Chris Farley's unique comedy stylings delighted Saturday Night Live viewers and moviegoers
throughout the 90s.
But despite how hilarious he was on screen, in many ways he was the archetypal sad clown.
This is his tragic real-life story.
Farley burst into the mainstream when he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1990.
He quickly became an extremely well-liked part of the show, which paved his path toward
movie stardom.
However, all good things must come to an end.
And in Farley's case, that end came in a profoundly uncomfortable way when both he and his best
friend, Adam Sandler, were let go from the show in 1995.
In a 2017 interview with the Daily Beast, Sandler discussed that fateful day back in
1995:
"We kind of quit at the same time as being fired.
It was the end of the run for us.
The fact that me and him got fired?
Who knows."
While the end was rough, the journey was special, as Sandler did point out that the two had
a good run on the show.
While getting fired hurt them "a lot" back then, other opportunities eventually arose
soon enough.
Sandler also made sure to mention that he misses Farley, whom he views as a dominant
force in comedy.
As he put it,
"He's the strongest presence I've ever seen."
"He was the best.
We all loved that boy."
Farley's life was often tumultuous thanks to his fondness for drink and drugs.
By the time of his untimely death on December 18, 1997, he'd been indulging in several substances
for a long, long time.
Alcohol, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and mushrooms were all on the table, along with his penchant
for overeating.
While Farley was a man with many vices, he was also acutely aware of his shortcomings
and often tried to get his destructive habits under control.
He went to Overeaters Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous.
He did stints at rehab and weight loss centers.
According to Entertainment Weekly, during his final two years alone he made at least
17 trips to rehab, and attempted all sorts of purges and programs.
"This time I'm not just talking the talk.
But I'm gonna be walking the walk."
Farley visited one particular detox center, Hazelden, so often that a friend of his said
that they should've named a wing after him.
Unfortunately, none of Farley's many attempts at cleaning up his act stuck, as he always
relapsed sooner or later.
Everyone who's familiar with Chris Farley's particular brand of comedy knows that he was
extremely physical and agile for such a large man.
This was no mere fluke, as he really did have great athletic prowess.
A 1998 Rolling Stone article discussed how he was an excellent athlete during his school
years.
He was a fantastic swimmer, and his size made him a natural choice for the football team.
At his peak, he was an All-City defensive lineman.
But alas, his dreams of becoming a pro never came to fruition, as his 5'9", 230-pound frame
wasn't quite large enough to make it in the big leagues.
Having been let down by his own size, young Farley was left to figure out another way
to make sense of his life.
He was still quite big enough to draw ridicule from other kids, and he'd developed a habit
of making fun of himself as a coping mechanism.
So he decided to draw inspiration from his hero, John Belushi, and make comedy his new
"contact sport."
Even though his original, football-based career plans didn't pan out, the physical training
he went through helped with his whirlwind style of comedy.
SNL boss Lorne Michaels has even described Farley as an athlete who "knew how to use
his body" and "could play hurt."
Being on the heavier side wasn't always easy for Farley.
In fact, he endured a childhood full of bullying in which he was pelted with some awful nicknames.
He revealed to Rolling Stone some of the worst:
"Fartley, Lard Ass, Tubby and, of course, Fatso was standard."
To counteract this attack, he'd often use his talent for comedy as a defense mechanism,
mocking his own weight before others could.
Fame and adulthood weren't enough for Farley to escape the occasional nasty remark, and
the barbs weren't always weight-themed.
He told Rolling Stone a story of meeting Hustler Magazine founder Larry Flynt at the Academy
Awards, revealing that Flynt told him,
"It's good to see somebody make it that didn't make it all the way through puberty."
It goes without saying that Farley was less than impressed by this burn, and indeed, he
described his own reaction as,
"Well, f--- you, a------!"
Farley suffered from a serious heart disease called atherosclerosis, which authorities
considered to be a significant contributing factor to his death.
This condition is no laughing matter.
According to The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, it makes the fat, calcium,
and other things in your blood build up inside the arteries as a substance called plaque.
As the buildup progresses, it disrupts blood flow, giving your body less and less oxygen-rich
blood.
This can lead to some serious problems, like strokes, heart attacks, or even death.
As it happens, Farley isn't the only celebrity who suffered from atherosclerosis and died
before their time.
Singer Whitney Houston also struggled with addiction and had the same heart condition.
When she died in 2012, the Los Angeles County Coroner's chief stated that the cause of her
death was "drowning due to atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use."
As funny and talented as Chris Farley was, his success wasn't enough to keep his insecurity
at bay.
"Oh, what an idiot!"
He was uncomfortable with his weight, and he secretly feared that he might lose his
comedy edge.
When Rolling Stone interviewed him, he opened up about his deep insecurities, and admitted
that he was, quote, "always terrified."
According to Farley himself, his often bombastic behavior was a reaction to his fear of people,
and he was deeply scared that his movies wouldn't do well and he'd stop getting acting work.
Other sources of terror included kissing up to studio executives, losing weight only to
discover that he wouldn't be funny anymore, and even telling a great joke.
He felt that when the roar of laughter died down, what followed was, quote, "the most
terrifying silence you've ever heard."
That's a lot of insecurities piling up on one man, especially one who lived his life
in the limelight.
And Farley's fears and insecurities weren't all about his professional life.
He also had worries based around religion, and he was concerned that he'd never be able
to settle down with a nice woman and start a family.
In the documentary I Am Chris Farley, one of Farley's SNL castmates, Mike Myers, talked
about how he used to do improv with Farley at Chicago's Second City comedy club.
He noted that Farley had a reputation as a physically hazardous coworker.
As Myers put it,
"I was scared to death, because he had already knocked someone's tooth out and [given] someone
else a scar just from being so crazy."
Farley eventually made it to the greener pastures of Saturday Night Live and beyond, but this
didn't necessarily mean that his coworkers were any safer than before.
In 2016, Adam Sandler revealed on an episode of Conan that Farley once threatened to punch
David Spade, his good friend and castmate.
Spade took care to stay out of Farley's reach the following day, even after Farley dismissed
his threatening voicemail as a joke.
"I go, 'It didn't sound like you were kidding.'
He goes, 'Don't tell Lorne!'"
"Oh, oh!
Yeah, yeah!"
During a 2015 appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Spade said that things
once got much worse when the pair were shooting Tommy Boy.
Farley hated when Spade went to have drinks with Rob Lowe while he slept, and he had his
vengeance the next day, as he crunched Spade's hand with his boots and then Spade threw his
Diet Coke at him.
“It was straight out of, like, Atlanta Housewives."
"They fought."
"And then he threw me down the stairs and then they said 'Action.'"
"Like a proper fight?"
"Yeah."
"You're in a proper fight about Rob Lowe?"
On December 18, 1997, Chris Farley was found dead in his Chicago apartment by his brother
John.
His system contained traces of cocaine, morphine and marijuana.
He was only 33 years old.
The four-day bender that ended his life came shortly after he returned home from a quick
stint at the Hazelden detox center in Minneapolis.
An avid churchgoer, he spent a few days going to mass and doing normal holiday preparations,
like baking Christmas cookies and getting a tricked-out tree.
His friend Jillian Seely said that the comedian was quite enthusiastic about an upcoming movie
he was starring in called Almost Heroes.
Unfortunately, this relatively mellow existence didn't last.
On December 14, Farley began bar-hopping through the city's drinking establishments, accompanied
by various ladies and tearing through a huge quantity of alcohol and narcotics.
According to the book The Chris Farley Show, the comedian's last moments were spent taking
drugs with a call girl, who eventually stole his watch, took pictures of him collapsed
on the living room floor, and left after leaving a note.
Farley died alone, and his final words reportedly were,
"Don't leave me."
It would be inaccurate to say that Chris Farley wasn't successful or popular.
He was undoubtedly well-known and well-liked.
However, a quick glance at his IMDb page shows that while his idol, John Belushi, had Animal
House and Blues Brothers to cement his legacy, Farley never really had quite the same star-making
roles on the silver screen.
Some of his fans might argue that the likes of Tommy Boy and Black Sheep are plenty beloved,
but there's no arguing that his career was cut tragically short.
Had he lived a little longer or been a little luckier, however, the situation might've been
very different.
In 2012, Splitsider looked into some of the parts Farley never got to play.
These included some roles that happened before he passed away, like the ones that went to
Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy and Randy Quaid in Kingpin.
But the juiciest, most potentially legendary parts are the ones that he missed because
of his untimely demise.
He was supposed to have a major role in Ghostbusters 3, which ultimately never saw the light of
day.
He was reportedly considering starring in the film version of the novel A Confederacy
of Dunces.
And he'd already met with David Mamet regarding a biopic about the silent film actor and comedian
Fatty Arbuckle.
And it must be noted that he'd landed the title role in Shrek, and he even recorded
nearly all of the ogre's lines before passing away.
"Nothing like a fire and a noble romantic mission to warm the cockles of your heart."
"Yeah, I like my cockles room temperature, thank you very much."
Farley's various addictions were not a surprise to those close to him or to the public, especially
towards the end.
As one Chicago columnist wrote,
"[His] may have been the least-surprising premature death of a celebrity in show-business
history."
That's not to say that people didn't try to help him along the way.
Old friends and family were painfully aware of his excesses.
His old SNL boss, Lorne Michaels, fellow actors such as Dan Aykroyd, David Spade, and Tom
Arnold, and Farley's own manager all tried to get him to cut out his vast intake.
Alas, good advice worked just as poorly as rehab clinics, and sooner or later Farley
was back to his old ways.
It was particularly bad during his final days, which his friend Jillian Seely described in
a heartbreaking way.
According to her,
"I know he wanted to get sober, but it was like he had cancer and the chemo treatment
didn't work anymore."
One thing that actually worked on Farley was work itself.
He was aware that whenever he was making movies, he had no choice but to stay clean, because
the studios wanted to protect their investment and make sure he was on his best behavior.
No surprise, then, that when he was making Almost Heroes, daily AA meetings were reportedly
a requirement.
When he was recording his lines for Shrek, things were even stricter, and he was watched
around the clock.
But nobody can work all the time, a truth that fans and loved ones of Farley will never
forget.
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