Chris Farley Was Battling His `Demons'

Chris Farley knew he was part of a great show-business tradition. He knew that by upholding that tradition, his ability to make people laugh would make him rich. He hoped it would not kill him.

The sad tradition of the Hollywood rotund funnyman sometimes includes an early death: John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy.

Farley was found deadyesterday. Police said Farley's brother John called 911 after finding his brother in his 60th-floor Chicago apartment. Farley was 33.

The cause of death was not known, although police said there was no sign of foul play. An autopsy was completed today, but the results were withheld pending toxicology tests. No drugs were found in an initial sweep of Farley's apartment, police said.

Farley grew up in Wisconsin, went to Marquette University, then joined Second City, the renowned Chicago improvisational troupe that's sent many of its alumni on to fame, fortune and "Saturday Night Live" - most notably, John Belushi, whom Farley idolized and who also died at 33.

On "SNL" - a show he was forbidden to watch as a child - Farley played memorable characters in some of the show's bleakest years - in-your-face, top-volume vulgarians who'd gladly crash into a wall, or go shirtless.

He played a would-be Chippendale dancer who let it all hang out - and out, and out - in a spandex-clad, flab-jiggling audition.

He was Matt Foley, polyester-wearing motivational speaker, whose fire-breathing, foaming exhortations somehow failed to improve his station - Foley "lived in a van, down by the river. . ." He was large, loud and seemingly completely without vanity - a guy who'd haul up his rugby shirt and bang on his belly to the tune of "The Little Drummer Boy," if it was good for a laugh.

In 1992, Farley made his movie debut in "Wayne's World," starring "SNL" alums Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. Farley played a security guard - a small part, but a start.

By 1993, he was Connie Conehead's witless boyfriend in "The Coneheads," and by 1995, the year he left "Saturday Night Live," he was starring in "Tommy Boy," the first in a series of buddy movies he made with another "SNL"-er, the coolly acerbic David Spade. "Tommy Boy" was followed by "Black Sheep" in 1996 and "Beverly Hills Ninja" in 1997. The titles and situations changed, but the Farley character was generally the same - sweet, dim-witted, out of control, a walking punch line with a heart of gold.

But his penchant for eating, drinking and partying hard had his friends worried.

In a US magazine article this year titled "Chris Farley: On the Edge of Disaster," Farley's manager Marc Gurvitz said he was worried about the comic, even though he felt his long battle with booze and drugs was under control.

"He's got a big career and a great life ahead of him," Gurvitz told the magazine. "But will he go the route of John Candy if he's not careful? Of course he will." Candy died of a heart attack in 1994 at 43.

Farley acknowledged his weaknesses.

"I have a tendency toward the pleasures of the flesh," he told the Orange County Register in January. "It's a battle for me, as far as weight and things like that. But I'm curbing them because I want to continue to do comedy, and the two don't mix. So I try to fight those demons."

Farley was aware of the dangers that being as big as he was could pose. He told Playboy in September that he'd tried to diet - once.

"I was in the Pritikin Center in Santa Monica once, trying to lose 30 or 40 pounds in a month. I'd work. . . on a treadmill and with the weights, but it was driving me nuts. So I escaped. Tom Arnold picked me up and we went to Le Dome and had tons of desserts. . . . When I got back to Pritikin, I got busted. They gave me a test, like a Breathalyzer for sugar."

He also explained why he enjoyed playing the clown. "People . . . need a time to laugh. It's up to us to bonk ourselves on the head and slip on a banana peel so the average guy can say, `I may be bad, honey, but I'm not as much of an idiot as that guy on the screen.' "

Former "Saturday Night Live" colleague Adam Sandler said, "We who knew him are going to miss him every day. My thoughts go out to his family, whom he loved and respected more than anything in his life."

As fans mourned his death, many of the interviews he'd given in 1997 seemed sadly prescient.

Farley told the Orange County Register, "I used to think that you could get to a level of success where the laws of the universe didn't apply. But they do. It's still life on life's terms, not on movie-star terms. I still have to work at relationships. I still have to work on my weight and some of my other demons. Once I thought that if I just had enough in the bank, if I had enough fame, that it would be all right.

"But I'm a human being like everyone else. I'm not exempt."