Candy, John Franklin

(b. 31 October 1950 in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada; d. 4 March 1994 in Durango, Mexico), Emmy-winning, affable, rotund comedian best known for his SCTV performances and starring roles in such films as Splash; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; Uncle Buck; and Only the Lonely.

Candy’s early years were spent in King City, Ontario, the younger son of working-class parents. His father, Sidney James Candy, a war veteran and car salesman, died from a heart attack at the age of thirty-five. (Candy’s fatherless youth would later figure in one of SCTV’s most popular skits, a parody of Leave It to Beaver. Candy, as Beaver, comments, “Life stinks, Wally.”) After his father’s death, his mother, Evangeline Aker, moved her two children to her parents’ bungalow in East York, Ontario, and worked as a clerk in a retail store. John attended Holy Cross Catholic School and was an altar boy. He sold bottle caps to see films. Candy said, “I would come home and re-create every movie…. I think I may have become an actor to hide from myself.”

Candy, a first-generation TV viewer, feared he might become a television addict from watching so much TV; his early favorites included Jack Benny, ]ack Paar, and The Honeymooners. Nevertheless, Candy told Playboy, “I wasn’t interested in any one show. I was influenced by the medium.”

Candy created shows in neighbors’ garages. After finishing the eighth grade, he attended Neil McNeil Catholic School in the four-year diploma stream, making passing grades. Self-conscious because of his large size, he preferred to be on the gym team that wore shirts rather than on the one that did not. He played clarinet, served as student council treasurer, and was tackle for the football team. Although gentle in manner, he was also an aggressive team player. A knee injury ended his football career, but he later co-owned the Toronto Argonauts team in the Canadian Football League.

Despite Candy’s innocent demeanor, he smoked cigarettes at school, tried marijuana, and drank. His drama teacher claimed that Candy took drama because the typing class was full. In a production of Julius Caesar and Burning Effigy, Candy drew laughs with his role as a dog. His friend Jonathon O’Mara said of Candy, “At first he would just strike you as a fun guy to be around,… but he also had a side to him that a lot of people didn’t see. He was very sensitive, and eager to be liked.” Candy worked at various part-time jobs and drove people to bingo and stores in his “White Knight” Chevrolet. When he left home, Candy said, “It was quite traumatic for everyone.”

He entered Centennial Community College in Scarborough, Ontario, confessing, “I didn’t know what I wanted to be.” Candy quit during his second year to become an actor. In 1970 Toronto talent agent Catherine McCartney auditioned him for a toothpaste commercial. Art Linkletter corrected Candy for smoking on the set. Candy, who was six feet, three inches tall and later weighed more than 275 pounds, retorted, “Yeah, it might stunt my growth.”

In a local theater group, he received $40 a week for a part in Creeps (1971), costarring Dan Aykroyd, who would later figure prominently in Candy’s career. During this time Candy met Rosemary Margaret Hobor. They married in 1979 and had two children. Also during this period, Candy worked for Perkins Paper as a door-to-door salesman, claiming, “I was terrible at it. Out of forty salesmen, I was number forty. I was having so much fun doing theater my heart just wasn’t in flogging napkins.” His boss agreed. “Candy, you’re fired. I should never have hired a damned actor.”

He joined a children’s troupe, the Caravan Theater, in 1972. Candy and Gale Garnett were yoked together as toadstools. Despite close proximity, Garnett said Candy was professional and supportive but someone “whom I didn’t know at all.” That summer, Candy met Marcus O’Hara and his girlfriend, Gilda Radner, who would achieve fame herself as a comedian and who would become close friends with Candy.

Candy’s career entered a promising new phase when he joined Chicago’s Second City theater troupe in 1973. In 1974 he moved back to Toronto to help establish a local Second City troupe, and it was here that he would land his first breakthrough part. The venue was SCTV, a television program created and performed by the Second City troupe. The program ran in syndication between 1977 and 1979 as SCTV and again between 1981 and 1983 as SCTV Network 90. Candy both wrote for and performed on the show, and his memorable characters included Johnny LaRue, Mayor Tommy Shanks, the Guy with the Snake on His Face, Orson Welles, Luciano Pavarotti, and Yosh Schmenge. For his work on SCTV, Candy won Emmy Awards in 1982 and 1983.

Candy performed in or directed at least one film a year beginning in 1974, but it was after his success with SCTV that his most notable roles occurred. The films in which he acted included Stripes (1981), Summer Rental (1985), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Spaceballs (1987), Speed Zone! (1989), Who’s Harry Crumb? (1989), The Rescuers Down Under (1991), Delirious (1991), Only the Lonely (1991), Nothing but Trouble (1991), and Once upon a Crime (1992). The careers of Candy, Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, and the director Ron Howard took off with Splash (1984), in which Candy played the brother of Hanks’s mermaid-smitten character. After Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), the stress of fame made him long for the old days with friends at Second City. In The Great Outdoors (1988), in which he starred with Aykroyd, Candy played opposite a 1,400-pound grizzly bear in “one of the most frightening experiences of my life.” He enjoyed pleasing his fans but disliked personal attention. At one point Toronto producer John Brunton arranged a television tribute for Candy at Toronto’s Sky Dome, but Candy refused. “It’s too embarrassing to have all this attention directed at me.”

Cool Runnings (1993) was Candy’s last popular movie. In November 1993 Candy made his final public appearance with his friend Eugene Levy at a benefit performance at the Sky Dome. Troubled by anxiety and lack of sleep, Candy said his deceased friend Gilda Radner had appeared in a dream. “Don’t worry, John,” she said, “everything is going to be all right.” Within months, Candy died of a heart attack in his sleep in Durango, Mexico, while filming Wagons East. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery and Mausoleum in Culver City, California.

John Candy lived out his childhood dream as a film star. More important, he discovered himself. Candy said, “It took me a long time to learn what is really valuable in life. I went through a period of real acquisitiveness … as if owning lots of stuff said a damn about who you really are and what your life really means. Maybe I’ve finally learned what happiness is: my family, my wife, my kids. We’re only here a short time. Let’s enjoy it, whatever happens. We love each other. That’s all that matters.”

Martin Knelman, Laughing on the Outside: The Life of John Candy (1996), provides an intimate chronological study of Candy’s life. Steven A. LuKanic, ed., Film Actors Guide (1991), offers complete release information about Candy’s movies through 1991. David Inman, The T.V. Encyclopedia (1991), contains information about thousands of Television personalities and discusses Candy’s Emmy Awards. Ronald L. Smith, Who’s Who in Comedy: Comedians, Comics, and Clowns from Vaudeville to Today’s Stand-ups (1992), follows Candy’s career in narrative and by films, television, and on video. Ephraim Katz, ed., The Film Encyclopedia (1994), is a comprehensive one-volume encyclopedia of world cinema that includes information about Candy’s film roles. Larry Langman and Paul Gold, Comedy Quotes from the Movies (1994), cover more than 4,000 humorous quotes from film genres, topically arranged and indexed. Everett Grant Jarvis, Final Curtain: Deaths of Noted Movie and Television Personalities 1912–1996 (1996), references original birth records and death statistics through 3 May 1996 and locations of cemeteries. Biographical information about Candy, photos, and fan letters are available at www.john-candy.com. An obituary is in the New York Times (5 Mar. 1994).

Sandra Redmond Peters