

We went to dinner, and he starteddrinking martinis. After that, we went tothe Rainbow Room. Steve Martin wasthere. Chris was acting like a madman. Ithought I could get him through the night,call Ted the next morning and find hissponsor, and see where to take him.

I got him back to the hotel room. Hewas drinking and crying. Then he said hewas going to this spot in Hell’s Kitchento get drugs. I said, “If you want to gothere, I’m going with you, and then youneed to take me home because I’m notgoing to play with that.”

We got in the limo, went to this place,

and he went inside while I waitedoutside. After a minute I got nervous andwent in after him. He looked at me andsaid, “Get me out of here.”

So he left without doing anything, andI took him back to the hotel. He just keptdrinking and crying and talking about thevoices in his head. He kept saying,“How do you turn off the voices in yourhead? They’re in my head. How do I getthem out?”

I finally fell asleep as the sun wasrising. When I woke up I called hisname, and he wasn’t there. I waited andwaited, not knowing what to do. Aboutan hour and a half later, I started gettingready to go, and he came in with

sunglasses on. I could tell he hadn’t beento sleep, and he was way too calm andmellowed out from what he’d been thenight before. He was on something.

I told him, “I thought that I couldhandle being around you if you startedusing again. I thought I’d never leave youno matter what, but I can’t be aroundthis. It’s just too much.” And I left andwent home.

TOM FARLEY:Chris called me and said, “Tommy, youwant to go and see a sneak preview ofBlack Sheep in New Jersey?” I said

sure. He was staying at the FourSeasons, so I stopped up there. Helooked fine to me. The limo was going topick us up any second, and Chris wasgetting into the minibar, filling hispockets with the little bottles. I said,“Chris, what are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m just getting a couple of thesefor the limo driver,” he said. “They likethat.”

And after three years of sobriety, Iactually let myself think that was okay. Ijust didn’t for the life of me think hecould be lying. We got in the limo anddrove out to Jersey.

We were up in the screening room,waiting for everyone to filter into the

theater. At one point he said, “I gotta goto the bathroom.” I did, too, so I wentwith him. We got to the men’s room, andit was this small, janitor’s closet kind ofthing. I followed him in anyway. He waslike, “What are you doing?”

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” I said.We’re brothers, for God’s sake. I’d

been in the bathroom with him hundredsof times. But all of a sudden he’s like,“Get out. I can’t . . . I gotta go bymyself.”

I thought that was very strange, but Ileft him to it. Then we watched themovie, and we were driving somewhereelse, and, same thing, “I gotta go to thebathroom.” So we pull over and he goes

in someplace to use the bathroom. And,of course, what he was doing wasdrinking. I certainly didn’t see him giveaway any of his little bottles. I didn’t puttwo and two together until the next daywhen I got a call from Dad, saying,“What the hell happened?”

“What do you mean?”“Chris trashed his hotel room at the

Four Seasons and did three thousanddollars’ worth of damage.”

And then it was back to rehab.

KEVIN FARLEY:

When I got the call in Chicago that hehad relapsed, it was devastating;devastating to me, devastating to him,and devastating to everyone in thefamily. He took so much pride in hissobriety, more than any of the movies orwork he’d ever done, more than anyother success in his life. Those threeyears were his crowning achievement.

JILLIAN SEELY:Chris and I had been hanging out everyday, and then right around Christmas hedisappeared off the face of the earth. Hecalled me early in the morning on New

Year’s Eve. He said, “Hey, it’s Chris.”“Hey,” I said, “why haven’t you

called me?” I was pissed.“I relapsed.”“You’re lying,” I said. “I don’t

believe you.”We had talked so much about his

sobriety, and I was so confident in himthat I really couldn’t imagine it.

He said, “I really want to see you.Will you come and meet me at ameeting?”

There was a meeting that morning. Iwent with him. He told me about therelapse and the screening. He said thathe’d fucking hated Black Sheep, that it

was just Tommy Boy II, only worse.

TED DONDANVILLE:That screening didn’t help. He saw oneshitty movie that he’d made, and then hereally started worrying that, with Ninja,he was working on a second one.Beverly Hills Ninja was a script thathad been around, and around. Severalstars had turned it down. Chris himselfhad passed on it a number of times. Butnegotiations for the film had taken adramatic turn the previous summer,while filming for Black Sheep was stillunder way. Sensing Chris’s impending

stardom, Ninja’s producers got veryaggressive. They offered him an ungodlysalary, and that changed the wholeequation. Chris was still reluctant, andhis managers were vehemently opposed,regardless of the payday. But Chris’sdad counseled him otherwise,essentially saying, “You don’t turn downthat kind of money.” Show business isnot the asphalt business, but in this as inall things Chris listened to his father. Hesigned on to play Haru, an infant boyorphaned in Japan and raised to fulfill aprophecy as the Great White Ninja.Through a series of slapstick setups andwacky misadventures, Haru makes hisway to California and solves a crime.

Shakespeare it wasn’t.Chris had rationalized his taking the

film by saying it would make a goodkids’ movie. Another big factor in thedecision was simply his confidence. Thestory was one big, long pratfall, andChris’s abilities as a physical comedianhad never failed to deliver huge laughs.But Chris’s other major asset was hisMidwestern Everyman appeal. Dressinghim in martial arts garb and giving himhokey, Zen-sounding dialogue was not agood fit, and it flopped onscreen.

The project was not without its brightspots. It did turn out to be a successfulchildren’s movie. Chris Rock wasstruggling professionally at the time, and

Farley used the movie to lend his SNLfriend a helping hand. But all thingsconsidered, it was a serious detour.

Following his stint in rehab, Chrisflew to Hollywood in January of 1996and started production on the film. Hestayed clean throughout the shoot,determined not to let the relapse derailhis three years of hard-fought sobriety.But the change in him was obvious toeveryone on the set. His anxiety wasrapidly eclipsing his boisterousamiability, and the strength and serenityhe’d possessed just a few weeks beforehad all but vanished.

ROB LOWE, costar, TommyBoy:

At that point, Chris could have donealmost anything, career-wise, and forhim to do a movie where he offeredhimself up as “the fat guy” I felt was arecipe for psychic disaster. I don’t wantto sound overly dramatic by saying thatthat movie killed him, but the decision todo it was Chris surrendering a creativepart of himself. He was raising the whiteflag to easy Hollywood mediocrity. Iknow that he hated himself for sayingyes.

BRAD JANKEL, producer:I used to work at a company calledMotion Picture Corporation of America.We’d had some success with the Farrellybrothers. We did Dumb & Dumber andKingpin. We did Bio-Dome with PaulyShore. Then we got ahold of BeverlyHills Ninja. If I recall properly, DanaCarvey had been attached to it at onepoint, and Chris held Dana in such highregard that he was open to looking at thescript. Chris really was the first guy thatwe went to. We offered him a ton ofmoney.

TED DONDANVILLE:One day while we were filming BlackSheep, Chris’s agents showed up. Agentsalways stand out because they’re theonly ones in L.A. who wear dark suits.They were really happy, really up. Theycame rushing in and met Chris in thetrailer. Beverly Hills Ninja was a moviethat he had rejected a number of times.“No, thanks. Pass.” But this time thescript came in with an offer for $6million, which at the time was like athree hundred percent increase in whatChris was making. All of a sudden itwas like, “Eh, maybe the script isn’t sobad after all. . . .”

BERNIE BRILLSTEIN:Marc Gurvitz and I, we told him not todo Ninja. It was about a fat guy in tights.Let’s face it, who wants to see Chris likethat? It was an embarrassing film. Butthe offer was $6 million, which eventhen was a lot of money. Chris called upand said, “I have to do it. My dad says Ican’t turn down that kind of money.”

DOUG ROBINSON:After his father weighed in, there wasn’tmuch of a conversation. I remembersitting with Chris in his trailer at

Paramount, telling him that there wouldbe other big paydays down the road. Itwas one of those situations where youwant to advise your client not to do it.But you could see that as soon as youtold him the amount of money involved,the ship had sailed.

LORNE MICHAELS:It was a bad decision in that no one wastelling the truth and people had all kindsof different agendas. There are so manyrationalizations: “It’ll get your priceup.” “It’s important to keep working.”“Not every movie’s a masterpiece.” But

Chris was an incredibly sensitive kid.No matter what he did, he always hadsome kind of hope for pride in his work,and so for Chris to do something thatempty just didn’t feel right.

LORRI BAGLEY:It was fear. He took that movie out offear. Chris’s only goal in life was to beon Saturday Night Live, and after thatwas over he would always say, “I neverimagined myself being a film actor.”And I’d think, oh shit, he’s out of hiscomfort zone. Movies and Hollywoodand all that are out of his comfort zone,

and things are going to get difficult.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris loved football, and he loved beingpart of a team. Saturday Night Live,Second City, those are team sports.Chris was competitive. He wanted towin, but he wanted the whole team towin. Winning doesn’t mean anything ifyou can’t share it with someone.

When you’re a movie star, all thepressure is on you as an individual. Butif you put too much pressure on oneplayer, you’re not going to win ballgames. On a film, clearly one guy is

making the most money, and they’rebanking on him, win or lose. His careeris on the line. In Hollywood, you’re kindof alone.

TED DONDANVILLE:The crew used to joke that when theBeverly Hills Ninja action figures cameout, the Haru figure would come with itsown Ted figure. Unlike most personalassistants, I was never out runningerrands and taking care of other things.Chris always wanted me to delegate thatstuff to other people so I could stay,literally, right next to him all the time.

We’d work all day and he’d be like,“No, c’mon. I’m taking you to dinner.”

On that movie he was hung out to dry.That was a Chris Farley movie fromstart to finish. Except for those fewChris Rock scenes, every scene hingedon him.

BRAD JANKEL:Farley wanted Chris Rock in the movie.He was very adamant about that. It wasalmost to the point where he wouldn’t dothe film if Rock wasn’t involved. I thinkit was a bit of a life raft for him. Idistinctly remember that Chris’s best

days on the set were the days that Rockwas there.

Whatever reservations Chris mayhave had, to me he was just soappreciative, and grateful, and he reallyfelt a personal responsibility that camewith taking that much money. I had neverexperienced that with an actor before.He was so excited that we were hiringhim, let along paying him so much, thatduring shooting he’d often say to me,“God, I hope I’m doing okay. Are youguys happy?”

And that kind of raised the bar for us.After he’d say those things to me, I’dwalk away going, “Oh jeez, I hope I’mgonna deliver for him.”

Chris also helped develop the script.When we went into Ninja, we wanted itto be a really broad, adult movie, and, tohis credit, Chris really took it more inthe direction of being a movie for kidsand families. That’s what he wanted.And thank God he did. It wasn’t a hugesuccess, but kids loved it. They reallyturned out, and that’s where the moviemade its money.

JASON DAVIS, costar:The producer of Beverly Hills Ninja haddone a movie that I was in, and I got cutout of that one. But he said I’d be perfect

for this. I remember going to audition forit. I had to run into a wall and fall down.That was the audition. When they said Ihad the part, I got real excited. I got toplay Chris Farley as a little kid. At thetime, what could have been better? Hewas one of my heroes.

For my big scene, I was supposed toflip a stick around and accidentally hitthis kid on the head. The director said,“You can hit him as hard as you want,because he has padding.”

So we do the scene. We’re twirlingthe sticks around, and I smack him on thehead, only not on the part where he haspadding. The kid goes down for thecount. I just remember turning my head

over to the right, looking at the directorand seeing Chris going “Oh, fuck” andlaughing his head off. He had thisexpression like, yup, he’s just like me.

TED DONDANVILLE:The role of the young Chris Farley issupposed to be this shitty little ninja,right? Well, Jason Davis literally was ashitty ninja. He was such a bad athleteand such a spastic little kid that it wasfunny to see him play this idiot. Chrissaw this kid who was just a mess, andthat amused him.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris liked that kid a lot. He alwaysused to say, “That kid reminds me of mewhen I was little.” Jason was kind of anout-of-control little guy. He’d go up andtalk to anybody. Since Jason looked upto Chris so much, Chris kind of took himunder his wing whenever he was around.

JASON DAVIS:For the three days I got to work on themovie, I got to hang out with Chris a lot.Then, about a week later, he called meand said, “Hey, we should go out to

lunch.”I thought, wow, that’s really awesome.

So we went out to lunch, and from thenon we just really clicked. We’d hang out.We’d go and do stuff together.

What I loved about Chris was that hewas the only person who everunderstood me. For a period of time, if Ineeded to count on anyone, it was Chris.I was like eleven or twelve, and mymom wanted to send me away to fatcamp. I was trying every which way toget out of it. I was praying for Chris tokidnap me and hold me for ransom so Iwouldn’t have to go. But Chris wouldtalk to me about being a kid with aweight problem, and he really helped me

a lot. I could call him and say, “Mymom’s being a bitch. I’m pissed off. Iwant to run away. I hate it here. Whatshould I do?”

And he’d be like, “Relax. You’reobviously going through denial. Yourmother loves you. Don’t run away.Besides, you’d have to stop atMcDonald’s every other block just tosurvive.”

NANCY DAVIS, JasonDavis’s mother:

Jason saw a side of Chris that maybe alot of other people didn’t see. Chris

understood what he was going through,and touched Jason in this amazing way.He really did. When Jason was filmingBeverly Hills Ninja with Chris, he wasgoing through a hard time in his life. Hisfather and I were getting divorced, andJason had some similar issues withChris, some weight issues, really deepfather issues, and maybe Chris saw thatin Jason. It was like he could just senseit, and he really made a point of helpinghim to deal with it. People are so afraidto talk about what’s bothering them, andChris really got him to open up about it.Jason’s always been quirky anddifferent, and Chris gave him the strengthto think that was okay.

TED DONDANVILLE:When I first started working for Chris,he’d been sober for about two and a halfyears. He was doing really well. He wasvery comfortable in his sobriety, andvery strong. After that first relapse, hewas very different. It changed him. Hewas still sober most of the time, but itwas not the same strength andconfidence you saw before. He’d be onedge about it. He used to never care if Idrank around him. Now, if he found outI’d been out drinking, he’d get angry. Soafter that first relapse, there was achange. After the second, third, andfourth, they were all kind of the same.

BRAD JANKEL:It was no secret that he was battlingaddiction. In preproduction he had itdown. He didn’t talk about it. He didn’tneed to talk about it. But then, duringfilming, he would struggle at times. Andby struggle I mean that his actions werea little more overt. He would talk abouthis need to stay sober. There were a fewmore mood swings, but his commitmentstayed the same. You could tell he wasjust trying to buckle down and getthrough it. I appreciated that he wasopen about it, and we all tried to supporthim.

TED DONDANVILLE:The whole time we were shooting Ninja,there were no problems whatsoever. Hehad the first relapse before shooting, andthen the second relapse came after—idletime.

BRAD JANKEL:When he came back for reshoots, he wasa different person. I wasn’t there thatday, but I got calls about all theproblems. They couldn’t make the filmmatch. He’d put on weight, and helooked horrible. He wasn’t the same old

Chris. They kind of had to shoot aroundhim different ways.

When we wrapped shooting, I couldsense that he was starting to feel that themovie wouldn’t turn out how he’dhoped. Chris went into it thinking he wasmaking a good, earnest film for kids, butin the end he wasn’t proud of it the wayhe was about other movies.

BERNIE BRILLSTEIN:After the first screening of Ninja, I tookChris into the bathroom and he just criedon my shoulder. Cried and cried. It wasone of the saddest things I’ve ever been

through.

BRAD JANKEL:I was disappointed, too. It didn’t turn outas I had hoped. Thank God it playedwith the kids, because it missed with theolder crowd. Not everything turns outthe way you want; some things fail. Imean, you’re talking to the guy whoproduced Bio-Dome.

There’s a reason they give the BestPicture Oscar to the producer, becauseit’s a collaborative effort and theproducer is responsible for bringing allthose collaborators together. But Chris

felt like the whole thing was his failure,and it wasn’t.Principal photography on Beverly HillsNinja wrapped in March of 1996.Without the incentive to stay clean forwork, Chris relapsed a second time andreturned to Hazelden in Minnesota.Other than the reshoots on Ninja, hespent the spring and early summer inChicago, passing time with friends andfamily and working his twelve-stepprogram. It was a frustrating time. Chriswould maintain his sobriety for sixweeks, two months at a stretch, thenhead angrily back to the starting line andbegin again. It was not easy, but no onecould say that Chris was not trying in

earnest.In May, he returned to Marquette to

receive the speech department’sDistinguished Young Alumnus Award, anhonor of which he was exceedinglyproud. Then, in June, he joined DavidSpade at the MTV Movie Awards toaccept the Best On-screen Duo awardfor Tommy Boy.

Chris went back to work that August,taking the lead role in Edwards & Hunt,a satirical spoof of Lewis and Clark’shistoric journey to find an overland routeto the Pacific Ocean. Before the film’seventual release, the studio’s marketingteam found cause to change its name, andit has gone down in history as Almost

Heroes.Chris had been cast in the role of

Bartholomew Hunt, master tracker andwoodsman. Spinal Tap veteranChristopher Guest signed on to direct.The producers set about assembling acomedy ensemble to flesh out theexploring party, including Eugene Levyand Bokeem Woodbine. Several actorswere considered for the lead roleopposite Chris, and the part ultimatelywent to Friends star Matthew Perry.

Beverly Hills Ninja had been a badchoice, and Black Sheep was no choiceat all, but at the time Edwards & Huntwas a good bet. On paper, the scriptrecalled the absurdity of classic Mel

Brooks, and it was widely thought to beone of the funniest unproduced scripts inHollywood. As the cast and crew beganshooting in the forests and small townsof northern California, everyonebelieved, somewhat prematurely, theyhad a bona fide hit in the works.

MARK NUTTER,screenwriter:

Tom Wolfe and I were working on asitcom with our third partner, BoydHale. One Sunday, we decided to skip atrip to Anaheim to watch the L.A. Rams—it was raining—and had some beers at

a bar in Venice instead. Boyd came upwith the original concept of a Lewis andClark comedy; the ideas flowed freelyfrom there, and we wrote the script in acouple months. Our agent Rob Carlsonalso represented Steve Oedekerk, whohad written for Jim Carrey, and withSteve’s help the script made the rounds.

TOM WOLFE,screenwriter:

Steve was so hot at the time, because ofhis stuff with Jim Carrey, that Edwards& Hunt became a hot script. TurnerPictures ended up buying it. I don’t

remember exactly when Farley came onboard, but I know he was first. For theother lead, we wanted Hugh Laurie,who’s now the star of House but at thetime was not well known. Turner wantedsomeone far more famous. I rememberone of the executives saying, “Yeah, wecould get a bunch of great actors andmake a great little movie . . . but thenwhat?”

And of course, from her way oflooking at it, she was right. It would bemuch harder to market a “little” filmwith “unknown” actors. For a time HughGrant was interested, but he bowed out.I remember when Denise Di Novibrought up Matthew Perry for the first

time. Being the self-loathing TV writerswe were, we weren’t that thrilled with aTV actor being the costar. But we werethe writers, and this was our first film.The caterer had more power than wedid.

DENISE DI NOVI,producer:

The script was brilliant. We even hiredChristopher Guest to direct it. I’vethought so many times about what wentwrong. I always like to say I have thedistinction of making the onlyunsuccessful Christopher Guest movie.

You never know with movies. It’skind of like alchemy; the chemistry justdidn’t work. It had all the right actors. Ithad a great director, a great script. But Ithink the tone of the comedy was veryodd. It almost read better than it played.It wanted to be a quirky, British, BlackAdder type of comedy, and here we hadChris Farley and Matthew Perry. It wasjust a weird combination.

TOM WOLFE:We thought Chris Guest would bring theright sensibility to the script, but then thenotes about changes came from the

studio. They saw it from the beginning asa buddy comedy between Edwards andHunt, and less like the ensemble comedywe saw it as. In one meeting, someonefrom Turner called Lethal Weapon “thegreatest buddy film ever made,” and Ithought, oh shit, this is not a good sign.

TED DONDANVILLE:They had to trim fat, and so they trimmeda lot of the funny stuff going on aroundChris, which, ironically, would havehelped Chris’s performance. The moviewould have been funnier with all thethings the peripheral characters had to

do, but of course those are the first to go;you have to build a movie around “thestar.” They cut the ensemble scenes first,Matthew Perry’s second, and Chris’snever.

BOKEEM WOODBINE,costar:

It was one of those things where theyshould have left well enough alone. Stuffwas getting cut, and it was kind ofbizarre. We shot the ending one way, andit was a pretty cool ending. Then theytotally reshot the ending without mycharacter there. That kind of shit

happens sometimes. You don’t get yourfeelings hurt, but the thing is, it affectedthe film, because it wasn’t linear. At onepoint we’re all together, fighting as thisband against these conquistadorbastards, and then in the next scene theyall meet up and regroup—except for me,and it’s like, “What happened to thebrother?”

TED DONDANVILLE:The movie came out after Chris died andwhen Matthew Perry had gone intorehab, and so a lot of the speculationwas that drugs were to blame for the

movie’s failure, but that wasn’t true.The first weekend of filming, we were

shooting in Redding, California, and hewas drinking then. Denise Di Novi andthe other producers, they found out aboutit, realized it was a major problem, andeven threatened to shut down production.Chris thought he’d really blown it, thatthis time the personal shit had hit theprofessional fan.

So Chris had a sobriety bodyguard forthe rest of the film, somebody whostayed with him the whole time. Withthat, Chris stayed pretty much okay forthe rest of the shoot. As always, it wasthe work that kept him going.

DENISE DI NOVI:That was the only incident. We traveledaround a lot on this shoot, and whatevercity we were in I would try and find asponsor and a meeting for him to go to. Ihave to say it made me gain a lot ofrespect for people in recovery. Nomatter what teeny-tiny town we were in,within a couple of hours somebodywould show up.

He also went to church every Sunday.No matter where we were on the road,he would find a church nearby and go.He got upset one week when we had toshoot on a Sunday. So instead of going tomass, he had a priest come from his

church in Santa Monica and say mass forhim on the set.

He was great with my kids. Iremember I was sitting on the set oneday with my son, who was about fourand a half. We were playing a game forabout a half an hour, and Chris was justwatching us, staring. He said, “Boy, yourson is so lucky to have you. I bet he’sgoing to grow up to be a really greatperson.”

And there was just such a sadness inthat moment. He had a really big heart,but there was a melancholy there. I neverreally understood where it came from.

TED DONDANVILLE:During Edwards & Hunt, this girl fromthe Make-A-Wish Foundation who wasdying of AIDS wanted to meet MatthewPerry. She showed up on the set, andeveryone doted on her. But Chris noticedshe had a brother off to the side, whomeveryone was ignoring, and who hadprobably been ignored for a while, whatwith his sister taking up all the attention.Chris went and brought the brother intohis trailer and goofed around with himand just gave him the greatest day of hislife. And it was Chris who instigated it.It wasn’t the kid coming over and askingto meet him. The boy ended up having a

better Make-A-Wish day than his sisterdid, and he hadn’t even made a wish.

LORRI BAGLEY:If you even mentioned that, say, yourfriend’s mother had died, tears wouldstart to well up in Chris’s eyes. He hadsuch a big heart, and when you have aheart that big, you have to find ways toprotect yourself. People who didn’tknow Chris that well just thought he wasthe most naïve little kid—and he was—but he knew that he was, and he knewhow to use it. He knew exactly how topush your buttons, how to hurt your

feelings, how to get you to feel sorry forhim. Chris even said to me, “I know howto play people’s games.” And he did. Hewas always a hundred percent aware ofwhat was going on and what he wasdoing.

ERIC NEWMAN:He’d play dumb with people, but thenlater he’d recount something from theirconversations that let you know he knewexactly what was going on. “The ChrisFarley Show” character, the guy whoasks the dumb questions, that was theguy he could become when he wanted to.

It was a defense mechanism. It protectedhim, and it made people feel better. Iremember we were sitting once inToronto with Jim Carrey. Carrey’s fatherhad just died, and Chris sat down withhim and kind of took on this obsequiousrole. At the time I didn’t really thinkmuch of it, but looking back, he did it toput Jim Carrey at ease, and Carrey is, byall accounts, a pretty uncomfortable guyout in the world.

TED DONDANVILLE:He had a very high psychologicalintelligence. Anything that had to be

learned in a book he probably shiedaway from, but he understood peoplevery, very well.

Bob Timmons was a professionalsobriety guy. He’s the guy who wouldsend out bodyguards to sit with Chris onthe movie set. These “sobercompanions” got paid good money toessentially sit around the set and donothing. They certainly got paid morethan I did. Chris resented that, and hewent through those guys like nothing. Hewould break them down, mentally. Itwas like the movie Jeremiah Johnson,where they only send out one guy at atime to try and kill Robert Redford, untilhe kills so many of them that they have to

have respect for him.On Edwards & Hunt there was a thief

on the set who’d made off with someproduction equipment, and the producerswere trying to figure out who’d done it.Gary was Chris’s new sobriety watcher,and the producers came around after thetheft, asking Chris, “How well do youknow Gary?”

“Hmm,” Chris shrugged, “not very.”Things got a little uncomfortable for

Gary after that. People stopped talking tohim. Then a couple weeks later he left,never really knowing why. Then theysent out another guy. That’s basicallyhow it went. Chris would treat theseguys like a new best friend, and then a

few weeks later— either passively,aggressively, or passive-aggressively—they’d be gone, not really understandingwhy it didn’t work out.

I don’t know that those people helpedso much. Ultimately, all thoseprofessional celebrity recovery peoplehave their own issues and their ownagendas.

ERIC NEWMAN:Maybe it’s a recovery thing, but Chrisattracted loonies.

JILLIAN SEELY:There are some real wackos out in L.A.,a lot of really disgusting people. Therewas one guy who wanted to be Chris’ssponsor, but he charged $125 an hour,and this was back in 1996. I’d neverheard of anything like that. You’resomeone’s sponsor, but you charge themby the hour? What the fuck?

KEVIN FARLEY:There’s this whole community ofrecovery “professionals” who chargeyou money to watch you. They’ll escort

you to Hazelden and charge you threegrand just for riding on a plane. And thatreally breaks with tradition. You’re notsupposed to take money for anything youdo to help someone in recovery, and, ifyou do, it’s only because those folkshave that money to give.

If you go back to the way it all started,with Bill W. and Dr. Bob, they would goand visit hospitals and they would justfind drunks, bring them to meetings andstart talking to them. They never chargedthem money for it. You can make theargument that it costs $13,000 to spend afew weeks at such-and-such facilitybecause they’ve got staff costs and realestate to keep up. But the whole idea of

recovery is that it’s free. I don’t think itdoes any of these stars any good to tryand deal with the problem inside thatbubble. The whole idea is to breakyourself down and destroy this illusionyou have that you can handle the boozeagain. You go to a Chicago meeting, or aMadison meeting, and you get humbledpretty quickly.

JOHN FARLEY:Chris needed a psychologist, not a guypunching a clock to sit around with him.I don’t know how much Chris spent onthem, but those guys charge exorbitant

amounts of money. Jillian, TimO’Malley, those guys didn’t charge himanything, and they were the ones whowere really helping him. But I think alsothe studios were stipulating that thoseguys be around; otherwise Chriscouldn’t get insured.

BOKEEM WOODBINE:I saw those bodyguards hanging aroundChris, but they were so cool about theirshit that I didn’t see them for what theywere for the longest time. I didn’t realizethat Chris was going through thestruggles he was having.

I remember one Friday we hadwrapped for the week, and we were insomebody’s trailer. I had a six-pack ofCorona, and I was ready for theweekend. Chris had this trick where heknew how to open up a bottle with acigarette lighter. I held up a beer andsaid, “Hey, Chris, could you open thisfor me?”

Everyone just stared at me. Chris saidsure. He went to open it, and his handwas shaking. I thought he was making ajoke, you know, being Chris. So I juststarted laughing, saying, “Look at thisguy. He’s hilarious.” And everyone waslooking at me like, what the fuck iswrong with you? And I wasn’t getting it.

It all went right over my head.Well, about the third beer, Chris

obliged me and opened it, but his handswere still shaking terribly. Then he leftto go take a walk, smoke a cigarette orsomething, and Matthew Perry was like,“Bokeem, what the hell’s wrong withyou?”

“What do you mean?” I said.“Chris is an alcoholic. He’s having a

hard time right now, and you’re givinghim fucking beer to open?”

“Shit, nobody sent me the memo. Ididn’t know.”

Of course, if I had known, I neverwould have even brought the beer

around. But I was impressed by hisdedication. I got the definite vibe that hewas serious about not screwing up, andit seemed like his mental attitude wasgetting progressively healthierthroughout the shoot. He was more andmore upbeat every day we wereworking.

TED DONDANVILLE:After Edwards & Hunt, when weweren’t working, Chris woulddeliberately do things like going tohealth resorts or weight-loss clinics,places where he’d be safe and

preoccupied with staying in shape. Thatyear was definitely more up than down,and the downs were not so terrible. Therelapses were smaller. He’d have acouple drinks, kick himself over it, talkit out, and be right back at a meeting thenext day.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris was fighting it like crazy. He’d puttogether two, three months, and you’dthink, okay, he’s sober again. Thensomething would trigger it.

TODD GREEN:Chris had been in L.A. full-time, so thatChristmas I hadn’t seen him in probablysix or seven months. We all got togetherat some restaurant in Madison. At onepoint we kind of broke away and had ourown little conversation, and Chris said,“Greenie, man, we’re almost thirty-threeyears old and we’re not married. God,that’s weird.” He just seemed reallyanxious.

I said, “Chris, what’s wrong?”“I just . . . I don’t know. I’m playing

these parts where I’m just the funny guy,and I’d like to do some more seriousstuff.”

I told him, “Why don’t you come backto New York and do something onstage,Broadway or off Broadway?”

He really liked the idea. He seemed totake it seriously. Then we agreed that ifthe Packers went to the Super Bowl wewould get together there, since we’dboth be going anyway. He was doinggreat, and we were all so proud of him. Iwalked away from that conversationthinking, Chris is back. We’ve got himback for good.

TIM O’MALLEY, castmember, Second City:

When Chris was at a weight-loss campthat November, he started to put togethersome time again. I met up with him againsometime that winter. I had about a yearsober by that point. After Chris had leftSecond City, I’d stayed in Chicago, andmy addiction just got worse. Eventually,when my brothers wouldn’t come andbail me out of jail anymore, I cleanedup. Chris called me, and we started to goto meetings.

On January 20, 1997, we hooked up ata party at the Hancock for a recoveryclub that’s here in Chicago. He hadninety-nine days. He was so happy,happiest I’d ever seen him. I watchedhim do backflips. He was doing actual

backflips in the room. He was jumpingand flipping and yelling, “I did it, Tim!Ninety-nine days! I did it! I did it!”

I was so thrilled for him that day. Iwas so fucking happy that I was crying.

He said, “I’m going to be here inChicago for a while. If I keep checkingin with you, will you help me?”

I took it as a request for sponsorship.He didn’t specifically ask me to sponsorhim or spell it out like that, but I couldtell he wanted help. So for a few weekshe’d call me, I’d pick him up and takehim to meetings. He started to get itagain. He was happy and it was fun andwe could crack jokes and make fun ofeach other just like we used to.

And then he stopped calling.

CHAPTER 13

The Devil in the Closet

JOHN FARLEY:Chris said to me once, “You know whatmy dream is, Johnny?”

“What?” I said, thinking this wasgoing to be some odd, Alice inWonderland, through-the-rabbit-holekind of thing. “What’s your dream?”

“Here’s what it is," he said. “It’s meand Dad. We’re both really skinny, andwe’re the coolest guys at the party,doing backflips all over the place anddancing up a storm to ‘Twisting the

Night Away.’ That would be reallycool."On January 11, 1997, Beverly HillsNinja opened in theaters nationwide.Despite a unanimous critical thumping, itearned over $12 million on its firstouting, topping the weekly box office.Following Tommy Boy and Black Sheep,it was Chris’s third-straight number-onefilm.

That January also marked Chris’sthird-straight month of sobriety. Afterstaying clean during the principalphotography of Edwards & Hunt, he’drelapsed again in September and, withvarying degrees of failure, cycledthrough three separate rehab facilities

over the next two months. Then, in lateOctober, Chris showed definite signs ofimprovement. When he celebrated hisninety-ninth day of sobriety in Chicagowith Tim O’Malley, there was cause forhope.

But Chris’s confidence was on thewane. In New Orleans, Todd Green wasexpecting to meet Chris at the SuperBowl to watch the Green Bay Packerstake on the New England Patriots. WhenChris didn’t show, Todd called theFarley home in Madison, only to be toldthat the Super Bowl “wouldn’t be goodfor Chris right now.” Chris knew all toowell what New Orleans’s FrenchQuarter would look like after a Packers

win (or, for that matter, a Packers loss).He had chosen to watch the game at thehome of a friend instead.

Despite making money, Beverly HillsNinja was largely an embarrassment. Itbombed with critics and disappointedeven hard-core fans. Chris found himselfat a professional crossroads. Hollywoodhad typecast him as the clown, and hehad been fully complicit in that, playingthe part whenever he was called upon todo so. But fatty could only fall down somany times. Fortunately, a project hadarrived with the potential to take Chrisin a new direction. Earlier that year,Bernie Brillstein had brought Christogether with screenwriter and

playwright David Mamet, and togetherthey’d agreed to collaborate on Chris’sfirst dramatic film: a biopic of FattyArbuckle.

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was asilent-film star bigger in his day thanCharlie Chaplin. He was on thereceiving end of Hollywood’s first-evermillion-dollar contract. He was also onthe losing end of Hollywood’s first-eversex scandal, being wrongly accused ofsexually assaulting and fatally woundinga young woman. Arbuckle watched hiscareer implode even as his innocencewas proven in court. Brillstein wasdrawn to the story for its showbizhistory and intrigue. Chris was drawn to

it for the man himself. Arbuckle was abrilliant physical comedian who loathedhis extra girth and outsized persona,despite having made it his professionalstock-in-trade. After years of beingmade to play the crazy fat guy, Chris wasbeing asked to play the guy behind thecrazy fat guy. He was being asked toplay himself, a role he rarely performedfor anyone. Much like Jackie Gleason’sturn as Minnesota Fats in The Hustler,this was the role that would havefundamentally altered the course ofChris’s career.

With the Arbuckle biopic ahead ofhim and ninety-nine days behind him,Chris was in good spirits. On the first

weekend in March, the U.S. ComedyArts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, washosting a reunion of Saturday Night Livecast members, hosts, and writers.Several dozen stars from the show’shistory attended, from founding fathersChevy Chase and Steve Martin tofreshmen Molly Shannon and CheriOteri. For Chris to share that stage wasan honor beyond anything he could haveimagined growing up. It should havebeen one of the highlights of his career.It wasn’t.

JOHN FARLEY:

I don’t know what the hell happened. Iremember everything had been fine inChicago, but on the flight to Aspen hewas acting strange. He may haverelapsed that morning, or the nightbefore. I just remember sitting on theplane, thinking, oh no.

CONAN O’BRIEN, writer,SNL:

When we were in Aspen, you could tellthat the trolley was barely making itaround the curves.

KEVIN FARLEY:When I arrived he was already well intoit, drinking and doing coke. From there itwas just a total disaster. Spade reallylooked after him that weekend.

DAVID SPADE:I went to meet him in his room to go todinner with Lorne, and when I got to himhe was already so messed up. Wewalked into the restaurant, and it wasn’tjust Lorne. It was Lorne, Steve Martin,Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, and BernieBrillstein, all these people that Chris

looked up to at this really nice, formaldinner. I said, real quick, “Hey, Chris,come over to the bathroom. I gotta tellyou something.” And I took him into thekitchen, out the back door into the alley,and I said, “We’re getting the fuck out ofhere. You can’t sit with these people inthis condition.”

These strangers showed up, and hestarted drinking with them. I tried to staywith him, but eventually I just had to goto bed. I was at lunch the next day, andhe walked in. He was with the samepeople and obviously hadn’t gone tobed. They were all wired, and Chris’seyes were rolling back. He said, “Davy.Davy, please stay with me. Don’t leave

me with these people.”

JOHN FARLEY:One day we had lunch at the restauranton the top of the mountain. While wewere eating, Chris started crying, saying,“I can’t stop. I just can’t stop.” He wascrying his eyes out right in the restaurant.Chris wore his heart on his sleeve; hedidn’t care one bit if he was crying inpublic, but people were starting torecognize him. We were like, okay,we’ve got to get Chris Farley off thismountain right now.

BERNIE BRILLSTEIN:During the reunion, Chris was outonstage with about forty people fromSNL. They were just telling stories, butChris was crazed. I thought he was goingto have a heart attack onstage. Finally,Dana Carvey quietly took him off.

CHEVY CHASE, originalcast member, Saturday

Night Live:I read him the riot act that weekend.Everybody did. Chris was drunk andstoned and, on top of that, way

overweight. I sat with him and I said,“Look, you’re not John Belushi. Andwhen you overdose or kill yourself, youwill not have the same acclaim that Johndid. You don’t have the record ofaccomplishment that he had. You don’thave the background that he had. Andyou don’t have the same cultural statusthat he had. You haven’t had the chanceto get that far, and you’re alreadyscrewing yourself up.”

He kept saying, “I’m just trying tolevel out.”

That’s what he said he was doing withthe drinking and the cocaine. It’s so silly.It means if you took nothing you’d belevel already. Why take all this shit

that’s killing you? And I told him that. Isaid, “I’ve experienced this. I’ve seenwho dies. I’ve seen how far you thinkyou can go, what you can take and whatyou can’t. You’re just going to end upbeing an overweight guy who could fallon his stomach and had one or two funnythings in his career, but nothing that’sever really stood out. You’ll be a blip inthe New York Times obituaries page, andthat’ll be it. Is that what you want?”

BOB ODENKIRK, castmember, Second City:

I was at a party for Mr. Show. Somebody

came in and said, “Chris is out back. Hewants to talk to you.”

There was this skanky deejay guy, thekind of guy who hangs out in these partyvacation towns. He’d tried to passDavid Cross some cocaine earlier, so Iknew who he was. I go out back, andthere’s a limo. I go to the door and knockand the window rolls down. There’sChris, and he’s packed in there withgirls and hangers-on and this fuckingscumbag who was pushing coke around.Chris is bloated and red-faced; he hasn’tshaved. We talk for a few minutes, butthere’s really nothing to say at thosetimes.

I’d seen Chris fucked up before, but

this time he looked as bad as anyone hasever looked. It was a horrible thing towatch. It’s one thing to shake your fingerat a friend and say, “You’re gonna killyourself.” It’s another thing to look athim and know he’s going to do it.

TOM FARLEY:After Aspen, his managers said, “He’sgoing to rehab, and we’re serious thistime. He’s going away for thirteen weeksand he’s not coming back— except topresent at the Oscars.”

KEVIN FARLEY:Brillstein-Grey sent him back to thelock-up down south, but they thought itwould be okay for him to go to theOscars, under supervision, and presentan award.

TOM FARLEY:This woman who ran the facility said theonly way they’d let Chris go was if hewas there with someone from treatment.The next thing you know, she’s the onewho’s going with him, and she made himpay her extra for her time, buy her first-

class airfare, buy her a dress, and do thesame for her daughter to accompany her.I don’t think that helped. It just made himfeel used.

KEVIN FARLEY:I thought she was really unprofessionalabout the whole thing. It was heropportunity to go to the Oscars; shebasked in the limelight for a little while.We were in the hotel, and she startedrummaging through Chris’s gift basket,looking at all the high-end cosmeticsthey put in there. And Chris was like,“What the fuck are you doing? Put that

shit down. Don’t you think I might wantto give that to my mom?”

This woman just got way into it. “Oohlook, there’s George Clooney!” Whogives a fuck? Why don’t you do yourjob?

TOM FARLEY:I didn’t get it. Chris’s managers were theones busting him the hardest for fuckingup at Aspen, and then two weeks laterthey were the same ones lobbying forhim to come back and present at theOscars. It was a money thing. TheOscars are exposure, and exposure

means money. I guess they thought Chrisneeded it to help his career.

TOM ARNOLD:Chris had a fear that his movies werestarting to suck, and, you know, I knowwhat that fear is like. But there’s alwaysoptions if you’re talented.

BERNIE BRILLSTEIN:A few months earlier, I’d taken him toNew York to meet with David Mametabout the Fatty Arbuckle story. That

story has always fascinated me, onlybecause Arbuckle was innocent. Chriscame to the meeting at a little restaurantdown in the Village, and he was thegood Chris, the well-behaved Chris,because he couldn’t believe that DavidMamet even wanted to meet him. Mametloved him. It was a great meeting. Hesaid yes before we got up from the table,and he wrote it for Chris. To this day Iknow that it would have changed hiscareer.

TOM FARLEY:As soon as he heard little bits and pieces

about Arbuckle’s life, he said, “This isme.” It was the whole idea that nobodyunderstands the real person underneath.“I’m going to tell them about the realFatty Arbuckle, and maybe they’llunderstand the real Chris Farley.”

ERICH "MANCOW”MULLER, friend:

Chris had all these pictures of clowns inhis hallway. He said that they frightenedand fascinated him, and that he foundthem sad. When he was drinking hewould always talk like Burl Ives andsing old Burl Ives songs. He’d go, “A

little, bitty tear let me down, spoiled myact as a clown.” He’d sing that over andover and over.

FR. TOM GANNON, S.J.,friend:

He felt his career was in trouble, and notjust because of the drugs. The fatty-falls-down humor was beginning to take atoll. Sometime that year, he told me, “Ican’t keep this up. I can’t keep fallingdown and walking into walls.” Butpeople wanted him to keep doing thesame thing, because it assured themfinancial success.

BOB WEISS, producer,Tommy Boy:

Chris had an idea of reinventing himselfin a certain way that didn’t take intoaccount very real forces in this industry,forces that can be tidal in nature.

FRED WOLF:By that point, people were coming atChris from every angle. They weretrying to hire me in the hopes that theymight make a deal with him. We went todinner one night in New York, and hewas telling me that he wanted to do

movies like Nothing in Common, theTom Hanks/Jackie Gleason movie. I wasabsolutely convinced that that was whathe could do. We started throwing aroundsome ideas, and we kept gettinginterrupted by fans coming up andsaying, “Chris, I love you! You’re sofunny.”

And then as they would walk away,Chris would sigh and say, “But that’s allthey want.”

So we kept trying to have this veryserious conversation about his career,but the fans just kept coming and comingand asking for lines from SNL or bitsfrom Tommy Boy. They wouldn’t leavehim alone.

FR. TOM GANNON:One night we were at Gibson’s. Peoplepretty much left him alone that night. Butone couple came up and thanked him forhis work and told him how much theyloved him. Then they walked away andhe turned to me and said, “They don’treally love me. If they knew me, theywouldn’t love me at all.”

I said, “That’s not true, Chris. Peopledo love you. They don’t love you thesame way I do, or your family does, butthey’re sincere. You bring a lot ofhappiness into their lives.”

He got a lot of that kind of attention,but he didn’t get any nourishment from it,

and so he felt he needed more of it allthe time.

LORRI BAGLEY:Chris would go to premieres and goofoff on the red carpet, but then he’dcomplain that the business wouldn’t takehim seriously. I told him, “Chris, whenyou stop playing the clown, they’ll stoptreating you like the clown. They’ll takeyou seriously when you take yourselfseriously.”

PETER SEGAL, director,

Tommy Boy:

There were bidding wars for Chris onmultiple projects, but most of them werenot that good. He’d come to me withthese scripts, and I’d turn them down. Ikept saying, “No, Chris. That’s not agood one for you or for me.”

So there was a tension between us,because he thought I didn’t want to workwith him anymore. There was a longtime when he wouldn’t return my phonecalls, and so I sat down and wrote him along letter. I told him the reason I wasturning these projects down was becauseI believed his potential was so muchgreater. And I think he realized it, too.

He eventually called me back to thankme for the letter.

But I really meant what I’d said. Ithought he could win an Oscar one day. Iknow people might think I’m crazysaying that, looking at his brief career,but I really believed in his talent. It wasway beyond what he was showing.

BRIAN DENNEHY, costar,Tommy Boy:

Myself, I never understood why you’dwant to be the twentieth-best dramaticactor in the movie business when youwere already the best comedian in the

movie business. But there is this impulsethat comedians have to do serious work.

Interestingly enough, I think with theright part and the right director Chriscould have done it. There was a sadnessand a vulnerability and a fear thatexisted in his face and in his eyes. JackieGleason had it, a sense that “the worldcan never take away the pain that I feel,pain that I know that I have, but that Idon’t fully understand.” You can see alittle bit of it in Tommy Boy, but hehadn’t even really begun to explore it.

There are two ways to act, and somepeople are good enough to do both. Oneis to erect this very complicated, layeredcharacter around you in order to hide

behind it, in order to disguise andprotect yourself. It’s a kind ofarchitecture. You’re creating a building.It may be a very impressive building, butit’s still a fucking building.

The other way to act is to absolutelystrip away everything that keeps you andyour soul and your mind from theaudience. You rip it away and say, “Howmuch more of myself can I expose tohelp the audience understand thischaracter?” It’s more difficult, and it’smore profound, because, ultimately, thereal challenge of art is to understandmore about yourself. And I think Chriscould have done it. I think he wouldhave done it, had he lived. But most

comedians, in fact most actors, are notcapable of that.With Tommy Boy, Black Sheep, andBeverly Hills Ninja, Chris had joinedthe ranks of elite Hollywood stars whocould “open” a film—a certain coreaudience could be counted on to turn outfor any Chris Farley movie. Even ifChris wasn’t thrilled with the reigningdefinition of “a Chris Farley movie,” itwas an enviable place to be, and astrong place from which to make a bold,smart career move.

But that spring, Chris’s dance cardwas strangely empty. As a rule, studiostake out short-term insurance policies ontheir lead actors to cover any possible

interruptions in the production process.Many of those insurers were refusing tounderwrite Chris’s films until he couldonce again prove his dependability. Andso, while the Arbuckle project ploddedalong at the glacial pace of mostHollywood development deals, Chriswas having trouble getting even a typicalChris Farley movie off the ground.

In this troubled time one good projectdid come his way, a voice-over gig for alittle animated movie called Shrek. In1997, computer-animated movies werestill in their infancy—Pixar’strendsetting Toy Story had opened onlyeighteen months before—and so therewas little reason to believe that this fun

sideline project would go on to spawnone of the most popular, highest-grossingfilm franchises of all time. Chris took iton almost as a lark.

Shrek was a popular children’s bookby William Steig about an ornery yetgood-hearted ogre who lives alone in thewoods, cast out from the world. JeffreyKatzenberg, head of DreamWorksAnimation, had procured the film rights.Chris was his first choice to play thetitle role. According to everyoneinvolved, Chris Farley’s Shrek was oneof the funniest, most heartfeltperformances he ever gave. Tragically,no one has ever heard it.

TERRY ROSSIO,screenwriter:

Chris was the number-one choice, andeveryone was thrilled that he agreed tothe project. For an animated feature hisvoice was perfect, very distinctive.Also, you know, Shrek kind of lookedlike Farley, or Farley looked like Shrek.

The recording sessions wereessentially everybody in the boothrolling off our chairs onto the floor,laughing our asses off. I brought mydaughter, who was twelve years old atthe time, to one of the sessions at theCapitol Records building. It was herfirst time ever coming in with me to

work, and she concluded I had the bestjob in the world, listening to funnypeople be funny.

ANDREW ADAMSON,director:

The character of Shrek is to some degreerebelling against his own vulnerabilities.And I think that’s probably a reasonKatzenberg went to Chris, because therewas an aspect of that in him, coveringvulnerability in humor and keepingpeople at arm’s length. Within minutes ofmeeting Chris you saw his vulnerability.Sometimes he would switch on this very

gruff persona, and you realized it wasbecause he felt like he was exposing toomuch.

It didn’t make the final film, but at onestage there was a moment in the scriptwhere Shrek was walking along, singing“Feeling Groovy,” Simon andGarfunkel’s “Fifty-ninth Street Bridge”song. Chris was just so into it. When wewere recording, I kind of got theimpression that he wasn’t sure whetherhe was supposed to be doing a comedictake on the song or a sincere, heartfeltone. He was singing and putting himselfout there in a way that was verytouching. It made me see the longing inhim to do something more genuine with

his career. It made me feel bad, becausewe were in fact asking for a “funny”version. But that he was willing to giveit to us, even though he felt so vulnerableabout it, made it a very sad and touchingmoment.

TERRY ROSSIO:We spoke about the essence orwellspring of Chris’s humor; much of itwas the humor of discomfort. He wouldoccupy a space of discomfort until itbecame funny. Shrek, in the Chris Farleyversion of the story, was unhappy at hisplace in the world, unhappy to be cast as

the villain. So for me,Chris’s comedic persona was key to thecreation of the Shrek character— a guywho rejected the world because theworld rejected him.

ANDREW ADAMSON:After Chris died, we all had personalthoughts about whether we could use hisvoice track and find someone toimpersonate him to finish the film. Wedefinitely thought about whether that wasthe appropriate thing to do, butultimately we felt that we weren’t farenough along in developing the story and

the character. The animation processdepends a lot on the actor. His death wasquite devastating, both personally and tothe process of creating the film. Wespent almost a year banging our headsagainst the wall until Mike Myers wasable to come on board. Chris’s Shrekand Mike’s Shrek are really twocompletely different characters, as muchas Chris and Mike are two completelydifferent people.

TERRY ROSSIO:They’re both great in their own way.Mike created a very interesting

character, a Shrek who has a sense ofhumor that’s not that good, but it makeshim happy. Chris’s Shrek was born offrustration and self-doubt, an internalstruggle between the certainty of a goodheart and the insecurity of notunderstanding things.

ANDREW ADAMSON:I always found Chris a very fun personto be around. Containing him in arecording booth was a great challenge,but he was a very down-to-earth guy ona certain level. We had an enjoyablerelationship. The drug problem didn’t

impact his work at all, and to be honest,I had no idea it was happening.Everything I’d seen indicated that he hadovercome those demons. He was goingthrough rehab at the time and was verydisciplined about it. Any otherimpressions I had were thirdhand andafter the fact. I really felt like he was onan upward spiral.And Chris was—that week. But the nextweek he was back on a downward one,and who could say where he was goingthe week after that? By the time hefinished voicing Shrek in early May,Chris’s ability to maintain his sobrietyhad all but vanished. His relapsesstarted coming randomly, suddenly, and

with alarming frequency.One of Chris’s counselors described

him as having the most severe addictivepersonality he’d ever seen—this inseveral decades of helping patients. AsChris surrendered his hold on sobriety,his compulsive overeating ran rampantas well. Chris had fought a constantbattle with his weight since childhood.Those who knew him well knew it wasthe bane of his existence. Given thesevere health risks of obesity, Chris wasdoing almost as much damage to himselfwith food as he was with drugs andalcohol.

After presenting at the Oscars onMarch 24, Chris had returned to rehab in

Alabama, emerging sober to work onShrek in April and early May. Followingyet another relapse, he returned to theoutpatient program at Hazelden Chicagoon May 19. It accomplished little. Juneand July were spent in and mostly out ofrehab, and by August the situation wascatastrophic.

Chris’s relationship with LorriBagley, rocky and unstable in the best oftimes, was severely broken. It neverended, but the blowouts got bigger andmore explosive, and the separationsgrew longer and longer. Friends whowere active in Chris’s recovery, likeJillian Seely and Tim O’Malley, didtheir best to keep him on the straight and

narrow, but their efforts wereincreasingly frustrated. Chris wouldeither insulate himself from his friendsin order to use, or insulate himself inorder not to use. He had so removedhimself from his usual social networksthat many assumed he was simply offsomewhere else, stone sober and hard atwork. Chris had never let the trappingsof fame and success put any distancebetween him and his loved ones. Butaddiction finally succeeded where famecould not.

ROBERT BARRY, friend,Edgewood High School:

Toward the end Chris would go hang outwith these Board of Trade guys inChicago. They had tons of money andwanted to hang with celebrities. Whenhe was in Chicago, Chris didn’t call upDan Healy or me or the Edgewood guysanymore. He’d call up those people. Inever even visited his place in theHancock.

FR. MATT FOLEY, friend:For the last three years I had been livingin Mexico, doing missionary work. Italked to Chris and his parents on aregular basis, but then Chris stopped

returning my calls. One of the last times Isaw him was on a trip to Chicago. Wewent to work out at a health club thereby the John Hancock building. After thatwe were supposed to hang out all day,but he basically wanted to get rid of me.He didn’t want me around because Iwould have told him he was full of shit.

JOEL MURRAY, castmember, Second City:

The people who loved him didn’t wanthim to drink, so he couldn’t be with usanymore. I’d invite him over tobarbecues and stuff out in L.A., and I

could tell that he had a whole other thinggoing on. It wasn’t a celebrity, big-shotkind of thing; it was an “I gotta go dothis stuff that I don’t want to tell youabout” kind of thing. He was the worstliar in the world, so he’d just kind of beevasive. Next thing you know he’shanging out with nefarious types whojust want to wind up the comedy toy, andthat’s never good.

DAVID SPADE:There’s no shortage of those sorts ofpeople. I’ve talked to Aykroyd aboutBelushi, and it’s the same experience.

Friends you’ve known for three daysaren’t friends I want to hang with.

I was working in TV, he was off doinghis movies, and we’d just slowed downa little bit. It wasn’t Lorri. That wasdone with, but we’d been a little bit onthe outs, and because of that I got a lot ofshit toward the end about “Why weren’tyou there for him?” But being that close,I dealt with it all the time. And in thatsituation, before the guy’s dead, he’s justkind of an asshole. Truth is, you get ajunkie who’s wasted all the time andmoody and angry and trying to knock youaround, you say, “Okay, you go do that,and I’ll be over here.” I think that’sunderstandable.

TED DONDANVILLE:Chris never had any animosity towardSpade at all; he had just respectedSpade’s decision to walk away for awhile. But after being all alone on Ninjaand Edwards & Hunt, Chris started torealize how much he needed his friend.It was like Mick Jagger after those firsttwo solo albums—maybe it was good tohave Keith Richards around.

TOM FARLEY:I always told Chris, “You love humor,but look around at the people you’re

with when you’re doing these drugs.These people have no humor in theirlives. You keep this up and you will endup surrounded by people who are notyour friends.” And that’s exactly whathappened.

NORM MacDONALD:Sometimes you’d see him withprostitutes. That was mostly at the veryend, like when he hosted SNL. Theamazing thing was how well he treatedthem. He really fell for them. He’d takethem to dinner and treat them so sweetly.He’d treat them equal to any other

person at the table. He’d introduce themto you as his girlfriend.

TIM O’MALLEY:Escorts and strippers are just part of thedeal when you’re lonely and lost. It’slike phone sex, trying to reach out andtalk to somebody. Every phone book hasa hundred phone numbers in it; you canalways dig up someone to spend timewith you.

I went into his apartment one night,and he said, “Yeah, I relapsed last night.I had a pizza, and I figured since I’drelapsed on my OA program I’d have a

bottle of scotch, and then I went to theCrazy Horse and I spent eleven grand.”

“Jesus, you were giving the girls fivehundred a dance?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”“Because I know how it goes. You

were trying to get some girl to comehome with you by overtipping her, andthose girls don’t want anything but moremoney. First of all,” I told him,“separate your food program from youralcohol problem. Food’s not going tokill you tonight.”

I hated the Overeaters Anonymousprogram for that, because if he relapsedon that he’d just go ahead and go the

distance.

KEVIN FARLEY:For Chris, by that point, every relapsemeant going all the way. Some addictswill put a toe back in the water, butChris would always dive back into thedeep end. And that’s what happenedwhen he went to Hawaii.

DAVID SPADE:I was at the Mondrian in L.A., and Chriswas there. He was doing an interview,

and he had one of his sobrietybodyguards with him. It was kind of sad,because I hadn’t seen him in a while. Hecame over to my table— the bodyguardlet him come over alone for a bit—hecame over and he said, “Nobody caresabout anything but Tommy Boy. Can wedo another one? Can we do . . .something?”

“Of course. There’s always scriptsthey want us to do. I didn’t know if youwanted to do anything anymore.”

“We gotta do it, because that’s theonly one that matters.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s findsomething.”

Then these two cute girls came over.They said, “Hey, come party with us.We’re in town with Spanish Playboy.”Or something ridiculous like that.

Chris said, “I can’t.”“Oh, c’mon,” they said. “Just come up

to our room for a bit.”Chris looked at me. I said, “I’ll cover

for you. I can buy you about fiveminutes.”

“Thanks, Davy.”He took off, and then the bodyguard

came over and said, “Where’s Chris?”“He went to the bathroom.”“Which bathroom?”

“There’s one in the hotel.”“You fucked this.”“Sorry.”It was the wrong thing to do, I know.

But we’d had a really nice momenttogether, and I liked that. It proved thatwe were still close, could still befriends, and I wanted to help him out.But then they couldn’t find Chris. Hedisappeared, and it just turned intochaos.

KEVIN FARLEY:US magazine was doing a big feature

article on him at the time, and Chris wasspending his days with this reporter.Chris woke me up in the middle of thenight and asked me if I wanted to comedown and take a whirlpool with thesegirls he’d met from Playboy. He’dalready relapsed and started drinking. Isaid no and went back to bed. I figuredhe’d play in the Jacuzzi and then go up tohis room and sleep it off. But I got up thenext morning and found out he’drelapsed hard, bought these girls planetickets and gone to Hawaii. When thatUS reporter showed up and there was noChris, the shit hit the fan. Gurvitz had toput that fire out.

When I talked to Chris about it later,

he didn’t even remember going toHawaii. He just woke up there. Butwhen he called Dad from Hawaii, Dadwas like, “Hey, you’re on vacation!”The level of denial at that point was justcrazy.

FR. TOM GANNON:You cannot understand Chris Farleywithout grappling with the relationshipbetween him and his father. That was thedominant force in his life. He talked tohis father every day on the phone, andwas constantly trying to please him. AndI think he did please him. But the family,

which looked so normal on the outside,was terribly dysfunctional.

ERIC NEWMAN:If you were a shrink, you could retire onthat family.

TIM O’MALLEY:The first people we know as God areour parents. And if you don’t getapproval from your parents, eventuallyyou can mature and find that from otherplaces. But Chris was never able to do

that. He was never able to find it fromGod or anyone else.

TOM ARNOLD:Even when he was thirty years old,Chris would literally sit at his dad’s feetand tell him stories. I don’t thinkanything made him happier than to sit atthe foot of his dad’s recliner and tell himstories about show business, or food.

There were a couple other timeswhere I went with Chris to the Taste ofMadison, which is this festival in thecity square where every three feetthere’s a booth of a different kind of

food. All the conversations Chris hadwith his dad that weekend were just“Hey, did you have that pork chop on astick?” “Yeah, that was good. Did youget some of this?” You know, they weresurface conversations, the kind I wouldhave with my dad, the kind that don’t getreally deep. Because if you get deep it’spretty painful.

KEVIN FARLEY:I think my dad was basically a happyguy, but he had an addiction to food andalcohol. And when you get to be sixhundred pounds, you’re in such a hole

that what are you going to do to get out?And that’s what depressed him. He wasconfused by it. He’d be like, “I don’tknow how I got this big. I don’t knowhow this happened.” I watched my dad’seating habits. Yes, he ate a lot, but was itproportional to the weight he gained? Noway. Part of it had to be genetic.

My father was handicapped, and whenyou have someone in your family with anillness, you want to do what you can tomake them feel better. It wasn’t justChris. We all wanted to make Dadhappy, because we all knew he was onborrowed time.

JOHN FARLEY:Then there’s the other element to it, notwanting to get skinny or sober becausehe didn’t want Dad to feel bad. Chrissaid that to me, that he should stay heavyfor Dad.

LORRI BAGLEY:Chris was very protective of his father.One night after I went with Chris to ameeting, he asked me if I wanted to meethis parents for dinner. When we were inthe elevator going up to see them, Chriswas like, “Look, my dad has this

problem. Please don’t stare at him.”A year later, the first time I spent the

night with Chris, he showed me a pictureof his family from when he was a kid,and his father was so thin. I said, “Whathappened?” But Chris never really toldme.

CHARNA HALPERN,director/teacher,ImprovOlympic:

I had a very intense night with him alonein my house once. We were listening to aCat Stevens album, Tea for the

Tillerman, and the song “Father andSon” came on. Chris started crying.Cried and cried and cried. He said, “Ilove my dad so much, and I don’t wanthim to die.”

I said, “He probably feels the sameway about you. You’re both in the samesituation. You’re both alcoholics. You’reboth overweight. Maybe you can helpeach other.”

“Yeah, but we can’t,” he said. “It’llnever happen.”

HOLLY WORTELL, castmember, Second City:

His dad was of a different generation.They didn’t go to see “headshrinkers. ”Chris told me that his father finallyagreed to go with him to this weight-lossclinic once. They were sitting in a grouptherapy session, and everyone was goingaround the circle talking about theirissues with food. His dad just stood upand said, “Let’s go.” They got up andwent outside, and his dad said, “We’renot like these people. They’ve gotproblems. That’s not us. We’re leaving.”

FR. TOM GANNON:They walked out, checked in to a resort

on an island off the coast of Florida,took out a room, and proceeded to go ona binge together. With that kind ofenabling, the kid didn’t stand a chance.The father was in denial, but in allfairness, I don’t think the brothers werestraight with the father, either. Dad knewabout the drinking but not so much aboutthe drugs. The father never accepted thatChris was a drug addict until the veryend, even though the two of them talkedevery day. So there was a lot ofposturing going on.

TOM ARNOLD:

It’s not his father’s fault, what happenedto Chris. It’s not. Chris had access toevery tool in the world. He went to thebest treatment centers, had the bestpeople being of service to him, reachingout to him.

You look at all the pieces of Chris’slife, his father, his mother, his brothers,his life growing up, his work—everything. You look at all that andmaybe some things are off or a littledysfunctional, but at the end of the dayit’s his responsibility. It’s not like Ididn’t sit with him a dozen times wherehe looked me in the eye and knew whathe had to do to stay sober. You can’tblame your circumstances, and after a

certain point you can’t even blame yourfather. You can’t blame him; you have tohave compassion for him. It all comesdown to you, and you’ve got to be a manabout it.

LORRI BAGLEY:Chris knew that to be himself, to behealthy, he’d have to pull away from thefamily, and he couldn’t do it. He said hecouldn’t do it. But you have to cut theemotional umbilical cord at some point.Some American Indians have a ritualwhere you’re not allowed to be a part ofthe tribe until you leave, go out in the

wilderness, rename yourself, and comeback. Then you’re accepted as a man.But we don’t have that in our culture.That’s why families in the country arefalling apart, and why women have todeal with all this Madonna/whorebullshit. It’s because men don’t grow up,and Chris never grew up.

ERICH "MANCOW”MULLER:

That May, Chris Rock was performing inChicago. Farley called me and said,“I’ve broken out of prison. I’m out. Iwant to go see my boy Chris Rock!”

Chris broke out of rehab to go to thisshow. I met him at his apartment, and Iwas begging him not to drink. I wassitting there, going, “No. No, Chris.Please.”

He said, “Just a little splash.” That’show it started off, a Coke with a splashof whiskey—and I mean just a drop.Then an hour later it turned into a glassof whiskey with a splash of Coke. Wewent to the concert to meet TimMeadows and his wife, and I spent thewhole night fighting him.

TIM MEADOWS:

We went backstage after the show to seeRock, and Farley was drunk, foolingaround in front of these girls. We’d beentalking about going out for dinner afterthe show, but Rock and I looked at eachother, and I said, “I can’t do it. I can’t bearound him anymore like this.”

Rock said, “Yeah, I know what youmean. I’ll take care of him tonight.”

CHRIS ROCK:He was so fucking drunk, drunk to thepoint where he was being rude andgrabby with girls. He would go too farand you’d call him on it, and he’d give

you his crying apology, the FarleyCrying Apology. We probably had aboutfour of those that night.

I remember dropping him off at hisapartment. He wanted me to come upand see his place, and I just didn’t haveit in me. He was so fucked up. I justcouldn’t go up there. And as I droveaway, I knew. It had gotten to that point. Iknew that was the last time I’d ever seehim alive.

JILLIAN SEELY:I was waiting for Chris to pick me up forthe Chris Rock show, and I got a phone

call from him saying there weren’tenough tickets and so I couldn’t go. Thatwas Sunday. Then Tuesday I got a call atnine o’clock at night from a nurse at theNorthwestern psych ward. Hazelden hadto send him to the hospital to get soberbefore they’d let him back into treatment.

Chris got on the phone. “I’m reallyscared,” he said. “I totally relapsed onSunday and went back to treatment, andthey made me come here. Will you comeand see me?”

So I went over to Northwestern. Iwent up to Chris’s room, and I heard himgo, “Hey, hey, in here.”

He was in the bathroom blowing hiscigarette smoke into the air vent. I

looked down at this stainless-steel papertowel rack, and there were lines ofcocaine on it. Chris had gotten one of thehospital staff to bring him coke in thedetox ward.

I said, “I’m totally telling on you.” Iwent out into the hallway and startedyelling, “Chris is doing cocaine in hisroom!”

They came in and restrained him. Hewas screaming at me, “You’re a fuckingnarc! I hate you!” It was like a scene outof a bad movie. It was horrible, reallyhorrible.

KEVIN FARLEY:The fact that Chris was able to scorecocaine inside the detox ward was justinsane. When you’re famous there aren’tany rules. That’s when I knew thingswere getting bad. He was in a mentalward. You couldn’t get any lower thanthat.

As a kid, when he watched TheExorcist, he was terrified of the idea thatsomething evil could take over yourbody, possess you, and make you dothings you can’t control. Here he had thisthing that was eating away at him fromthe inside, and he was powerless to stopit. And that scared the living shit out of

him.

FR. TOM GANNON:On the surface, the Farleys are awonderful family. They’re loving.They’re supportive. They’re there forone another. I didn’t get to know thefather. Met him once, maybe. Spoke tohim on the phone a couple of times. AndI suppose I have to be honest; I didn’tcare for him that much. Whereas themother is a lovely person, caught in thesame vortex as the rest of them.

And therein lies the key to theproblem: They didn’t know how to

manage Chris. When it’s all said anddone, I don’t know that they were anymore or less dysfunctional than any otherfamily, but Chris’s personality was sooutsized that it sort of took over. It’s thatold story from his childhood, when thenuns said that Chris didn’t know thedifference between somebody laughingwith him or laughing at him. That playedout in the family as well. At what pointdo you draw a line that this bizarrebehavior is too much to handle?

TOM FARLEY:Nobody ever thought of the problem in

terms of Chris’s health or the idea that hecould die. Mom maybe had somepremonitions of disaster but didn’t talkabout it. No one talked about it—andthat was the problem. My parents’reaction was always the same: “Chris isout of control.” Or “Dammit, how couldhe do this? He’s going to ruin hiscareer.”

And the motivations were alwaysexternal, like getting fired from SaturdayNight Live. It was always concern aboutthe symptoms and never the disease,which none of us genuinely understood.But Chris wasn’t “out of control”; hewas sick. And his sickness was just sodeep and so entrenched.

TOM ARNOLD:It’s harder for some people, and I don’tknow what it would’ve taken for Christo really, truly hit bottom. The absoluteworst I ever saw him was at a PlanetHollywood opening in Indianapolis thatJuly. It was the bad Chris. I mean, hewas just so fucked up. He had his shirtup over his head and people were takingpictures. Kevin was with him. I said toKevin, “You better get him out of here.I’m gonna fuckin’ tackle him, ’cause Ihave had it.”

KEVIN FARLEY:

Jillian and I were trying to get him out ofthe bar, but he didn’t want to leave. Andat that point I couldn’t control him.Either he’s going to take a swing at meand we can get into a fight there in frontof the cameras, or I can go home. We’dflown in on a private jet that night, soJillian and I left and took it backtogether.

JILLIAN SEELY:We were really quiet on the plane. Wewere both so sad that Chris had starteddrinking again. The next day I got aphone call around noon. I thought it

would be Chris, calling fromIndianapolis, confused and wonderingwhy he’d been left behind and maybehaving learned a bit of a lesson. But hewas like, “Hey, what’s going on? I’mback in Chicago. Want to get lunch?”The plane went right back for him andpicked him up. No consequences for hisactions at all.

But his behavior at the party made theEnquirer and the entertainment TVshows. And then that profile in USmagazine came out a few weeks later. Itwas a pretty hard-core article.

TOM FARLEY:

That was the first time there had reallybeen any public exposure of Chris’sproblems, which is pretty amazing whenyou look back on it. At that point, he wasreally staring at the abyss; it looked likehe was going to lose it all. Brillstein-Grey went into damage control mode,trying to clean up the press.

They also sent Chris back to Promisesin Malibu and made him start seeing thistherapist in L.A. The sessions Chris hadwith this guy weren’t really therapysessions; it was more this guy tellingChris what he had to do, and why, if hewanted to save himself. He really gotinto Chris’s noggin. He hit him in a weakspot, that superstitious thing that he

always had. He was telling Chris therewas this other side to him, this otherbeing inside him that was bent ondestruction. That really played to a lot ofChris’s fears, and I don’t think it washelpful at all. I think he just confused theboy.

FR. TOM GANNON:Chris thought of his addiction in terms ofgood and evil, that drugs were thedevil’s way of controlling him, and Itried to steer him away from that way ofthinking, because it isn’t very helpful.Like many Irish Catholics, Chris’s

spirituality was sort of a mix betweenreligion and superstition.

TOM FARLEY:He told me that heroin was the devil.“I’ve seen the devil, Tommy.” That’swhat he told me after he’d tried it.

LORRI BAGLEY:Chris told me that every time you doheroin, you can feel it take a part of yoursoul.

KEVIN FARLEY:Chris would talk about his addiction inthose terms, because that was thevocabulary he had for it. A lot of peoplelaugh at that concept, but I think it’s asgood a framework as any. What is ademon? A demon is something that wantsyou dead. And whatever was inpossession of Chris certainly wantedhim dead.

FR. MATT FOLEY:Chris knew all too well that addictionwas a disease. He and I had endless

talks about it. He needed to separatehimself from the shame that he felt. Heneeded to learn how to forgive himselfand accept forgiveness from others. But Ican relate to his thinking. I struggle withtemptation every day, as do we all.There is no blessing that comes out ofdrugs and alcohol, and in that sensethey’re evil.

TIM O’MALLEY:They say that you should go back to yourfaith when you get sober, but it’s up tothe individual the role that their faithplays. How did I survive? How did I not

run myself off the road when I wasdriving around in my underwear lookingfor crack? I’d have to say it was God.But a lot of people don’t go back,because they feel so burned by the nunsand the priests.

I don’t think Chris ever got a chanceto really clarify or learn properly someof the ways to sort out your life. So Ithink he used religion and did the best hecould with it, still trying to be a goodCatholic boy using the garbage we weretaught by the nuns, the angel on oneshoulder and the devil on the other. It’s afifth-grader’s view of spirituality.

FR. TOM GANNON:Chris was caught in a transition inCatholicism between an old-churchapproach to faith and a newer way ofthinking. The old view of spiritualitywas that life was like climbing amountain. You have to fight onward andupward, climbing with your spiritualcrampons until you reach the top—andthat’s perfection. You pass the trial andyou pass the test and you get so manygold stars in your copybook. Then youcome before the heavenly throne forjudgment, and maybe you’ve got acouple of indulgences in your backpocket in case your accounting was

wrong.But that kind of faith only gets a

person so far. Your spiritual life isn’tlike climbing a mountain, waiting to findGod at the top. It’s a journey, full ofhighs and lows, and God is there withyou every step of the way, in the hereand now and in the hereafter. The firstapproach is really a whole lot of smokeand mirrors. It’s only the second one thatallows a person to grow, but that secondview is hard for people to get ahold ofunless they get in touch with themselves.

Chris didn’t feel that he was worthyof God’s love. He felt he had to provehimself. Well, you’re never going to getvery far in any relationship with that

kind of belief. Imagine if you had toprove yourself to your spouse everysingle day; that’s not the way loveworks. In all of our talks, that was theone thing I really tried to work with himon, adjusting to this different idea offaith, but he never really moved fromone to the other. It’s hard. It takes a longtime to come around to that way ofthinking, and Chris just ran out of time.

CHAPTER 14

Fatty Falls DownCHRIS FARLEY:The notion of love is something thatwould be a wonderful thing. I don’tthink I’ve ever experienced it, otherthan the love of my family. At this pointit’s something beyond my grasp. But Ican imagine it, and longing for itmakes me sad.In January of 1997, Chris Farley had thenumber-one movie in America and aninety-day sobriety chip of which hecould rightly be proud. A mere seven

months later, all of that seemed animpossible memory.

On August 1, Chris’s relapse at PlanetHollywood triggered a small whirlwindof negative press, capped by theSeptember issue of US magazine with itsprofile, aptly titled “Chris Farley: Onthe Edge of Disaster.” Not only had thereporter been witness to Chris’s relapseand subsequent escape to Hawaii, Chrishimself, in full heart-on-sleeve mode,had divulged a year’s worth of personaltherapy in just a few short interviews.Even Chris’s friends and manager MarcGurvitz had given frank assessments ofChris’s condition. The piece was apublic relations nightmare.

On August 8, Chris checked intoPromises, an upscale recovery facility inMalibu, California. He stayed until theend of the month. On September 1, hechecked out for a brief opportunity to goback to work, flying to Toronto to film asmall cameo in Norm MacDonald’sfeature film Dirty Work, about a guy whogoes into the revenge-for-hire businessto help raise money for a friend’soperation.

Chris stayed clean during his shootingdays—he always did—but he wouldvanish at night, and in general he did notlook well. Norm found Chris’s behaviorunusual; he had never seen his friendunder the influence before. He openly

questioned Chris as to whether or not itwas a good idea for him to continueworking, but Chris insisted that he wasfine and that, after such a longprofessional drought, he was grateful forthe opportunity. At that point, Shrek wasan ongoing concern, and the FattyArbuckle biopic was still alivesomewhere, but Chris’s inability to getinsured had effectively stalled hiscareer. The only producer willing togive him a shot was Brian Grazer atUniversal, who wanted Chris for a filmcalled The Gelfin, which would beginfilming in January with newly mintedstar Vince Vaughn.

On September 10, Chris’s part in

Dirty Work wrapped and it was back toPromises in Malibu. By this point he hadcycled through a dozen rehab facilitiesin under twenty-two months, and theroutine treatments had reached a point ofdiminishing returns. He knew the systembetter than most of the counselorsassigned to his case. Institutions thatonce frightened Chris now merely boredhim. The constant physical strain ofusing and drying out frayed his nerves.And the long, dark nights spent alone instrange beds ate away at what littlereserve of humanity he had left.

Chris was convinced—or, more aptly,had convinced himself—that there had tobe answers elsewhere. On his tenth day

at Promises, fed up with the wholeordeal, he went down to the basement,flipped the master circuit breaker, andcut the power for the entire facility.Once the lights were restored, thesecurity team found Chris lounging in thecommon room, naked, quietly leafingthrough old magazines. “You found me!”he proclaimed. The police were called,and he was asked to leave.

A now-familiar pattern played itselfout, and by mid-October Chris swore hewas ready to recommit himself tosobriety. He rented a house in LosAngeles and asked Kevin to move inwith him. Kevin now had four yearssober on his own, and Chris thought his

brother would be able to take him tomeetings and keep him on track.

In truth, no one could keep Chris ontrack but Chris, but there was one placewhere he had managed to stay sober andhappy: his old job at Saturday NightLive. Marc Gurvitz called SNL producerLorne Michaels. They agreed that havingChris come back to host might help himin some way to deal with his problems.But the week Chris arrived in NewYork, he wasn’t just having problems, hewas having a full-blown meltdown. Theresults, broadcast live on nationaltelevision for millions to see, were notpretty.

KEVIN FARLEY:He was gasping for air by that point. Ilost him for three days. It was theweekend before he was supposed to hostSaturday Night Live, and he was justgone. I was staying at the house, andMarc Gurvitz was calling me, saying,“Where’s Chris? We’ve got to get him ona plane. Lorne expects him in NewYork.”

I told him I had no idea where Chriswas. For all I knew, Chris could havedied that weekend. He was with LeifGarrett, of all people. Leif fuckingGarrett, and some other losers. WhenChris finally showed up, high on heroin

after three days missing, Leif came intothe house and was like, “Your brother’sso fucking funny, man.” I almost took himout right there, but I was so sad andspent with the whole situation that I justdidn’t have the energy to punch him inthe face.

That whole weekend was so sad andout of control. I think Chris planned itthat way, to be gone right up until he hadto leave, so that there would be nochance of anyone having an interventionand sending him back to rehab. He wasplanning on carrying the party right on toNew York; it rolled right into SNL, andthe result was a complete disaster.

LORNE MICHAELS:The decision to have Chris come backand host wasn’t made because he wasred hot in show business and it would begreat for the show. I think it might havebeen some desire of mine to help him getback in touch with a time in his lifewhen he was happy. When he was at theshow, he knew what the rules were, andI felt it might help him to come back.

TOM GIANAS, writer:When he got back, you could tell thatthings were bad. He was very tense,

distracted and, well, fucked up. I don’tthink Lorne expected that, otherwise henever would have let him host. We suredidn’t expect it. I still thought he wassober. We went out to dinner Mondaynight after the pitch meeting, and wewere running interference with waitersall night, trying to keep liquor and boozeaway from him. And that lasted thewhole week.

MOLLY SHANNON, castmember:

He was just indulging in everything:girls, Chinese food, drugs, booze, cold

syrup. Everything.

MARCI KLEIN, talentcoordinator:

By Tuesday night, I knew he was out ofcontrol. I had heard that he’d been goingup to some of the newer cast membersand saying, “Hey, let’s go out!” And a lotof the new cast, they really looked up toChris, wanted to go with him and hangout with him. So I called a meeting witheveryone. I met with them in the talentoffice, and I said, “Look, I know Chris,and I know what’s going to happen. If hewants you to go out, you’re not going. If

any of you help him get drinks or liquoror anything, if you encourage him in anyway, you are going to be a part ofhelping him die.”

TIM MEADOWS:That was a fucking rough week. I tried tohang out with him as much as I couldwhenever he was at the show, becauseChris would never do anything in frontof me. But he started all that shit, like,“I’ve got to . . . go to my car forsomething.” He would make excuses toleave, and he’d come back and he’d behappy again. That whole week he had

these total strangers hanging around.

TODD GREEN:When Chris got to New York he shuteverybody down. I wasn’t able to seehim. Kevin Cleary wasn’t able to seehim. I don’t think Tommy could even getto him, and the rumor mill was cranking.

TOM FARLEY:It was Tuesday night at about fiveo’clock. I was working up inGreenwich, and I knew he was coming

out to New York. I called my wife, and Isaid, “This is weird. He’s been heresince Sunday, and he hasn’t even calledme.”

She said, “Just get in your car and godown there.”

So I drove down to the Waldorf-Astoria where he was staying, and hehad this bodyguard sitting outside thedoor. I went in, and Chris was like,“What’re you doing here?”

“I just wanted to see my brother,” Isaid. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Okay, great. I’m just about to headover to Saturday Night Live. They’rewriting tonight, and I’m going to go help

come up with ideas.”So we hopped in this limo downstairs

that was supposed to take us over to 30Rock. Mike Shoemaker had one of theNBC pages in the car to babysit Chris.Chris got in and said, “We’ve got tomake a stop. I’ve got to pick up somefriends on 110th Street.”

One Hundred and Tenth Street? Nextthing I knew we pulled up at this placein Harlem. Chris went up and came outof this building with two women,looking exactly like what they were.They got in the car, and Chris said,“Okay, let’s go to SNL.”

This NBC kid looked over at me like,“Are you shitting me?”

I just shrugged. So Chris took thesetwo hookers up to Saturday Night Live.It was Marci Klein’s birthday that night.They were all going out to the HavanaRoom later. Chris was hanging out withTracy Morgan and Jim Breuer, talking tothem about skits and stuff. I was stuckout in the lobby with these two girls,trying to make small talk. Then Chriswent into Cheri Oteri’s room to talk withher for a while. I knew where theevening was going, and I knew weweren’t going to end up at Marci’sbirthday party. I got up and knocked onCheri’s door and said, “Chris, you knowwhat, I’m outta here. I’m gonna get somesleep.” And I left.

The next day, I called up KevinCleary and told him about Chris, that hewas just a mess. Kevin said to comeback down to the city, we’d take Chris tolunch and have yet another intervention.So I left work, drove in, Kevin and Iwent to the Waldorf at around eleven-thirty and called up to the room. Chrisanswered the phone. I said, “Hey, I’mdown in the lobby. It’s me and KevinCleary.”

And as soon as he heard those twonames he knew what was up. KevinCleary was the one person in the worldChris could never bullshit. Chris said,“Yeah, yeah, I’m just waking up. Giveme twenty minutes.”

We waited a half hour or so, calledback up to his room, and there was a “donot disturb” on his phone line. I calledthe front desk and asked to be putthrough, but they said he’d left specificinstructions not to be disturbed.

Kevin and I went out and had lunchand talked about what we could do, andthat was it. I never saw him alive again.

NORM MacDONALD:I had a sketch I wanted to do with him.The idea was that I’d play Fast EddieFelson and he’d play Minnesota Fats andwe’d play a really long game of pool,

just like in The Hustler, only we’d neversink a single ball.

Chris told me to come to his hotel towork on the sketch, which was alreadykind of odd. Why wouldn’t we just writein the office? But I went to the hotel andhe had this guy guarding the door, andthen I went inside and he had tumblers ofvodka and orange juice and there weregirls there. He kept going in the otherroom.

Working on a sketch with Chris wasnever anything but a great delight, but hismind wasn’t working like it used to.There was all this self-doubt. He wasvery preoccupied.

I remember he said to me,

“Sometimes, life seems so cruel.” Hekept saying that: Life seems so cruel.

I said, “Why do you say that, Chris?You’re always laughing.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just wantto die.”

I’ve heard people say that before, andit’s sort of a meaningless phrase. Maybehe meant it; I don’t know. I don’t knowhow people talk under the influence.

ROBERT SMIGEL, writer:I wasn’t writing for the show full-timethen. I was just doing the cartoons and

occasionally faxing in a sketch idea. Inthis case, ESPN had asked me to do a“Super Fans” bit with George Wendtabout Ditka becoming coach of the NewOrleans Saints. When Chris hosted a fewweeks later, I figured we could dosomething similar on the show, so I’dfaxed in a version with Chris in it.

Chris’s condition was obvious assoon as he showed up. You can’t replacea host after the sketches are written andthe sets are built, but that doesn’t happenuntil Thursday. And by Tuesdayeveryone knew how bad it was. Granted,pulling the host even on a Tuesdaywould have been a huge crisis, but Ithought that’s what was needed: dire

consequences and an inescapable, publichumiliation. I thought Chris should befired. That was the only thing that wouldteach him the same lesson that he’dlearned when Lorne had suspended himand threatened to fire him four yearsearlier. I actually thought it was a giftopportunity, a chance to help a drowningfriend. But I wasn’t a full-timer there,and I wasn’t part of making thatdecision.

NORM MacDONALD:It was shocking to everybody that Lornelet the show go forward.

LORNE MICHAELS:I don’t remember anybody threatening toresign over it. I don’t think that the showshould be used as therapy, but there wasno way for us, for me anyway, to getthrough to him in a conversation. Thatdidn’t work anymore. If Chris couldn’tget it any other way, he could at leastwatch it on television. The thing he mostcared about was the show. I think therewas a feeling that the process of doingthis, succeeding at it or failing at it,could be brutally honest with him in away that he was no longer getting in alecture.

MIKE SHOEMAKER,producer:

The truth is you’re so busy on that showthat you just keep moving, and I think weall hoped that the old Chris would kickin and we’d be fine. I was also just madat him. More than being worried, I wasangry.

ROBERT SMIGEL:That whole show is like watching aslow death march, but the cold open wasjust the worst.

TOM FARLEY:I was in shock when I saw the openingsketch. It was Lorne and Tim Meadowstalking about how Chris had kicked hisdrug problem and he’d be in perfectshape to host. Then Chris bursts in, andhe’s obviously in terrible shape. They’dmade jokes about Chris’s drinkingbefore, but that was when he was soberand doing well. This was not funny atall.

TIM MEADOWS:When that sketch was pitched at read-

through, nobody knew that by Saturday itwould no longer be a sketch but the real,honest truth. At the time I didn’t think itwas in such bad taste, because that’swhat we’d always done. We’d alwaysbeen able to make fun of ourselves.

ROBERT SMIGEL:They cut that opening sketch and themonologue out of the syndicated versionof the show. When you see the reruns, itstarts with the opening credits and goesstraight into a sketch. I believe it’s theonly time in the history of the show that’sbeen done.

NORM MacDONALD:He blew out his voice in dress, and sothe live show was just awful. He waslike a marathon runner stumbling to thefinish line before it even began.

MARCI KLEIN:I said to Lorne, “I think he’s going tohave a heart attack.”

TOM GIANAS:He did this incredibly physical scene

with Molly Shannon, a Mary KatherineGallagher scene, and it was on rightbefore the Motivational Speaker scene,where he played the coach of a spinningclass. He was just huffing and puffing hisway through the scene with Molly,sweating like crazy. And then, by thetime he got to the Motivational Speakerscene, he was gone. It was really hard towatch.

NORM MacDONALD:They did overuse him in the sketches,knowing what his condition was. In theheyday of SNL, back in the seventies,

they’d get hosts who were completelydrunk, and so they’d just write them outof the show. And this was a far moresevere case than that.

I remember trying to stretch outWeekend Update. Chris had just done theMotivational Speaker, where they’d puthim on a goddamned exercise bike justto make it that much worse. Lorne’susually pretty tight on time, but I justtried to draw Update out as much as Icould to give Chris a chance to rest.

MOLLY SHANNON:We didn’t rehearse the Mary Katherine

Gallagher sketch too much. And that’sworrisome if you’re doing a liveperformance that’s very physical. I wasthrowing him into tables and breakawaywalls. He was throwing me around. Wedid this big dance. Physically, I was alittle scared, because he was so big andhe’d been drinking. But I felt, for boththe dress rehearsal and the live show,the second the camera was on he wascompletely there. I was amazed by hisperformance under the circumstances.With such little rehearsal, and withoutpaying much attention in rehearsal, weput him in front of the audience, and hepulled it all together.

LORNE MICHAELS:The last time I spoke with Chris was atthe party at the end of the show. It wasaround four A.M. after that very bumpyweek. We talked about the show. Wetalked about his health. I said all thethings I’d said before about the way hewas living and about taking care ofhimself. He listened. He agreed. He beathimself up a little bit for my benefit. AndI said in the most severe way I could,“You’ll never get away with it.”

“I know, I know.”We hugged and said how much we

loved each other. Then after we hugged,he looked at me with that look we all

know so well, that smiling-boy look, andhe said, “I was funny tonight, wasn’t I,boss?”

“Yeah, you were.”Following his week in New York, Chrisreturned to Los Angeles to find thatKevin had moved out, refusing to enablehis brother’s addiction any longer.Understanding Kevin’s need to protecthis own sobriety, Chris let it go withoutany confrontation. Other than a briefvisit at Thanksgiving, the two brotherswould never speak to each other again.

On November 1, Chris flew toNaples, Florida, where he checked intothe Willows rehab facility. He checkedout at the end of the month and left to go

home to Madison for Thanksgiving. Hedrank in his car on the way to theairport.

After spending the holiday with hisfamily, Chris returned to Chicago for abrief stopover. He was on his way to theJesuit retreat house at Bellarmine, aplace he often went to find peace andquiet and spiritual refuge. He nevermade it.

JOHN FARLEY:Chris got back to Chicago, and he andTed and I were in the car. “Let’s go up toBellarmine,” Chris said.

I said, “I don’t want to go to a Jesuitretreat house, Chris.”

I didn’t, and most people wouldn’t. Imean, it’s a nice place, but I wasn’t inthe mood for three days of silentmeditation. But I really thought Chrisshould go, because then he’d be safe,and no one would have to worry abouthim. You always worried about himwhen he was in town. It was always apit in your stomach. I said, “You go up toBellarmine. You can relax andeverything’ll be safe. You won’t havethese vultures around you.”

“Please go,” he said.“I don’t want to go.”

So I walked away, thinking everythingwas fine. Then, later that night, I sawhim coming around the corner in a bar. Ithought, oh shit, he didn’t go because Ididn’t go with him. That one stayed withme for a long time. Maybe if I’d takenhim to the retreat everything would havebeen fine. Maybe maybe maybe.

TED DONDANVILLE:I was supposed to go to Bellarmine withChris, but then it was one drink, and thentwo, and then the trip was off. So nowChris needed to hide out, let peoplethink he’d gone on this retreat so he

could keep partying. He got a suite at theFour Seasons, right across the streetfrom his apartment, and the party wason.

JILLIAN SEELY:My hair salon was right downstairs fromthe Four Seasons. I went in thatweekend, and the girls were like, “Chrisjust came down here in his pajamas withsome random girl.”

I went straight up to his room. It was amess. I said to him, “Chris, what are youdoing?”

He had the Big Book in his hands, and

he was saying, “Jillian, let’s get sober!I’ve got the book.”

I said, “Chris, if you read that rightnow, you’re going to go crazy. You can’tbe drunk and reading from this.”

He got all freaked out and he went andgrabbed a towel and threw it over thebook to hide it, and then he said, “Comein the bathroom with me!” And hegrabbed me and pulled me into thebathroom. He was just out of his mind.

Eventually, he calmed down a bit, andwe talked a long time that night, aboutthe rehabs, his father, his career. He toldme about another movie he was doing. Itwas starting in February, with VinceVaughn, called The Gelfin. He said,

“Read this inside and out. I’m gettingsober for the New Year, and you’recoming to L.A. with me to do thismovie.”

He said to me, “Jillian, why don’t yourelapse with me and then we can gothrough treatment together and get betterfor the New Year?”

I said, “No. I’m not going to startdrinking just so that I can go to treatmentwith you.”

TED DONDANVILLE:By the end he’d started thinking, oh,when I need to be sober I can go to

rehab, and when I’m free to party, I cango party. He was picking his rehab spotsbased on which one was easiest, orwhich one was most comfortable. “Oh,I’m sick of this place, let’s try thisplace.” It was just not proper thinking. Itwas the thinking of an alcoholic.

LORRI BAGLEY:I felt like I was supposed to save Chris,even though he told me that I wasn’t. Hesaid, “I know what I have to do, and theonly way I can do it is with me and withGod.”

Chris knew what he had to do. He

knew what he had to do to stay sober—and he chose not to do it. He told mewhy. He made me promise that I wouldnever tell anyone why, and I never will.But maybe three months before he died,he was in a rehab in L.A. He called melate one night and told me why he wasn’tgoing to stay sober anymore, and, at thatpoint, we both knew what that meant.The thing is, Chris actually had greatwillpower, and great strength. Once hedecided something, it was done.

JILLIAN SEELY:Any idea that Chris wanted to die is

bullshit. Chris was so full of life, and hehad a boundless enthusiasm foreverything and everyone. He enjoyed hislife and savored it and was full of hopefor the future.

When I saw him in those last weeks,he gave me the Gelfin script and told mehe was getting sober and going back towork. When I picked him up to go to myChristmas party, I caught him practicinghis karaoke in the mirror just to makesure he’d do a really good job. When hecalled his mom that night, he was tellingher how happy and excited he was abouttaking her back to Ireland next year. Andwhen I talked to him on the phone threedays later and he said, “I’ll call you

back in an hour,” I don’t think he thoughtthat was the last time anyone would everhear from him.

TED DONDANVILLE:I don’t buy that it was a death wish, thatit was a slow suicide. I just don’t. Youhave to discount anything Chris mighthave said to people, especially towomen. How was he trying tomanipulate them? How was he trying toplay on their sympathies?

The only thing was he said to meonce, “Do you ever feel like you’redoomed?” But I think that’s something

we all might say at some time or another.So I don’t think you can look at what hewas saying. You have to look at what hewas doing. What he was doing wasplaying with fire and the consequencesbe damned, but he was also making a lotof plans for the future.

The binge that started at the FourSeasons lasted about four days, callingfriends and picking up strangers andbringing them along. By the end of it Iwent up to the suite and there were allthese food-service carts everywhere,ashtrays overflowing. After that Chriscrashed for a few days, slept it off, andtook it easy.

FR. TOM GANNON:Chris called and asked if we could gettogether to talk. I said, “Sure, I’ll comeup to the apartment and we’ll have masstogether.”

“I’d love that,” he said.So I went up, we had a long talk, I

gave him confession, and we said amass. Then we went out to dinner, cameback to the apartment, and talked somemore. He went on about his addictionand how bad he felt about where he washeaded, both personally andprofessionally, and what he should dowith his life. I had to be careful aboutbringing up his father, because he was

always very sensitive when you did. Isuggested he dedicate himself to going todaily mass, not because that would helpwith his addiction but because it mightgive him a safe, grounded place fromwhich he could rededicate himself totreatment.

We both agreed that the rehabprograms were getting him nowhere. Ithink he went to every rehab programknown to man; he must have spent abouthalf a million dollars on them. He hadall the lingo down, but he didn’t have thereality down. People have to internalizethose twelve steps and make them theirown, and Chris wasn’t doing that.

I left around midnight. As I was

driving home I just thought, this kid isgoing down the tubes. I had a deepforeboding. I came so close to turningthe car around, going back, taking him tomy place and keeping him there for acouple of days. But you can’t do that.He’s a grown man with his own freewill, and what can you do?

TOM ARNOLD:There was opportunity to cut Chris’smoney off at the end. You can commitsomebody, legally commit them and cutoff all their access to their funds. It cameup with the people at Brillstein-Grey.

They proposed it, but you have to get thefamily signed off on it. Ultimately it washis father’s decision, and his fatherwouldn’t go along.

TED DONDANVILLE:Gurvitz wanted to send him away for ayear, the most hard-core approachpossible. But Chris’s dad was like,“Chris is a grown-up. He can make hisown decisions.” And in a way his dadwas right. If it wasn’t Chris’s decision togo, sending him there wouldn’taccomplish anything.

TIM O’MALLEY:By the time I got to Chris that December,everyone was telling me, “Forget it.We’ve tried. Just give up.”

And I said, “You guys didn’t give upon me, why should I give up on him?”

The last ten days of his life he calledme every day. It was a slow, horriblething. He’d call at five, six in themorning and plead with me to meet himat the Pump Room.

I’d say, “No, I am not going to meetyou at a fucking bar. I will pick you upand take you to a meeting.”

“I don’t want to go to a meeting.

Everybody recognizes me. I getbothered.”

“Fine. I’ll take you to a halfway housewhere people are so bottomed out thatthey don’t care who’s sitting next tothem.”

But he still wouldn’t go. And it wasthe same thing every day. He’d call,we’d pray together. He kept saying,“Please, I need your help. I need yourspiritual guidance.”

I said, “Chris, all I got is what I got. Ican’t do anything for you unless youwant to go to a meeting. You gotta startover, and you can start today.”

“I can’t start over.”

“Yes, you can.”“No, I can’t.”And it was the same conversation

every day.

JILLIAN SEELY:That Saturday, he asked me to comeover, and we hung out. We madeChristmas cookies together, went to ameeting. Then on Sunday he called meand I picked him up and we went to myChristmas party. We sang karaoke. I havea picture of the two of us that night as wewalked into the club, and we were bothsober. Then, by the end of the night, he

had started drinking and someonesnapped another picture of us. It’s thelast picture of the two of us together, andyou can see the difference.

At the end of the party, I said, “Chris,it’s time to go.”

He was with a bunch of girls, and hewas like, “No, no, I’m gonna stay here.”

My friend and I told him he reallyneeded to leave, and he got defensive,saying “You’re not the boss of me,” andall that. So we left, and he went out withall these people drinking. That was thelast time I saw him.

TIM O’MALLEY:Monday morning, I stopped by hisapartment on my way to a meeting to seeif he wanted to go. We got in anargument about this Fatty Arbuckleproject. He was obsessed with doing it,but his managers had brought him into ameeting and told him he couldn’t do ituntil he’d been sober for two years,otherwise no one would insure him. Hedidn’t think that was fair. To me, thatwas the first time he’d been fired in hislife, for real, where someone actuallysaid no to him. I said, “Chris, this isgood. It’s good that you’re going to letgo of this.”

“But it’s going to get made withoutme.” He had the script and he showed itto me, and he was like, “I have to do it.”

“The Fatty Arbuckle movie is not areality,” I said. “It’s just a script on yourdesk. You’ve got to learn how to notdrink. Nothing else comes before that.”

“But it’s different for me. I’mfamous.”

“Bullshit. You’re no different fromme. You’re just an Irish fucker who can’tstop drinking. This movie is not real.What’s real is your torture. You’ve got tostart from ground zero and fix it.”

“I can’t do it again.”“Yes, you can. I did it, and I had

nothing. I had no career. I had nosuccess. If I can do it, you can do it. Youhave even more to live for.”

“But you’re strong, and I’m weak.”“Fuck that. I’m as weak as you are.”“But my dad says . . .”“Fuck your dad. If it were up to me

you wouldn’t do any work at all for ayear. You stay here and you get soberand you work your steps and just get agrip on how to live.”

And that’s where I left it. That FattyArbuckle movie, that was the line in thesand. Either you get sober or you getdead.

TIM HENRY, friend:On Tuesday, Johnny and Teddy and abunch of guys from Chicago weremeeting for lunch at Gibson’s. Chris waslate, and everyone was getting annoyed.We all had jobs to get back to. I endedup going to the Hancock to get him.Some mysterious girl was there, a jointburning in the ashtray. I was worried, buteven though it’s so obvious that theinevitable is next, you still don’t believethat it’s going to happen.

TED DONDANVILLE:

During lunch, Chris was adamant. “Thisis it,” he said. “No more fucking around.We’ve got another couple weeks to partyover Christmas, and then that’s it. We’regonna get sober, rent the house inBeverly Hills, get to work on TheGelfin. No more fucking around.”

He told me he wanted me to hire atrainer, a personal chef; he was going toget back in shape. And those plans weremade. I’d rented the house. I was askingaround to find a trainer and a chef. Chrishad every intention of going back towork in January.

TIM HENRY:

I drove home that day and called Tommyand said, “Chris says he’s cleaning upand getting serious after Christmas, butthis is a new low.”

“I know,” Tommy said. “I get thesecalls all the time.”

TOM FARLEY:I asked Johnny after the fact, you know,“How could you sit there and drink withhim?”

And Johnny was like, “What’re yougonna do? Chris was already rollingwhen he got to the table.” That’s whenJohnny just left. He couldn’t take it

anymore.

TED DONDANVILLE:I know Johnny had a lot of guilt aboutwhat he could have done, should havedone. But Chris knew the deal. And youhave to remember, there was a physicalfear when it came to standing up toChris, not just an emotional one. He wasbigger than you. Johnny said to him once,“You’re sick. You’ve got to stop this.”And Chris almost ripped his head off.

When Chris would relapse, all hisfriends in recovery would abandon himfor the sake of their own sobriety. I

understand it on one level, having nowquit drinking myself, but in some ways itseems perverse. When he needed themthe most, they were gone. Johnny and Iwere the only two people close to Chriswho still drank, so we were the onlyones around to look after him when herelapsed.

The problem was that even thoughJohnny and I were heavy drinkers—wecould go eight, nine hours—there wasalways a point where Chris just wore usout. That night, we’d been drinking sinceGibson’s. It was around two in themorning, and we were at the Hunt Club.These guys wanted Chris to come andparty with them at this place up in

Lincoln Park. Of course Chris was upfor it, but Johnny and I couldn’t take itanymore. We had to get off. I said I wasgoing home, and Chris told me to get aroom at the Ritz-Carlton, across thestreet from the Hancock, said he wantedme nearby. He told me to take care of thebill, and he took off with those people.And that was the last time I ever sawhim alive.

JOHN FARLEY:Chris was going to go all night, and Isaid, “I’m not doing this with you.” I hadto get away from it. It was making me ill.

Chris and I had been living together atthe Hancock, and the vibe had just gottenterrible. He wasn’t sleeping at night, andit was a mess. There was stuffeverywhere. I was like, eh, I shouldn’tbe here. That was the other big what if:if only I had stayed. But whatever hewas going through, I thought he justneeded to be left alone. Plus, I wasn’tgetting any sleep. So I went with Teddyand checked into the hotel.

TIM O’MALLEY:Chris called me around five o’clockWednesday morning. I said, “Chris, I’m

sleeping. What is it?”He said, “I really need your help,

please.”I didn’t know what to do. He had been

calling me every day, and we’d beenhaving the same endless conversation.He wanted me to meet him at the PumpRoom, again. He said Joyce Sloane wasgoing to be there. I told him that Iwouldn’t meet him at a bar. I said, “I’mcoming downtown tonight for a meetingat six o’clock. Call me if you want togo.” And he never called.

JOYCE SLOANE, producer,

Second City:We had a lunch date at the Pump Room,me and Chris and Holly Wortell. I hadtalked to him the night before to confirmthe date, and the last thing he said to mewas “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

HOLLY WORTELL:Joyce and I met there at noon, and wewaited and waited and waited.

JILLIAN SEELY:

I got a call from a friend around ten-thirty. She said, “I saw Chris out lastnight. He was in really bad shape.”

So I called. He picked up on thespeakerphone. I could tell he was out ofit. I heard somebody laughing in thebackground. I said, “Who is that?”

“It’s nobody. It’s nobody,” he said.He asked if he could call me back. I

knew he wasn’t going to. I said, “Chris,do me a favor and just stay in tonight.Please do not go out.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t go out.”“Okay.”“I love you.”“I love you, too.”

“I’ll call you back in an hour.”

CHAPTER 15

The Parting GlassFR. MATT FOLEY:That night I was in Xochitepec, thissmall mountain village in Mexico. Ithad no roads and no electricity, and itwas about a seven-hour walk from myparish. I was on a journey with amissionary team. We would walk to atown and spend a day ministering tothe people there. Then we’d sleep onthe floor of the chapel, wake up thenext day, and journey on to the nexttown.

Sleeping in the chapel that night, Idreamt that I was surrounded by my oldMarquette rugby friends. We were alltalking about someone we had lost. Itwas such a vivid dream that it woke meout of a deep sleep. I got up and walkedoutside. There was this big, full moon,and I just stood there and looked up atthe sky for the longest time, trying tofigure out what this dream meant.

The next day we celebrated mass andthen walked several hours to our truckand drove to a village called SantaCruz, where there was a phone line.There was a message telling us that wehad to come home, immediately. And tobe out on a journey like that and to get

a message that you had to come home,it could only mean one thing. It meantthat someone had died.After Ted and Johnny went home, Chrisstayed out, partying with his newfoundcompanions. As Tuesday nightsurrendered to Wednesday morning, heleft the Hunt Club, hit a few more bars,and eventually wound up at the home ofa commodities broker in Chicago’sLincoln Park neighborhood, where theparty was in full swing until sunrise andbeyond. Chris’s host offered to hire acall girl for him. According to tabloidaccounts of her story, she arrived at theparty around eleven A.M.

In midafternoon, having missed his

lunch with Joyce Sloane and HollyWortell, Chris went with the escort backto her apartment. There he joined herand a friend, smoking crack cocaine andsnorting heroin for several hours. Chriscalled a car service to take them todinner, but when the car arrived shesuggested that he was too worn out to goto a restaurant and that they should justgo back to his apartment in the HancockCenter. They did.

Once Chris got home, his brother Johncalled and invited him to dinner withTed Dondanville and friends at theirhotel. Chris declined. He stayed in theapartment, where his binge continuedinto the night. At that point, Chris had

been awake for four days, ever sinceJillian Seely’s party Sunday night. Atten-thirty Wednesday evening, he tookJillian’s phone call, assuring her thateverything was fine and that he wouldcall her back.

Chris and the escort began arguingover money. Around three in themorning, she decided to leave, collectedher things, and headed for the front door.Chris stood up to follow her andcollapsed in the middle of his livingroom. She turned around, walked backover, and knelt down next to him. Hewas having trouble breathing. She stolehis watch, took pictures of his body,stood up, and walked away. Before

passing out, his last words to her were“Don’t leave me.”

On her way out, believing Chris to besafely unconscious, she stopped by aside table in the foyer. She took out apen and a piece of paper and left him ashort note, saying that he was just somuch fun, and she’d had such a lovelytime.

TED DONDANVILLE:Johnny and I woke up on Thursday. Ineeded something out of Chris’sapartment, but I didn’t have my keys.Johnny had a set, so we checked out of

the hotel and he came with me to theHancock on his way to Second City.

JOHN FARLEY:Teddy and I walked in and saw him onthe floor. At first, of course, I thought hewas joking. Then I realized he wasn’t. Idropped to the ground beside him andstarted giving him CPR. That didn’twork. I turned to Ted and told him to call911. He ran to the phone and called foran ambulance. He told them it was forChris Farley. That was a mistake.

JILLIAN SEELY:I was at work and they pulled me asideand told me there were these reportsgoing around. I didn’t believe it. I wentto the Hancock and tried to get thedoorman to let me up, but he wouldn’t. Ikept calling different phones in theapartment. Eventually Ted picked up. Isaid, “Are they giving Chris CPR? Is heokay? Is he going to be okay?”

He said, “Jillian, it’s not a good time.We’ll call you later.”

I sat in the lobby. Nobody was tellingme what was happening. I started gettinghysterical. All these news crews startedshowing up. The EMS teams were

coming through the lobby, but they werecoming through really slow, taking theirtime, like there was no more emergency.

JOHN FARLEY:The paramedics arrived. They tried torevive him, but they couldn’t doanything. When they pronounced Chrisdead, Teddy knelt down and put a rosaryin his hand.

TED DONDANVILLE:The media latched onto it: “He died

clutching a rosary. It’s a sign!” But, no, Iput it there. I told Johnny I’d handleeverything with the paramedics and thecops, and he should go in the other roomand call his parents before the storybroke.

JOHN FARLEY:I went into the back room and called mydad. That was horrible. That was theworst phone call anyone could evermake.

KEVIN FARLEY:

I was in my apartment in L.A. I had justrehearsed Tom Arnold’s show thatmorning. I came home around noon, andthere were all these messages on mymachine. They all said there wassomething wrong with Chris, and Ineeded to call home. I called Dadimmediately. He answered the phone,and I said, “What’s wrong with Chris?”

There was a very long pause. “Welost him.”

The room started spinning, and I hitmy knees. I didn’t believe it. My mindwouldn’t even go there. I was lyingthere, half crumpled on the floor, whenTom came in the front door and said,“We’re gonna help you.”

PAT FINN, friend:It was raining the day he died. It doesn’train much in L.A., but this was one ofthose days where it just poured. My wifeand I had gone out to lunch with our twolittle girls and we’d just come home. Iwas outside with the girls, playing inone of the puddles in the street. My wifecame back out of the house and told me Ineeded to come inside. There weretwenty-six messages on the answeringmachine.

LORRI BAGLEY:

I was at my girlfriend’s house, visitingher new baby, and the phone rang. It’sfunny. People don’t react to death likeyou see in the movies, with all thescreaming and hysterics. It’s not like thatat all. It just doesn’t compute, doesn’tadd up. You sit there, and you can’tfigure it out.

JOHN FARLEY:I stayed in the back room, so I didn’t seewhat was going on. Teddy was handlingit.

TED DONDANVILLE:The media reports all said that no illegaldrugs were found in Chris’s apartment,just a few prescription antidepressants.That’s not exactly true. While the copswere sweeping the apartment, any timethey came across something illegal, abaggie of cocaine maybe, they’d comeover, quietly slip it to me, and say,“Here.” Essentially, they got rid of theevidence. They were cops, but they wereChicago cops. Chris was dead. Anythingillegal he’d been doing was beside thepoint. Let him rest in peace.

JOHN FARLEY:They put him in a body bag and took himout. I went down the back way, where Icould get to the garage without going byanybody; there were too many people inthe front. I got in the car, pulled out ofthe garage, and then slipped right bythem while they were waiting for me tocome out the front door. It was prettybad. It was a madhouse. They’d blockedoff the whole street.

DAVID SPADE:I was at a read-through for my show,

Just Shoot Me, and Gurvitz called. Hesaid, “I’m giving you about a twenty-minute head start on this, just so youknow before the whole world does.” Iwent back to the read-through and I fellapart. They took me in the other room,and I just couldn’t stop bawling.

TOM FARLEY:I was at a meeting at a friend’s, talkingabout some business ventures. In hisoffice, he had a TV with CNN on in thebackground, muted. I looked over and Isaw Chris and David Spade in a clipfrom the movies. I said, “Oh, there’s

Chris. Turn it up.” He turned the volumeon, and just as he did they switched tothis scene in front of the Hancock. Myfriend stood up, handed me his phone,and said, “Take as long as you need.”

JIM DOWNEY, headwriter/producer:

I was playing in the basement with myson, and my wife said, “There’s a phonecall for you.” So we went upstairs, andas she handed me the phone I lookedover and saw the TV, which was muted,and it was a montage of Farley. My son,who was about four years old, started

laughing hysterically at what Chris wasdoing on the television; I put the phoneto my ear, and Mike Shoemaker told meChris was dead.

MIKE SHOEMAKER:I realized we would need to choose asketch to give out to the media as a clip.I remember sitting in Marci Klein’soffice, crying and thinking, what sketchwould Chris want us to use? I picked“The Chris Farley Show” with PaulMcCartney.

FRED WOLF:My manager called me and said, “ChrisFarley died.” Five months later hecalled me and said, “Phil Hartmandied.” Thankfully, he hasn’t had to callagain.

FR. MATT FOLEY:After we got the message, my team and Ileft Santa Cruz. It was a two-hour driveby truck on a dusty road back toQuechultenango. I was driving. It was avery quiet ride. We all knew thatsomebody in the truck had lost someone;

we just didn’t know which of us it was.I finally pulled up to the parish house,

we got out, and someone handed me anote saying that Chris had died; bothMrs. Farley and my sister had called. Iwas devastated. I had prayed so hard forhim, and I had never given up on him.My sister had already booked my tickethome. I caught an all-night bus toMexico City and flew out the nextmorning.

KEVIN FARLEY:Brillstein-Grey got me a flight out thatafternoon, and my manager drove me to

the airport and got me on a plane. I flewinto Chicago, met Johnny and Ted andMaria, my girlfriend at the time. Igrabbed Johnny and hugged him. Helooked like hell, like he’d come througha concentration camp. We got on a planeand flew into Madison together.

TOM FARLEY:I drove home from my friend’s office. Idon’t really remember the drive; I wasjust crying my eyes out. We had Laura’ssister take the kids and we went out thenext day.

JOHN FARLEY:They had to do an autopsy, so that took alittle while. Dad started taking care ofall the arrangements for the funeral.

TODD GREEN:Kevin Cleary and I flew back toMadison together. Mr. Farley called mein Kevin’s hotel room, and he said,“Listen, I want all the Edgewood guys tobe the pallbearers. You, Barry, Healy,Meyer, and the two Cleary boys. That’sthe way we want it. That’s the way Chriswould want it.”

TIM HENRY:Everybody had gone to the funeral hometo meet with the priest and the funeraldirector, and Mrs. Farley asked if Iwould stay at the house while they weregone, just to watch the phones and bethere if people came by. While I waswaiting, a lot of neighbors came by,dropping off food and so forth. And ofcourse, this being Wisconsin, severalpeople brought over cases of beer.“Yeah, put that first twelve on the backporch so they’ll get nice and cold!”

Then the phone rang. It was DavidSpade. He asked me to give Mrs. Farleyhis number and to tell her he’d called.

DAVID SPADE:It was just very hard. Everybody takes itdifferently. I couldn’t really talk toJohnny or Kevin; they reminded me toomuch of him. I talked to the family butdidn’t go to the funeral. I caught someshit for that, but it was my choice. Icouldn’t deal with it. I couldn’t putmyself through it, and that was selfish,but I didn’t want to grieve in public. I’vetalked to Sandler and those guys, andthey get it. They understand. I just don’tlike it that some people took that asmeaning we weren’t getting along.

TOM FARLEY:Over the weekend, Kevin, Johnny, and Ihad to get Chris a shirt and a pair ofsocks to be buried in. We went to the bigand tall store where Chris would shopwhen he was home; they had hismeasurements. We got him a white shirt,but instead of black socks, they had thesered and green Ho-Ho -Ho socks with alittle Santa Claus on them. I said, “I thinkChris would want to be buried in these.”So we bought those, and we all had agood laugh about it.

We went and delivered them to thefuneral home, and they told us to takethem around to the back entrance, which

is where they actually prepare thebodies. That’s when it really hit meagain: I was delivering socks for mybrother to be buried in. The whole weekwas just full of those moments,realizations like that.

JOEL MURRAY:The morning of the service, DavidPasquesi, Bonnie Hunt, Holly Wortell,and I ended up in a car together, drivingup to Madison and telling stories. To aman, everyone in that car was saying,“Why isn’t this his wedding? Why aren’twe here for him to be marrying some

nice local girl? What a party that wouldhave been.”

TOM FARLEY:The funeral was two days beforeChristmas, and so everyone went throughhell trying to get to Madison from allover. They already had holiday travelbooked elsewhere and they had tochange flights, and so many of the flightswere already oversold. It was anightmare.

JOHN GOODMAN:

I flew in through Chicago and the flightwas late and I had to sprint for about ahalf mile through the terminal to makemy connection—and me sprinting is notcool. For a moment I thought maybethere would have to be two funerals.Then I landed in Madison and the taxigot lost and couldn’t find the church.Finally I saw this huge mass of reporterson the street, and I told him to let me outand I just walked.

JOHN FARLEY:I’ll never forget the sight of JohnGoodman. The parking lot had been kept

empty, and this massive bank of newscrews had been cordoned off way backat the street. All of a sudden, you see thispack of reporters in a startled panic asGoodman just parts them like the RedSea, elbowing them aside and yelling“Get outta the way!” He breaks throughthem and here he comes, trudgingthrough the snow with these twomassive, heavy suitcases under his armsand his big beige raincoat flapping in thefreezing wind. John Goodman, thatmotherfucker, he loved Chris. Come hellor high water he was gonna make thatfuneral.

TIM MEADOWS:Lorne was flying up by himself fromColorado. I met up with him at theMadison airport and we got a car. Wewere running really late. The servicehad already started, so I didn’t see hisbody in the casket, and I didn’t reallywant to.

TOM FARLEY:We had an open casket at the church. Westood there in this receiving line that juststretched on and on forever. Peoplewere coming through, paying their

respects, and then taking their seats inthe church. After a while we just shut thecasket and had people go to their seats,otherwise we never would have gottento the ceremony.

TODD GREEN:All the Edgewood guys were there. Itwas really hard for Mike and KevinCleary. They’d already lost their fatherand a brother, and Kevin had put somuch into trying to save Chris. But theperson I felt really sorry for was KitKat. She was there all by herself, andnobody talked to her.

LORRI BAGLEY:I didn’t really know where to be, or whoto be with. I was having these heavingsobs, and this woman took me and let mesit next to her in the pew. Dan Aykroydcame over to me and said something. Idon’t remember what it was, but itimmediately put me at ease. He knewwhat to say, because he’d been therebefore.

JILLIAN SEELY:Everyone was saying, “You had to haveseen it coming.” But Chris was so full of

life that you just wouldn’t think that hewould die. People were in shock. I wasstanding next to Adam Sandler, and Isaid, “This just doesn’t seem real.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I keep expectinghim to open up the coffin and be okay.”

ALEC BALDWIN:It’s sad when something like thathappens to anyone, but somehow itseemed sadder when it happened toChris. Most of the people whom I’veseen go down that path, they didn’t havethe humanity that he had.

KEVIN FARLEY:A lot of people showed. Sandler, ChrisRock, and John Goodman. Al Frankenand Norm Macdonald. I was just blownaway by the life that Chris had lived.There was a deep melancholy in theroom, but you also felt this great lovefrom everyone. He had touched so manypeople. As sad as I was, I was reallyproud of him.

PAT FINN:I was one of the pallbearers, along withthe Edgewood guys. Just walking the

casket in was tough. When you’re thirty-three you don’t expect to be doing this.It’s something you should be doing foryour great-grandfather or something.

It was also strange because the roomwas filled with people whose nameswere synonymous with comedy andlaughter, and yet the room was the exactopposite.

KEVIN FARLEY:Nobody in that room could hold ittogether.

TIM MEADOWS:I was sitting in front of Sandler andRock and Rob Schneider. At one point Istarted crying, and Aykroyd came overand put his arm around me. After thefuneral, Chris Rock just lost it. That wasthe first time I’d ever seen him cry.Sandler, too. That’s how it was thewhole day. We were a bunch of men whonever cried, who never got emotional,who never showed that side of ourselvesto each other. And we all just cried andcried uncontrollably all day.

ROBERT BARRY:

Mr. Farley was by far the worst ofanyone. Chris was his life. EverySaturday night he’d line up a tumbler ofDewars Scotch, pull up in front of theTV, and laugh and laugh for hours atwhatever Chris did. After the ceremony,the pallbearers and the family went backto put Chris in the mausoleum. Mr.Farley had his head in his hands, and hewas just sobbing. “My boy’s notsupposed to be gone. Not before me.”

PAT FINN:We were there in the mausoleum,probably about fifteen or twenty of us,

for the priests to say the last, finalblessing. And I’ll never forget the sightof Mr. Farley, getting up from his chair,which was tough for him to do, andputting his arms around the casket. Hestood up, just this big bear of a man, andhe reached around and he hugged thecasket and he wouldn’t let it go.

TED DONDANVILLE:He stood up and raised his arm and withhis big, open hand he slapped the coffintwice, loud and hard. Boom! Boom! Itechoed across the room, sending a joltthrough everyone. It was like a final

send-off, a father’s last good-bye.

FR. TOM GANNON:I only really remember one thing fromthe funeral, and that was looking at thefather and thinking he wouldn’t last ayear after Chris.

KEVIN FARLEY:We all knew Dad wouldn’t be too longto follow. I think even he knew it. Heclosed down the business, paid off themortgage, made sure all his insurance

was in order. When you wake up in themorning, what gets you through the dayis your hopes and dreams for tomorrow.For Dad a lot of that was gone afterChris died. He couldn’t find it again.They say that happens when you bury achild. I would have long talks with him,and he was just confused about thewhole thing, wondering why it hadhappened, asking God why it hadhappened. It was such a shock that it lefthim in a daze. For the rest of his life hejust sat in his chair, staring out thewindow. But from that day until the dayhe died, a little over a year later, henever picked up the bottle again.

FRED WOLF:I actually didn’t go to Chris’s funeral.My own father had had a heart attack andalmost died. I’d gone up to Montana tovisit him. I spent that day at the hospital,and I told him about Chris, that thefuneral was going on right at thatmoment.

My father and I never knew how totalk to each other. He was an alcoholic,and our relationship was difficult. Ididn’t know him that well. One of theonly really heartfelt conversations weever had was that day, about Chris. Mydad was saying how the things Chris didare so important for the world, that Chris

may have been fighting these demons,but he helped a lot of people who werefighting those same demons feel better, ifonly for a little while. And I know thatsounds sappy. It sounds like somethingyou’d see sewn onto a quilt for sale inthe window of some souvenir shop. Butat the same time, there’s a lot of truth inthose quilts.

BOB ODENKIRK:At the core of being funny is frustration,and even some anger, at the world. AndChris had so much constantly happeninginside him that he was always being

chased into that corner. He was alwaysliving inside that space, and that’s whyhe was just funny all of the time. Thatwas his choice. He made a lot ofunhealthy choices, but that was thehealthiest choice he could make to dealwith the feelings that he had. You takesome of the most intellectual comics inthe world, and what’s going on in theirwork, on a basic emotional level, is thesame thing that was going on with Chris—his life was the purest expression ofwhat it is to be a comedian.

DAN HEALY, friend:

It wasn’t just that he made you laughhysterically all the time; he did, but itwas more who he was. I’ve struggled somany times to put into words exactlywhy Chris had such a huge impact on allof our lives. He had such a faith in otherpeople. He believed in those basicthings like goodness and right andwrong. When you were with him, he hadthis demeanor that simplified things foryou. He let you take everything that wascomplicated in your life and just set itaside for a bit. And that was really thegift he gave us, honestly. Being withChris reminded you that there was a timewhen you could still believe in all thethings that he believed in. It reminded

you of a time when you were luckyenough to look at the world throughhonest eyes.

IAN MAXTONE-GRAHAM,writer:

The week that Paul McCartney was themusical guest, someone said, "Let’s do a’Chris Farley Show.’ ”

Chris had done it twice before, withJeff Daniels and with Martin Scorsese,and we all said, “Eh, it’s been done.There’s no new moves there.”

But they decided to do it anyway.

Franken and I were assigned to write it,and I was so glad that we hadn’tpersuaded people not to do it. It’s sooften the case that you write somethingyou’re not that excited about and then theperformer brings something to it and youthink, my God, I’m glad I was at workthat day.

It played unbelievably sweet. It wasso sweet that even now, ten years later, Iget goose bumps just thinking aboutwatching it. There’s that one momentwhere Chris says to McCartney,“Remember when you were in theBeatles, and you did that album AbbeyRoad, and at the very end of the song itgoes, ‘And in the end, the love you take

is equal to the love you make’? Youremember that?”

“Yes.”“Um, is that true?”And McCartney says, “Yes, Chris. In

my experience it is. I’ve found that themore you give, the more you get.”

And Chris is just like, “Awesome!”And in that moment Chris isn’t acting

at all. It’s really Chris, tapping into thatquiet, needy part of himself. You see itup there on the stage. What you see inthat sketch is the actual Chris Farleybeing happy that the actual PaulMcCartney is telling him that there is aninfinite amount of love in the world, and

that someday that love will come back tohim.

EpilogueChristmas was always Chris Farley’sfavorite time of year, a time he madecertain to be home in Madison,surrounded by family and childhoodfriends. But on December 22, 1997, hehad come home to stay. Following thefuneral service at Our Lady Queen ofPeace Church, Chris was laid to rest in amausoleum at Resurrection Cemetery,just down the road.

Although the last days of Chris’s lifein Chicago had been toxic and frenzied,at some point along the way he hadarrested his downward spiral andpaused to do his holiday shopping,

picking out special presents for hisparents and his siblings, handwritingpersonal notes to accompany eachspecially wrapped box. And so onChristmas Eve, only two days afterburying their son, with the winter chillblowing in from the frozen lake outside,the Farley family sat around the tree intheir living room and opened their finalpresents from Chris. He’d bought hismother two small ceramic clowns.

On January 2, 1998, the Office of theCook County Medical Examiner issuedan autopsy report in the case of Chris’sdeath. It stated that he had died of opiateand cocaine intoxication, with coronaryatherosclerosis as a significant

contributing condition. Chris’s bodytested positive for cocaine and morphine(metabolized heroin) as well as traces ofmarijuana and the prescriptionantidepressant Prozac. No alcohol wasfound in his system at the time, but hisliver showed signs of significant damagefrom years of drinking. Blockages offifty to ninety percent were found in hismajor coronary arteries from years ofunhealthy eating. The report ruled hisdeath an accident.

On May 29, 1998, Edwards & Huntwas released under the newly test-marketed name Almost Heroes. Chris’spassing cast a shadow over the film, andcostar Matthew Perry’s own public

struggle with addiction at the time didn’thelp much, either. The film’s offbeatsense of humor failed to translateonscreen, and scenes of Chris’scharacter acting drunk and out of controlwere particularly difficult to watch.Critics panned the film, lamenting thetragedy of its being the final installmentof Chris’s brief career. It earned a littleover $6 million at the box office andquickly passed into history.

That summer, Chris was treated to onelast curtain call. Norm Mac-Donald’sDirty Work, which featured Chris in asmall cameo, was released on June 12.In it Chris played an ornery bar patronwhose nose had been bitten off by a

Saigon whore, providing some of thefilm’s best laughs.

During the year after Chris’s funeral,the health of his father, Tom Farley, Sr.,deteriorated rapidly. Chris’s death hadforced him to stop drinking, but thedamage had largely been done. Morbidobesity and liver failure left himseverely debilitated, and soon hiscondition was exacerbated by a bad fall.In March 1999, he checked in to ahospital. After several days of constantvigil, Tom asked his family to go homeand rest while he did the same. He diedthree hours later. He was sixty-threeyears old.

In the months immediately following

Chris’s death, several of his friends hadmade charitable donations to the familyin Chris’s name. Lorne Michaels ofSaturday Night Live, meanwhile, issueda Best of Chris Farley home video,pledging a portion of the proceeds onceagain to the family. With this capital,Tom Farley, Sr., started the Chris FarleyFoundation (www.thinklaughlive.com),a nonprofit organization to promoteawareness and prevention of substanceabuse problems. In its earliestincarnation, the foundation producedanti-drug public service announcementswith past and current stars of SaturdayNight Live.

From 1999 to 2003, the foundation

hosted Comics Come Home inpartnership with Comedy Central. Anannual comedy event held in Madison, itfeatured the talents of David Spade,Dave Chappelle, Tom Arnold, NormMacDonald, Bob Saget, and others. Withthe funds raised at Comics Come Homeand other events, the Chris FarleyFoundation works with high schools andcolleges across the Midwest to developprograms and seminars aimed ateducating kids on the dangers of drugs,primarily through the use of humor andstrong communication skills. Today, TomFarley, Jr., serves as the foundationpresident.

In late 2003, ImprovOlympic founder

Charna Halpern petitioned theHollywood Walk of Fame committee togive Chris Farley a star on HollywoodBoulevard. The organization hands outvery few posthumous honors and almostnone to those who pass away in less thanrosy circumstances, as Chris had. But inApril 2004, John Belushi was at longlast honored by the organization, andHalpern seized on the precedent to lobbyeven more strongly on Chris’s behalf.Michael Ewing, one of the producers ofTommy Boy, approached ParamountStudios to sponsor Chris’s application.With the tenth anniversary DVD releaseof Tommy Boy just on the horizon, theright moment presented itself. Paramount

helped push the nomination through andpegged the DVD’s launch to theupcoming event.

On Friday, August 26, 2005, theFarley family joined several luminariesfrom Chris’s life—Adam Sandler, DavidSpade, Chris Rock, Tom Arnold, SarahSilverman, Peter Segal, BernieBrillstein, and more—as they unveiledChris’s star, the 2,289th, onHollywood’s Walk of Fame. The tonewas far more festive than somber. MaryAnne Farley accepted the award onChris’s behalf. Chris Rock declared that“every fat comedian working todayowes Chris eighty bucks,” and DavidSpade wistfully observed that if Chris

were alive today, “he’d be working forSandler, too.” Chris’s star is located atthe corner of Hollywood Boulevard andCosmo Street, directly in front of thetheater for ImprovOlympic West.

In 2007, St. Malachy’s Church in NewYork celebrated the second annualFather George Moore Awards. Moorewas a pastor at St. Malachy’s in the1970s and 1980s and was a drivingforce in the efforts to save Times Squarefrom the drugs and crime that hadovertaken it. The George Moore Awardshonor individuals who embody theclerygyman’s commitment to communityservice and who have elevatedmankind’s spirit through their work in

theater, television, film, music, or art.Chris, both as a famous movie star andas a humble parishioner, surely fit thatdescription, and, on the tenth anniversaryof his passing, St. Malachy’s chose himto receive it.

On October 1, the Farleys joinedLorne Michaels, Alec Baldwin, DanAykroyd, and the entire current cast ofSaturday Night Live for a special masssaid in Chris’s honor—with a sermondelivered by Father Matt Foley—followed by a dinner and awardsceremony at the landmark Broadwayrestaurant Sardi’s. At the dinner, SNL’sAmy Poehler served as emcee,presenting a number of smaller awards

to other members of the St. Malachy’scommunity and introducing the evening’senertainment: a sketch from the SNLplayers, and young Broadway starMatthew Gumley performing “TheRose,” a song Chris had often sung forthe seniors he entertained at St.Malachy’s social events.

In the midst of the proceedings, justbefore Mary Anne Farley acceptedChris’s award from Lorne Michaels,SNL veteran Dan Aykroyd rose to say afew words. He did not go up to use themicrophone and podium on the dais, butinstead walked the aisles among thedinner guests, speaking off the cuff abouthis memories. He did a few spot-on

impressions of Chris. He spoke of timespent together on the set of Tommy Boy,how the young star would come to histrailer and sit at his knee to hear storiesabout the old days. He spoke of Chris’sfaith, of his belief in using laughter tobring joy to those less fortunate. Hespoke of Chris taking his God-giventalent and turning it back out into theworld to try and make it a better place.Concluding the speech, Aykroyd singledout all the actors, comedians, and otherartists in attendance, and he challengedthem to do the same.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TOM FARLEY:

I want to thank everyone who pouredtheir heart out in these interviews. Iknow well how talking about Chris canbe both fun and painful, so I appreciateeveryone who shared their memoriesand emotions in this book. I wouldespecially like to acknowledge thefollowing people who have providedendless help and support to me, theChris Farley Foundation, and thisproject:

My beautiful wife, Laura; my fantastickids, Mary Kate, Emma, and Tommy; mymom, Mary Anne Farley, and my sister,Barb; my brothers Kevin and John, thegreatest, funniest guys I know; Fr. MattFoley and Fr. Tom Gannon; the SNLfamily, who have been amazing to usevery step of the way, especially MarciKlein, who understood Chris the secondhe walked into 30 Rock, and LorneMichaels; Chris’s buddies David Spade,Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, RobertSmigel, and Rob Schneider, who haveall supported our foundation from thebeginning; Chris’s homeboys, DanHealy, Mike Cleary, Greg Meyer, ToddGreen, Robert Barry, and Pat O’Gara;

Bob and Sue Krohn and the entire RedArrow Camp family, who gave theFarley boys so much of our characterand values; Marquette University andformer dean of communications MichaelPrice, for believing in Chris andpointing him toward the stage; Madison,Wisconsin—our hometown and thegreatest place on earth; the Second City,especially Joyce Sloan and AndrewAlexander—I feel like I’m home everytime I walk in the door; the Second Citygang: Holly Wortell, Tim Meadows,David Pasquesi, Joel Murray, Pat Finn,Tim O’Malley, and Tim Kazurinsky;Charna Halpern at ImprovOlympic, forall she’s done for Chris and his lasting

memory.Humorology at the University of

Wisconsin, year after year the mostamazing group of young, talented, andphilanthropic college students in thecountry; Jim Farley, my cousin, collegeroommate, and true friend; my goodbuddies Neil Lane, Nils Dahl, and JohnPlum; James Bonneville and TrevorStebbins; Tim Henry and Don Beeby;Michael and Carol Lesser for helping tolaunch the Chris Farley Foundation;Shelly Dutch, who does more to helpkids in recovery than any foundation Iknow; Cindy Grant, for her endlesssupport for the foundation and all thatwe do; Tanner Colby, who now knows

more about Chris than anyone alive(welcome to therapy, my friend).

And finally, Chris’s closest friend andconscience, the late Kevin FrancisCleary.

TANNER COLBY:

I would like to thank, first and foremost,Tom Farley and the Farley family—Mary Anne, Barb, Kevin, and Johnny—for trusting me with their first, last, andonly chance to do this project.

This book almost didn’t happen, andcredit for the fact that it did goes to thenewest and greatest literary agency in

the western world, Foundry Media. Iowe an incalculable debt to PeterMcGuigan, my agent, for picking up thisball and running with it—and stickingwith it despite some rocky moments;Hannah Gordon, for bringing me toFoundry and fielding my near-dailyqueries and neurotic pesterings; YfatReiss Gen-dell, for her crack legaladvice and perpetually sunny demeanor;as well as Kristina Schulz, StephanieAbou, and everyone else at Foundry whomakes it feel like a second home.

On the day this book was purchasedby Viking, it was remarked in thepublishing blogosphere that Viking was“too good” an imprint for a book about

Chris Farley, a comment I take somepride in. Chris’s story is not what mostpeople think it is or expect it to be, and Ithank Wendy Wolf, a great editor and awonderful collaborator, for seeing thestory underneath and being its greatestadvocate. Given her list of bestsellingand prize-winning authors, it’s an honorjust to be stacked on the same shelf inthe same office. I also want to thank LizParker, for proving that a good assistantcan be your best friend in the wholeworld; Carolyn Coleburn and Ann Day,for plotting a PR campaign that everyauthor should be lucky enough to have;Nancy Sheppard and Andrew Duncan,for the shrewdest of marketing

strategies; Sharon Gonzalez, for ferretingout the last (?) mistakes and errors; PaulBuckley, for a book jacket that deservesto be framed; and Daniel Lagin, for alayout that begs to be read.

Months of collaboration wererequired to pull this off, and for thosewho helped I’m eternally grateful. I’dlike to thank John and Kevin Farley,again, for lobbying where it was mostneeded; Ted Dondanville, for openinghis Rolodex and, more reluctantly, hismemories; Tom Davis, Todd Green, andIan Maxtone-Graham, for theirextracurricular help; Christie Tuite, forfinding the elusive Jim Downey; MarcLiepis, for enduring far too many e-

mails; Mike Bosze and Joey Handy, fortheir access to Broadway Video; MikeShoemaker and Marci Klein, for accessat SNL; Chris Osbrink and Tyson Millerat Callahan, for fielding my constantfollow-ups; Julie Warner, for the same;Chris Saito, Susan Wright, and BrianPalagallo, for extra help at Paramount;Jillian Seely, Brian Stack, Lorri Bagley,Holly Wortell, Jim Murphy, and MarkHermacinski, for their wonderfulphotographs; Edie Baskin, for hers; JayForman and Todd Levin, for poring overmuch longer drafts than this; BeckyPoole, for doing the hard work I didn’twant to do; Anna Thorngate, for a greatedit; Shawn Coyne, for giving me a great

start; Michelle Best, Father Baker, andeveryone at St. Malachy’s for honoringChris; and all the agents, managers,publicists, their assistants, and theirassistants’ assistants, for helping us getthe 130- plus interviews that make upthis book.

And lastly, I’ll always rememberMach Arom, for opening a door; MattAtkatz, for his continuing friendship andpatronage; Sheila Thibodaux and MarlaFredericks, for getting the money in ontime; Richard Belzer, for being there atthe beginning; Chris Meloni, for being,very simply, a great guy; Rex Reed, forhis home, hospitality, and friendship;Mitch Glazer and Kelly Lynch, for their

hospitality in Los Angeles; LailaNabulsi, for being such a wonderfulmuse; Judy Belushi Pisano, for herinspiration and spirit; Jerry Daigle, forbeing a clutch player; Alan Donnes, foreverything else; Mom and Dad, foralways being there when I need them;Mason, Jenni, Gus, and Lena, for beingfamily; and Ms. Emily Holland, forbringing me home.

NOTE ON SOURCES ANDMETHOD

The text of Chapter 1, “A MotivatedSpeaker,” was transcribed andcondensed from a speech given by ChrisFarley at the Hazelden drugrehabilitation facility in Center City,Minnesota, in the summer of 1994. TheChris Farley quote at the opening ofChapter 13, “The Devil in the Closet,”was taken from the article “Chris Farley:On the Edge of Disaster,” whichappeared in US magazine and waswritten by Erik Hedegaard. Some quotesfrom Tom Davis were drawn from hisforthcoming memoir, 38 Years of Short-

Term Memory Loss. Other books thatwere helpful as general referencesinclude Live from New York, by TomShales and Jim Miller, and Gasping forAirtime, by Jay Mohr. Otherwise, all ofthe quotes and material in this bookwere drawn from original interviewsconducted by the authors between themonths of October 2005 and May 2007.

Given the confidential, anonymousnature of drug and alcohol rehabilitation,not to mention Chris Farley’s nonexistentfiling and organizational skills, verylittle hard documentation exists as to theexact dates and places of his attempts attreatment and his attendance at variousrecovery meetings. The facts and time

lines presented here were drawn frompersonal notes kept by Mary AnneFarley over the course of Chris’s life.

To every extent possible, the storiespresented by the interviewees werechecked against contemporary sourcesas well as the accounts of othereyewitnesses. In many instances,however, no such verification waspossible. And, naturally, the opinionsand recollections recounted by theparticipants vary wildly and oftendirectly contradict one another. (ChrisFarley was many different things to manydifferent people; such was the nature ofhis personality.) We have endeavored topresent all points of view—even some

the authors and the Farley family do notagree with— in the belief thateveryone’s opinions have merit anddeserve their day in court. Somewherein this tangle of foggy recollection, iffyhindsight, and outright delusion lies thetruth, and readers are invited to find it ontheir own.

THE - OGRAPHIES

FILMOGRAPHY

1992Wayne’s World, dir. Penelope Spheerisas Security Guard1993Coneheads, dir. Steve Barron as Ronniethe MechanicWayne’s World 2, dir. Stephen Surjik asMilton1994Airheads, dir. Michael Lehmann asOfficer Wilson

1995Billy Madison, dir. Tamra Davis as BusDriver (uncredited)Tommy Boy, dir. Peter Segal as Thomas“Tommy” Callahan III1996Black Sheep, dir. Penelope Spheeris asMike Donnelly1997Beverly Hills Ninja, dir. Dennis Duganas Haru1998 (POSTHUMOUS RELEASE)Almost Heroes, dir. Christopher Guestas Bartholomew HuntDirty Work, dir. Bob Saget as Jimmy(uncredited)

SELECTEDVIDEOGRAPHY:

NOTABLE SATURDAYNIGHT LIVE

APPEARANCES

1990-91 SEASON09/29/90, Host: Kyle MacLachlan "TimPeaks,” as Leo the killer10/20/90, Host: George Steinbrenner"Middle-Aged Man,” as drinking buddy"Weekend Update,” as Tom Arnold01/12/91, Host: Joe Mantegna "BillSwerski’s Super Fans,” as ToddO’Conner "I’m Chillin,” as B-Fats01/19/91, Host: Sting "Hedley &

Wyche,” as British toothpaste user02/16/91, Host: Roseanne “After theLaughter,” as Tom Arnold02/23/91, Host: Alec Baldwin “TheMcLaughlin Group,” as Jack Germond05/18/91, Host: George Wendt “BillSwerski’s Super Fans,” as ToddO’Conner1991-92 SEASON09/28/91, Host: Michael Jordan “BillSwerski’s Super Fans: Michael Jordan,”as Todd O’Conner “Schmitt’s Gay,” ashouse sitter10/05/91, Host: Jeff Daniels “The ChrisFarley Show,” as himself11/16/91, Host: Linda Hamilton “TheChris Farley Show,” as himself (with

Martin Scorsese) “Schillervision: SecretTaste Test Gone Wrong,” as angry dinnerpatron11/23/91, Host: Macaulay Culkin “BillSwerski’s Super Fans: Thanksgiving,”as Todd O’Conner12/14/91, Host: Steve Martin “NotGonna Phone It In Tonight,” as himself01/18/92, Host: Chevy Chase “BillSwerski’s Super Fans: Quizmasters,” asTodd O’Conner05/09/92, Host: Tom Hanks “Mr.Belvedere Fan Club,” as Mr. Belvederefan1992-93 SEASON12/05/92, Host: Tom Arnold “BillClinton Visits McDonald’s,” as Hank

Holdgren “Bill Swerski’s Super Fans:Hospital,” as Todd O’Conner02/13/93, Host: Alec Baldwin “GapGirls,” as Cindy “The Chris FarleyShow,” as himself (with PaulMcCartney)02/20/93, Host: Bill Murray “Fond duLac Men’s Jazz Ensemble,” as dancer“The Whipmaster,” as bartender04/10/93, Host: Jason Alexander“Weekend Update,” as Bennett Brauer05/08/93, Host: Christina Applegate“Motivational Speaker,” as Matt Foley“Gap Girls,” as Cindy05/15/93, Host: Kevin Kline “WeekendUpdate,” as Bennett Brauer1993-94 SEASON

10/02/93, Host: Shannen Doherty“Relapsed Guy,” as the relapsed guy10/23/93, Host: John Malkovich “OfMice and Men,” as Lenny/himself10/30/93, Host: Christian Slater“Motivational Speaker: Halloween,” asMatt Foley12/04/93, Host: Charlton Heston “TheHerlihy Boy House-Sitting Service,” asMr. O’Malley11/11/93, Host: Sally Field“Motivational Speaker: Santa Claus,” asMatt Foley01/08/94, Host: Jason Patric “ColdOpen: Giuliani Inauguration,” asAndrew Giuliani “The Herlihy BoyDog-Sitting Service,” as Mr. O’Malley

01/15/94, Host: Sara Gilbert “GapGirls,” as Cindy “Lunchlady Land,” asthe lunch lady02/19/94, Host: Martin Lawrence“Motivational Speaker: ScaredStraight,” as Matt Foley03/12/94, Host: Nancy Kerrigan “PairSkating,” as skating partner03/19/94, Host: Helen Hunt “WeekendUpdate,” as Bennett Brauer04/09/94, Host: Kelsey Grammer“Yankees Game,” as Andrew Giuliani“Iron John: The Musical,” as singer04/16/94, Host: Emilio Estevez “TheHerlihy Boy Grandmother-SittingService,” as Mr. O’Malley05/14/94, Host: Heather Locklear “Bill

Swerski’s Super Fans: Letter to MichaelJordan,” as Todd O’Conner1994-95 SEASON09/24/94, Host: Steve Martin “ClintonAuditions,” as himself11/19/94, Host: John Turturro “It’s aWonderful Newt,” as Newt Gingrich12/03/94, Host: Roseanne “A WomanExploited,” as Tom Arnold12/10/94, Host: Alec Baldwin“Japanese Game Show,” as contestant12/17/94, Host: George Foreman“Motivational Speaker: GeorgeForeman’s Comeback,” as Matt Foley01/14/95, Host: Jeff Daniels“Congressional Session,” as NewtGingrich

01/21/95, Host: David Hyde Pierce“Little Women,” as Toby Adams02/18/95, Host: Deion Sanders “StrangeVisitors,” as SWAT agent03/25/95, Host: John Goodman “BillSwerski’s Super Fans,” as ToddO’Conner (with Brian Dennehy and DanAykroyd)02/18/95, Host: Courtney Cox“Motivational Speaker: Venezuela,” asMatt Foley “Gap Girls: Gapardy,” asCindy05/11/95, Host: David Duchovny “ThePolar Bear Pit,” as himself1997-98 SEASON10/25/97, Host: Chris Farley “ColdOpening: I Can Do It,” as himself

“Monologue,” as himself “Goth Talk,”as rowdy friend “Morning Latte,” as Gil“Mary Katherine Gallagher,” asoverweight classmate “MotivationalSpeaker: Spinning Class,” as Matt Foley“El Niño,” as El Niño “Sally JesseRaphael: Giant Baby,” as the giant baby“Monday Night Football RecordingSession,” as Hank Williams, Jr. “BillSwerski’s Super Fans: Ditka Goes toNew Orleans,” as Todd O’Conner

Index

Adamson, AndrewAlbright, FredApatow, JuddArbuckle, FattyArkin, AlanArnold, TomAykroyd, Dan

Bacon, KevinBagley, Lorri -Baldwin, AlecBarr, Roseanne

Barry, RobertBeard, HenryBelushi, John -Brandmeier, JonathonBreuer, JimBrillstein, BernieBurrows, Nick

Canton, MarkCarlson, RobCarrey, Jim -Carson, JohnnyCarvey, DanaChappelle, DavidChase, ChevyCleary, Kevin

Cleary, MikeClose, DelClose, GlennCohen, JodiColbert, StevenCrimmins, Monsignor MichaelCrosby, Mary AnneCross, DavidCrystal, BillyCusack, Joan

Daniels, JeffDavis, HamiltonDavis, JasonDavis, NancyDavis, Tom

Dennehy, BrianDerek, BoDi Novi, DeniseDondanville, TedDowney, JimDunn, Nora

Estevez, EmilioEwing, Michael -Fallon, SiobhanFarley, BarbaraFarley, Donald StephenFarley, JohnFarley, Kevin -Farley, Mary AnneFarley, Thomas, Jr. -

Farley, Thomas, Sr.Favreau, JohnFey, TinaFinn, PatFoley, Fr. MattFranken, Al

Gannon, Fr. TomGarofalo, JaneaneGarrett, LeifGermond, JackGianas, TomGingrich, NewtGleason, JackieGoldwyn, JohnGomez, Ian

Goodman, JohnGrace, JamesGrammar, KelseyGrazer, BrianGreen, Todd -Gregoropoulos, NoahGrey, BradGuest, ChristopherGumley, MatthewGurvitz, Marc

Hall, MattHall, TonyHalpern, CharnaHandey, JackHartman, Phil

Healy, DanHenry, TimHerlihy, TimHermacinski, MarkHerman, NateHocter, KeithHooks, JanHopper, RandyHunt, Bonnie

Jackson, VictoriaJankel, BradJordan, Michael

Katzenberg, Jeffrey

Kaufman, AndyKay, PeteKeaton, BusterKelley, Fr. JoeKenney, DougKern, DennisKern, ElaineKlein, MarciKlein, RobertKoren, Steven

Lansing, SherryLevy, EugeneLiss, JoeLookner, SteveLovitz, Jon

Lowe, Rob

McCarthy, JosephMcCartney, LindaMcCartney, Paul -MacDonald, NormMcGill, BruceMcGirl, Sr. PeggyMcGivern, ColonelMcKay, AdamMcKean, Michael -MacLachlan, KyleMamet, DavidMandel, DavidMantegna, JoeMaroney, Erin

Martin, SteveMatheson, TimMaturi, JoelMaxtone-Graham, IanMayer, OscarMeadows, TimMeyer, Greg -Michaels, LorneMiller, DennisMiller, Marilyn SuzanneMohr, JayMoore, Fr. GeorgeMorgan, TracyMuller, Erich “Mancow”Murphy, EddieMurphy, JimMurray, Bill

Murray, BrianMurray, JoelMyers, Mike

Nealon, KevinNewman, EricNutter, Mark

O’Brien, Conan -O’Connell, Sr. TheresaO’Connor, ToddOdenkirk, BobO’Donoghue, MichaelOedekerk, SteveO’Gara, Pat

O’Malley, TimOteri, Cheri

Pasquesi, DavidPerry, MatthewPoehler, AmyPrice, Michael

Quaid, Randy

Ramis, Harold Reilly, SheilaRichter, AndyRivers, JoanRobinson, Doug

Rock, ChrisRosenfeld, KarenRossio, Terry

Saget, BobSanders, DeionSandler, AdamSchiller, TomSchneider, RobScorsese, MartinScott, JudithSeely, JillianSegal, PeterSeliger, KitShannon, MollyShepard, Sam

Shoemaker, Mike -Short, MartinSills, PaulSilverman, SarahSloane, JoyceSmigel, RobertSpade, David - Spheeris, Penelope -Stack, BrianStiller, BenSwayze, Patrick

Talley, JillTimmons, BobTurner, BonnieTurner, Terry

Vaughn, VinceVenit, Adam

Warner, Julie -Weiss, BobWendt, GeorgeWenzell, DickWolf, FredWolf, TomWoodbine, BokeemWortell, Holly