Chris Farley began his run on Saturday Night Live at about the time I was giving up the show. That's a coincidence not a case of cause and effect, but Farley's charm did happen to be lost on me. He always struck me as what at bottom he was---a big, goofy fat kid who had figured out a long time ago that the best way to keep his teachers and the bullies off balance was to keep them laughing and then got addicted to their laughter.
Lots of great comics started out in grade school as the class clown, but over time they learned to discipline their wit and their intelligence and their performances. The difference between clowns and great comics is that clowns just want to get a laugh and they really don't care why you laugh or what you're laughing at, while great comics want to make you laugh on their terms.
Any clown can get a laugh by dropping his pants. Only Bill Cosby can tell the story of Noah that way.
Farley was a great clown.
That's the portrait of him Jay Mohr paints in his book Gasping for Airtime. Mohr loved Farley. Thought he was hilarious.
Mohr doesn't really touch on Farley's demons or mention his death.
A somewhat sadder picture gets drawn in Live From New York.
Chris Rock: Two guys named Chris, hired on the same day, sharing an office, okay? One's a black guy from Bed-Stuy, one's a white guy from Madison, Wisconsin. Now---which one is going to OD?
Farley idolized John Belushi. I don't think he became self-destructive to imitate his idol. I think the impulse to self-destruct was something he thought he had in common with Belushi and he looked to Belushi for a key to how to handle his demons or at least enjoy the fight.
From what I've read, though, it seems to me that Belushi was trying to get on top of something. Belushi wasn't a hero. But I think he was taking whatever it was he was fighting head on and at full strength. Farley was either running from something or chasing it. Either way, I see him as a sadder, more desperate character, more of a victim.
It sounds too like he was the more decent and likeable guy.
I'm mentioning all that to tell you this and explain why I find it so touching.
Seems Farley was dating a girl he really liked and she dumped him. Went off with another guy. Farley was shocked. He'd had no clue. And he was crushed.
But he had his pride.
"Ok," he told a friend, "Maybe she can find somebody better looking than me. And she might find somebody with more money than me. But she'll never find anyone funnier than me!"
Guy she dumped him for?
Steve Martin.
Wow that's a pretty tragic story. Chris Farley is someone people would always compare me to in my younger, drunker, less mature, wild man days which were taking place about the same time Farley's wild man days were.
By the time Farley died those days for me were coming to an end, I was maturing and getting more intelligent with my humor and taking a different path. Farley at the end was not funny anymore and the tragedy that was his life apparently reflected that. He was, is and will always be a tragic reminder for me of how I could have turned out. This story just kind of adds to that.
Posted by: Joh Padgett | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 02:20 AM
I think you miss the sweetness that was always behind Farley at his best. I particularly think of his interview with Paul McCartney.
"So, remember when you said, 'The love you take, is equal to the love you make?' Is that true?"
He delivered that line with such a combination of innocence and awe, and of course he got a huge laugh.
Posted by: KEn | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 11:16 AM
Oh, tell me it wasn't Anne Heche who dumped Farley for Steve Martin! Because that would've been the best thing to ever happen to Chris.
Posted by: joanr16 | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 01:20 PM
Might have been Victoria Tennant (sp?); didn't she marry Martin? I remember her from "The Winds of War;" she played Pamela Tewksbury.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 03:19 PM
Oh, tell me it wasn't Anne Heche who dumped Farley for Steve Martin!
And when she dumped *him*, Martin said "She may find someone more intelligent or more successful than I am, but she'll never find anyone more masculine."
Posted by: Mike Schilling | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 03:32 PM
And when she dumped Ellen, Ellen said, "She may find someone more intelligent or more successful than I am, but she'll never find anyone more feminine."
Posted by: Jennifer | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 03:56 PM
Farley may have been right. I used to be a big Martin fan but it has been a long time since anything he has done has made me laugh. I think Farley would have grown as a comedian if given a chance but sometimes it is just a breif time they have when they are really on their game, like Martin or Williams or Chase.
Posted by: Paul | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 04:26 PM
Farley's one of those guys I never wanted to like, but at whom I just couldn't stop laughing. Think it must've been that more decent and likeable guy aspect.
Whatever his schtick, there're always "best intentions" and "no one (but me [him]) gets hurt" qualities to it.
I ain't always likin' that 'bout m'self, but it sure could be worse...
Posted by: Michael Bains | Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 06:55 AM
Farley was a legend at the Catholic High School he attended here in Madison: his vast appetites, his practical jokes, his sense of humor. They were still reminiscing about his senior prank when my son went there.
In the end, I couldn't watch him on screen because all there was, was his self-loathing writ large. It was too painful to see.
Posted by: JVD | Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 12:02 PM
an addition to the tale of two chrises -- rock and farley:
rock was a high school drop out, and still might be. i don't know if he ever got a ged or the equivalent. otoh, farley was a graduate of marquette university.
Posted by: harry near indy | Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 05:02 PM
There's some debate as to whether Chris F. ever really got a diploma from Marquette...his hell-raising activities were said to have gotten in the way of any serious Jesuitical study pursuits.
Posted by: JVD | Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 07:17 PM
Hey, JVD, I bet you know my neighbor in Madison, who also went to school with Farley. Now he sells insurance in Madison, has three lovely kids. Or is it four?
Posted by: KathyF | Friday, October 27, 2006 at 07:41 AM
I dropped in on this blog by accident and one question arises in my brain. I dont remember you on the show. You say you gave up the show about the same time as chris got hired, but i dont remember you, whats up with that? Did you mean that you stopped watching? No of course not, because then you wouldnt be able to say those mean things about chris without coming off as a dipshit without any bearing to life as such. Lacocaracha and great juletide greetings from a true friend of chris.
Posted by: as | Saturday, December 16, 2006 at 06:18 AM