Bob Odenkirk and Chris Farley.Photo: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images; Steve Granitz Archive 1/WireImage
The best time of Bob Odenkirk’s career was when he was on Chicago’s Second City stage with his friend and fellow comedian Chris Farley. Farley’s unsurprising and tragic death, however, was one of the darkest moments, Odenkirk writes in his new memoir. Farley was 33 whenhe died in 1997 of a drug overdose.
“It drove me nuts,” Odenkirk continues. “His rise to fame, blazing moments, assured destruction — it played out just as everyone said it would. Said it to his face.”
InComedy Comedy Comedy Drama, Odenkirk explores the mishaps and most memorable moments during his journey from a comedian writer to a dramatic actor, including the great talents he’s worked with along the way, such as Del Close, Garry Shandling and Ben Stiller. Both Odenkirk and Farley ended up onSaturday Night Live, Odenkirk as a young writer and Farley as one of the show’s many big stars. (The show taught Odenkirk a lot, but also involved lots of anxiety, little sleep and tension with producer Lorne Michaels, he writes.)
Starting in the summer of 1989, Odenkirk was still writing forSNLwhen he got a gig at Chicago’s legendary comedy club Second City, where he wrote sketches and performed with Farley. Once, when Odenkirk’s daughter was about 8 years old she asked him, “What’s the best time you ever had doing your job?”
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“Doing a scene with Chris Farley seven times a week at Second City,” Odenkirk told her, according to the book. As great a comedian as Farley was — in the mid-’90s, he starred in comedy films likeTommy BoyandBilly Madison— equally great were his turmoil and addictions.
“Even back at Second City, I’d watch Chris stumble off into the night after killing it onstage and my mind would write ‘taken from us too soon!’ and all that,” Odenkirk writes inComedy Comedy Comedy Drama. “Someone would say, ‘Chris, you’re gonna kill yourself if you keep this up!’ and it was the billionth time he’d heard it. It didn’t help that, usually, the person predicting his terrible doom was someone Chris knew was envious of his talent and skyrocketing career.”
Odenkirk continues: “Chris tried. He did fight back. But he also, not so secretly, embraced and even maybe found purpose in fulfilling the hackneyed arc of it all.”
He remembers attending a memorial service for a Second City alumni with his girlfriend at the time, Claire. Farley was also there. He was “still being funny,” but he was also drunk and loud. He started throwing furniture around, according to the book.
“I saw Second City regulars share a ‘not this again’ look,” recalls Odenkirk. “They were afraid of his behavior, but even more, they were tired of it.”
Odenkirk and Claire walked Farley back to his apartment. Claire “wisely” waited outside, Odenkirk writes.
Chris Farley.Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
“Once inside his apartment, Chris started upending the furniture again — man, he could throw a couch!” writes theBetter Call Saulstar. “Outside the room, listening to the rumble, Claire seriously considered calling the police.”
At one point, Farley got emotional, Odenkirk remembers. He asked about his idol, the late comedian John Belushi, who died in 1982.
“Then, suddenly, Chris just stopped, got real emotional and timid,” Odenkirk writes, “looked into my eyes, pleadingly, and asked me, ‘Odie . . . do you think Belushi’s in heaven?’ "
“‘I don’t know, Chris. I guess so,’ " Odenkirk said, according to the book, trying to reassure his friend. “‘Yeah. I mean, probably. Now, put down the recliner.’ "
He recalls: “Honestly, looking in Chris’s face when he asked that question was heartbreaking. The cartoon heaven Chris was clinging to would not be helpful in finding a healthier way to live.”
Odenkirk was far from the only one to watch Farley’s downward spiral. Farley maintained sobriety for three years, but he relapsed. In the last years of his life, he went in and out of rehab. “Chris thought he needed to be loaded to excess in order to be accepted,” Farley’s former drug counselor Dallas Taylor told PEOPLE for hisJanuary 1998 obituary.
According to the obituary, Farley seemed to be in an especially dangerous place when he appeared at aSNLreunion in Aspen in March before his death. “There was a hyperawareness of what was going on with Chris,” his formerSNLcastmate Al Franken told PEOPLE at the time. The obituary detailed the “epic binge” that was the last week of Farley’s life. There were late-night parties, exotic dancers and large quantities of drugs and alcohol.
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“Chris played Russian roulette with drugs and alcohol, and it caught up with him,” Jillian Seely, a close friend of Farley’s, told PEOPLE at the time. “He wanted more than anything to be sober, but his addictions overtook him.”
Like many of Farley’s friends, Odenkirk also witnessed Farley’s intense last days.
Odenkirk writes that Farley was in Aspen to attend theSNLreunion and “do cocaine.” When his limo pulled up outside of the bar where Odenkirk and a colleague were hosting a party, Odenkirk went outside to see him. He remembers his friend looking “like a big zit, about to pop,” Odenkirk writes. “Red, bloated, stubble-faced, and sweating profusely.”
Odenkirk thought about telling Farley to step off the dangerous path he was on, but knew it wouldn’t work.
Their conversation in the alley was the last time Odenkirk saw Farley alive.
“I watched the limo pull away and a few weeks later we all had a funeral,” he writes. “What a dumb story. S—.”
Comedy Comedy Comedy Dramais on sale now.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
source: people.com
