* We know today that behind the scenes, comedy's a bit dark. As are comedians. And a lot of comedians will stop at nothing to be funny. Two comedy legends: the Blues Brother and the motivational speaker. John Belushi is a comedic genius. You had the first rock star comic. He just went for it. It was masterful. Chris really had charisma. I mean, you noticed him. Twenty million people every Saturday tuned in to see this man perform. One blazed the trail the other would follow fifteen years later, to the bitter end. Cocaine was the fuel that fed that whole thing. There would be no Saturday Night Live without cocaine. He just threw himself into things. And so if things got messed up or broken along the way, they did. Chris Farley absolutely idolized John Belushi. Chris related to him, and thought, 'If he can do it, I can do it.' Two men from humble beginnings who each went on to rule the comedy roost, only to die identical deaths. When John Belushi discovered cocaine, everything changed. If it's part of your work environment, you just don't know when to put on the brakes. A mentor and a protege who would never meet, but their tragic stories are forever linked. The road to fame and fortune is paved with influences, good and bad. Find out what leads some stars to fall under the influence. Copyright Able 2018 John Belushi was born in the suburbs of Illinois in 1949, the oldest of four children. I think to understand John Belushi's childhood, you have to understand Wheaton, Illinois. Now, think of the most conservative town you've ever been in, and then times that by five, and that's Wheaton, Illinois. His grandmother doesn't even speak English ` she's from Albania, and he sort of has to pantomime and play charades with her to communicate with her. So there's this fascinating sort of origin of his physical comedy, just by communicating with his grandmother. John Belushi broke out of his small town to take his talents to Second City in Chicago, and then national exposure on the TV show Saturday Night Live. He had just so much energy and so much zeal. He would hurl himself against walls ` never felt the pain. He brought to the table a physicality to humour that we didn't see in modern comedy. The small screen was never going to be big enough for John's talent, and in 1978, he makes his movie debut. By 1978, there's no question that John Belushi is a star, and Hollywood is calling. Animal House was the highest grossing comedy of all time at this point. Now think about a hundred years of American movies, and really kind of contemplate what that actually means. But John Belushi is running in top gear with a dangerous drug addiction. John Belushi was a big risk-taker, so obviously he would've experimented with different drugs. He had this manic approach to everything he did, including drugs. He had a reputation for, um, pretty fast living. He's also surrounded by a lot of questionable people that were bad influences. At just age 33, John Belushi is dead from speed-balling cocaine and heroin. What influences was this popular comedian under to end up this way? While attending college just outside of Chicago, John forms the comedy troupe West Compass Players. He is soon discovered by Bernard Sahlins, co-founder of the famed Second City improv theatre. Belushi is just 22 years old. If you think about Second City's origins, from the University of Chicago, it's this high brow, intellectual, philosophical discussions, and then you have this guy come around and just literally attacking the stage. Delicate, patient finesse was not his strong point. His strong point was inspiration and enthusiasm, and a certain kind of recklessness where he just threw himself into things. John Belushi auditions for Bernard Sahlins for Second City, and he claims that it was the best audition he'd ever seen. And just bumped him from step one to step stratosphere. On stage, audiences are discovering John Belushi's comedy. John was the kind of guy that people were drawn to. He just had that magnetic, animal charisma that people just couldn't look away from. Meanwhile, backstage, John is discovering new ways to be funny. Second City, just like everywhere else in the early 70's, was sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Drug use was ubiquitous. It was everywhere. Everyone was doing it. When you work in an environment where drugs are par for the course, there is pressure. You can't suddenly say no because everybody's doing it. So the danger there is, because everybody's doing it, you may not even see it as detrimental, and you may normalize it. At Second City, John meets Del Close, the legendary comedy coach who will become a powerful influencer on the young comedian. You have to understand this guy Del Close. He was the guru. He was this man who kind of came from that 60's generation. He thought drugs were necessary to expand our understanding of the world. Del was one of these people that really lived on the edge. He really ate danger for breakfast. He was a tough guy. Del Close is telling him, 'Comedy is aggression, comedy is not about making you feel good, 'comedy is about killing and comedy is about rage.' And Del Close is manic and spitting in his face and screaming. I had Del Close as a teacher. That's the way he was. I'm sure he had an effect on John. Artistically he did, but I also think psychologically he did. John didn't have a relationship with his own father, so having somebody that loves the same thing he loves, and telling him drugs are something that he needs to do to expand his comedy, that's a real big watershed moment for John Belushi. Under the influence of Del Close, who would ultimately be fired by Second City due to drug use, John is encouraged to experiment with mind-altering substances before his performances. Del Close experimented with virtually every drug, but particularly something like LSD, he felt like that would completely push our boundaries and let us explore new things. These psychedelics will in fact expand the mind to some extent. So if you think the drug is gonna make you more creative, and you're more confident in that, then of course you're gonna think you are. But feeling you're creative, as opposed to actually being creative, are two different things. While pushing the limits of his mind with drugs, John is also pushing the boundaries of improvisation, often to the frustration of his Second City cast mates. In those Second City days, it was sort of known that John Belushi, his need to be funny, caught him trying to rush the punchline and overtake and overpower his cast-mates. It's very much a teamwork oriented process, improv. I give you something and you throw some more spice in the soup. But we're making the soup together. I think for John, he liked to be the head chef. He liked to be the one that kind of called the shots, and at times, that caused some problems, because his comedy was very much 'take over the scene' kind of thing. So if you were in the line of John when he was coming at you to make a physical joke, you know, you just had to grin and bear it. It was like playing football. He was pulled aside by some of his mentors and older members of the cast, and said, 'John, look, you know, this is a team thing, and this is the way we do this.' In his quest to push his own creativity, John tries many different drugs, sometimes resulting in a bad trip. His biggest fear was, 'Will I ever be funny again?' It wasn't, 'Am I gonna die? Am I gonna go blind?' He was terrified that he wouldn't be funny. And he said, 'I will never do anything like this again if I'm funny tomorrow.' And tomorrow came, and we were both funny, and I guess he forgot that promise. It is reported that at this time, Bernie Sahlins, among others, know that John and some of the cast are using drugs, but no one seems to mind as long as the audience is laughing. Bernie Sahlins turned a blind eye to the drug use. He understood that his people needed to, sort of, do that to stay on, and it filled the seats. John always delivered a good performance, he never missed a show, he never missed a rehearsal. John is becoming a big star and an audience favourite at Second City. John Belushi lived his fantasies in Second City. That was a charmed experience for him, and I don't know that that can ever maintain itself for an entire life, or entire career. In 1973, John Belushi is scouted by the comedy team behind National Lampoon. The 24-year-old comedian heads to New York City to star in the off-Broadway production, Lemmings. The cast of National Lampoon's Lemmings included, uh, Chevy Chase, Christopher Guest, and John Belushi. It was funny and smart, sort of a faux rock concert. It just was very fresh and very clever, and everybody on it was very musical, and very, uh, able to imitate other people - they'd do Joe Cocker. John Belushi's spot-on impression of blues rock singer Joe Cocker became one of his most iconic characters on SNL. He was very serious about developing material. He perfected Joe Cocker for years. The whole spinning and falling down. As it's clearly seen in this performance of Lemmings, his Joe Cocker character was well-developed prior to SNL fame. I gotta get up. Up! Up! (GROANS) He would perfect this physical floor performance, seen here on the Lemmings stage, throughout his career at SNL. (SINGS INCOHERENTLY) Helming the ambitious production is Tony Hendra. Tony Hendra was a director, and he kind of had an eye for putting people together, and he was part of that kind of scene, a little older than the guys. A little bit of a mentor to them, a little bit of an enabler for them. The pattern of Belushi's directors encouraging his drug use to enhance comedic performance continues in New York City ` a place where future comic Chris Farley will also encounter dangerous enablers. * What I love about Nova is we make getting great value easy. Ashley, you're right. We're more than just Dawn Ocking and... ...Pam Flets! When people call us, we make their Bill! Easy. We make it easy to Joy Nup. Whether it's April, May, June... ...or the first... ...Dave Spring. So when you need energy to cook Stu! Mo. ...the lawn or manufacture... Polly! Esther. Socks. Great value made easy is our priority number... BOTH: Juan! * One bad influence can lead to the next. John Belushi has been under the influence of Del Close at Second City ` a dangerous mentor that future young comic Chris Farley will meet one day as well. In 1973, Belushi is starring in the off-Broadway play, National Lampoon's Lemmings in New York, and just like in Chicago, he is surrounded by people who have a damaging influence. Tony Hendra had this little thing called 'a drug tax'. Businessmen wanted to be hip. They wanted to hang around with the cool young guys in New York City. So what he would do was shake them down for money, couple hundred bucks here and there, 'Hey, this is for the guys, and this is for us to smoke weed,' but he'd actually buy coke instead. When John Belushi discovered cocaine, everything changed. Cocaine was the engine, man. This let him do and create and think and thrive, and also maintain his night life, and so this drug solved a lot of his problems in the short run. Cocaine gives you the energy, gives you euphoria, makes you high, but also, you develop tolerance to it. What that means is, you need more and more to get the same fix. It's an addiction just waiting to happen. It is reported that Hendra felt Belushi's comedic timing was off when he was high on cocaine, and needed to be tamed. What goes up must come down. Coming down from a cocaine binge is probably the most awful hangover, just soul-sucking awful thing, so Quaaludes help with that process. John Belushi is on a chemical rollercoaster ride. Another thing that can happen is something called state dependency learning. For instance, if John Belushi were to write out a sketch when he was high, when he was delivering it, he would need to have a similar high ` otherwise, he may not be able to recall a lot of the material. So if your brain thinks you can't have one without the other, it creates a bit of a dependency. TV producer Lorne Michaels sees Lemmings and loves Belushi's performance. He casts him in a new late-night show he's working on that will come to be known as Saturday Night Live. With SNL, comedy became a huge part of pop culture. John Belushi and those original cast members were the stars. It became that water cooler kind of show where people were talking about it on Monday morning. It became something that was a cultural phenomenon. John Belushi's impersonations and characters on SNL are some of the most revered of its entire history. Everyone was happy for John, because he was so happy. I think he knew that his friends were rooting for him. John Belushi becomes such a special part of that comedy troupe, because nobody on that cast can quite, sort of, take ownership of physical comedy the way he can. National exposure brings John a new level of attention, and a larger circle of enablers. When he started becoming well known on Saturday Night Live, he could not leave the house without being recognized, and not only that, but people would press vials of cocaine into his hands. This is something kind of new here, from this kid that's used to making, kind of, scrapping by for minimum wage, all of a sudden he's a big, big star. The Saturday Night Live schedule proves to be another level of intensity for John Belushi. They had to write the show very quickly, they had to perform, build sets - the kind of show where you're up for three days at a time. The whole thing was just this absolute tornado of a production. So cocaine was the fuel that fed that whole thing. There would be no Saturday Night Live without cocaine. Every Saturday night, you're gonna go live to an audience of 20 million people, and you have to make them laugh. And right backstage, if you do two lines of this white powder substance, you can almost guarantee the confidence to do a great performance. John is working six nights a week at SNL, and the drugs he's using to sustain his energy are taking a toll. At first, cocaine was a recreational thing for him, and then it evolved to 'I need cocaine to perform,' and that evolved to a full-blown addiction that completely changed his personality. So that third step began to happen when he was on Saturday Night Live. If it's part of your work environment, you just don't know when to put on the brakes. By 1978, 29-year-old John Belushi has the world in the palm of his hand. He is ready to make a move beyond his hit TV show. John Belushi wanted more. He wanted to go from the small screen to the big screen. And Hollywood was calling. He started making hit films, like Animal House and the Blues Brothers. By 1980, John Belushi is a star on stage, on Saturday Night Live, and on film. With his creative partner Dan Aykroyd, he has a hit record and movie with their characters the Blues Brothers. John Belushi having the number one album, the number one TV show, and the number one movie ` people expect him to knock it out of the park every single time. Under pressure and under the influence of a serious drug habit, John is starting to get a bad reputation on set. He became an unpleasant guy to be around at times when he was on drugs, because coming down from cocaine changes someone's personality. So John is holding up production, there are days when there are 100 people waiting around to do a scene and John won't come out because he's not on, or he doesn't have his drugs, so this isn't that fun-loving guy that we used to know. This is somebody that's become a real prima donna and a real problem. John Belushi's next two films do not come close to matching the success of Animal House and Blues Brothers. John Belushi really tried to break out of the character which he was known for, that slapstick comedy. And with Neighbours and Continental Divide, he approached characters different than what audiences, I think, really wanted to see. This guy that was on top of the stratosphere for years, all of a sudden makes two bombs in a row, and he's feeling it. He's feeling the pressure. In 1982, John Belushi's career is plateauing, but he's working on a script for a new comedy about wine, called Noble Rot. He believes that this is the project that will turn his career around. And everyone that reads this doesn't like it. They don't think it's funny. John just can't believe it, he's like, 'Who are you to tell me what's funny? I'm John Belushi.' That can be cold water in your face, you know. That probably didn't happen to him a lot. Belushi finds out that they're rejected the rewrite on Noble Rot. He immediately heads to LA for meetings. And he's gonna go pound that script into the faces of these big Hollywood heavy hitters. But Los Angeles is not a safe place for John Belushi ` it is full of temptations, and John surrounds himself with enablers from all walks of life. * A bad influence and a celebrity can often be drawn to each other. John Belushi was a rock star comic who was surrounded by enablers. Those same types will come out of the shadows for a piece of another young comic ` Chris Farley, fifteen years later. When John Belushi's movie script is rejected, he flies out to Hollywood in a rage. After frustrating meetings with movie executives, Belushi calls an acquaintance to hang out. Cathy Smith was this Hollywood hanger-on that had sort of been associated with The Band, and Gordon Lightfoot, and she'd kind of knocked around Hollywood. Cathy had had a difficult relationship with drugs. She had become a heroin user while she was living in Los Angeles. Eventually sort of gravitated to be a full-blown heroin dealer. She was known as the go-between in terms of getting the drugs for the celebrities. She would actually call herself the Nurse, and show up with a kit to help inject her friends or celebrities with their drugs. John Belushi and Cathy Smith start partying together in his suite, Bungalow 3 at the Chateau Marmont. John Belushi was looking for company, and Cathy was more than willing. She had nothing else going on at the time. And I know she got a case of wine for them, and that's how the party started at the Chateau Marmont. Wine leads to drugs. John and Cathy start injecting cocaine. John Belushi is terrified of needles. She is an expert in injecting people, so she injects John. He becomes very dependent on her. If you inject cocaine, it hits you so fast that you're out of control. Even if it's too much, you wouldn't know. When you have enablers in your inner circle, they're always going to make excuses for your bad behaviour. They're gonna tell you it's perfectly OK, and they're not gonna worry about your health, so, having people like that around, how can you possibly quit? Under the influence of Cathy's drugs, John starts speed-balling. Cathy and John, according to the public record, were doing speedballs, which were mixtures of heroin and cocaine. When you mix stimulants and depressants, it's a really deadly combination. You get rid of the side effects that would normally make you feel awful and stop, so you keep going. But the high from the cocaine will wear down faster than the heroin, so you can almost have a heroin overdose with nothing, kind of, counteracting it. John and Cathy party around Sunset Boulevard. In the early morning hours of March 5th, 1982, the party continues in John's hotel room. My understanding is, on the night that John Belushi died, there were a number of people in their suite ` Robin Williams was there, Robert De Niro was there. John is kind of just not doing well at this point. He's starting to feel sick, and eventually, it's just he and Cathy. At some point, Cathy makes a sexual overture to him. He's not having it. He reports that he's cold, he reports that he's not feeling well, she sort of tells him to get under the covers, and then she kind of goes off on this very bizarre, sort of, mission, writing a letter to an old flame, ordering room service, just kind of forgetting that John Belushi is lying there, suffering. She leaves about 10:15 that next morning. Incredibly tragic that that was the last person in his life, and he needed somebody so badly that he even had to plead with her ` 'Don't leave me.' It was very sad. John Belushi died alone in his hotel room. He overdosed on cocaine and heroin. Cathy Smith is questioned by police and let go. Cathy Smith was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cathy left LA and went to Toronto. She wanted to start all over again. But she just couldn't help herself ` she had to take one last little shot at fame, and it was her undoing. I was sitting in my office, and this woman walked in, without an appointment. She showed me a copy of that week's National Enquirer, which had a picture of her on it, saying, 'I Killed John Belushi'. Cathy Smith is charged with first-degree murder in the death of John Belushi. She is eventually convicted for involuntary manslaughter and serves 15 months in a California prison. Cathy Smith's influence on John Belushi was so awful, it was deemed criminal. He had it all, and he just flew too close to the sun. John Belushi's comedy career only lasted a decade. In that time, he topped the music, TV, and movie worlds. John died before he realized his full potential. Before he could take stock of all that he had accomplished. As he became less full of enthusiasm, the thing that made John John, there was less of that person there. So we were sort of losing him in pieces, until, finally, we lost him totally. John Belushi was surrounded by bad influences on his way to the top. A comedic mentor who condoned drug use, the enablers that came with fame, and the Hollywood groupie that helped push him over the edge. John Belushi always pushed everything to the extreme, and in the end, it cost him his life. Belushi burns out early and leaves behind a legacy that inspires the next generation of comedians ` and there was one young comic who studied the Belushi playbook chapter by chapter. Chris Farley was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on February 15th, 1964. He was the middle child in a family of five kids. His mother, a housewife; his father ran an oil company. So you have this big, boisterous, Irish-Catholic family, and they're all trying to outdo each other, and dad's just the centre of their universe. And they're all comedians, but Chris is just kind of the comedian of the comedians, and he would do anything on a dare. Chris Farley was a middle child. So the middle child complex is always vying for their parents' attention. And by all accounts, he was constantly looking for his father's attention. All the kids were loud and funny in that family, but Chris, I mean, he had to be the funniest, and he had to be the loudest. As a child, Chris sees something that inspires him to become a comedian. His dad's a big, gregarious guy, the lion king, the head of this big Irish- Catholic family, and the only time he's ever seen his dad roar with laughter is watching John Belushi on Saturday Night Live. Little Chris Farley decides he wants to be John Belushi. He saw his dad laughing at this guy that was like him, a chubby guy, who could act and improvise and sing and dance, which Chris could do as well, and I think he thought, 'Oh my god! I can do it! I don't have to be Mr. Skinny Handsome Guy, 'I can be my chubby self, and do it.' Chris sets out to follow John Belushi's path step by step. Chris idolized John Belushi. When he got to Second City, he wore his clothes, he became obsessed with his routines, he literally taped his eyelid up so he could be Bluto, uh,... boy, he really emulated John. Belushi came from Second City and then went on to Saturday Night Live, and then went on to movies. And I think Chris had his eye on the prize. Chris Farley's rise to fame was meteoric. In total, just eight years between the Second City main stage and his final movie set. But just like his idol John Belushi, Chris Farley was under the influence of the trappings that come with that fame. Fame is an aphrodisiac ` people wanna be next to it. Whatever it takes for people to, like, get in there, they'll do. On December 18th, 1997, Chris' body is discovered in his Chicago apartment ` dead from an overdose. It's really eerie that Chris Farley set out to have a career just like John Belushi, and in the end, had a very similar death. What influences was Chris Farley under that led him to live and die this way? Farley considers dropping out of college to join Second City. His dad convinces him to finish college, but as soon as he graduates, he takes off for Chicago and Second City, with a mission to make it to the main stage, just like his hero John Belushi. Chris's comedy was obviously very physical, and it was obviously very, sort of, body-oriented stuff, but it was also very self-deprecating. It was very much a joke at his own expense type of thing. He didn't care if he hurt himself, he would leave with bruises. He would throw himself against the wall, hit the floor - he didn't care. He wanted to make the audience laugh, and they didn't care if he hurt himself doing it. John Belushi really started that form of slapstick comedy using, sort of, his weight and his physical gestures to grab the laugh, but Chris Farley really took that to the next level. In a twist of fate, Chris Farley's debut at Second City coincides with a legendary director and Belushi enabler making his return after years away. Del Close had not directed a show at Second City for a while. He gets a whiff of Chris Farley, he's like, 'I'm not doing it unless you put Chris Farley in it,' and people that knew Chris Farley's, like, 'No way, dude, this guy's too crazy, 'he won't be able to follow instructions.' Del's like, 'That's it, my way or the highway.' So Del Close took a stand with Chris, and much like John Belushi, told him, 'Attack the stage, cut those demons lose,' the same kind of advice that encouraged his manic energy. In one of our shows at Second City, there was a scene where Del wanted Chris to wear a onesie, and it has a little flap in the back. And Chris would dance around the stage in it, and Chris said to me, 'I don't want to wear that on stage.' And I said, 'Tell Del. 'If you're uncomfortable, you can say something,' and he said, 'No, Del's the coach, and we're the team, and we have to do what the coach says.' Under the influence of Del Close, Chris would continue to do what the coach says. Del was also an influence of, uh, 'Try doing drugs and then coming up with the scene,' or 'Try doing drugs and then improvising, see what your brain will come up with.' I did not see Del as a positive influence. Some performers have turned to drugs to find new voices, to find their creativity. If Chris Farley thinks that drugs are gonna make him funnier, then he's absolutely gonna do those drugs. While trying new things at Second City, Chris will soon be scouted for a major league comedy team, one that now has low tolerance for bad behaviour. (UPBEAT MUSIC) Damp homes are unhealthy ones, and harder to heat. Remember, if you can see mould on walls or carpets, or even if the air smells musty, you need to act quickly. It pays to identify sources of dampness early, like rising damp from under the floor, and eliminate them. That way, you'll not only sleep more easily; everyone else will as well. Remember ` dry it out ` one of the three essentials for a healthy home. * One bad influence can lead a celebrity down a dark path. As a child, Chris Farley idolized John Belushi, and set out to follow in his footsteps. When Chris arrives at Second City in 1989, he finds that drugs and alcohol are just as common as they were in Belushi's days. Chris meets Belushi's comedy mentor, Del Close, and under that influence, his substance abuse escalates. Chris Farley is only on the Second City main stage for a year when he is scouted by Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels, and called up to the big leagues. Chris Farley was very clear that he wanted to follow in John Belushi's footsteps, and SNL was a clear path for him to do that. When Chris got Saturday Night Live, that was just so cool and so wonderful, and my god, so deserved. As a new cast member, Chris Farley becomes part of a comedy team that redefines Saturday Night Live in the 90's. You have this turning point at Saturday Night Live in Chris Farley's era. OK, so you have Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, David Spade, and Chris Farley all coming around. This ensemble cast at SNL that Chris Farley was a part of became the new bad boys of SNL. They were doing this kind of raunchier stuff, they were doing more physical stuff, it was a little bit of a turn for Saturday Night Live, but a successful one. With his wild energy, Chris Farley becomes a fan favourite on Saturday Night Live. Chris was a physical comedian. He used his body, he was always very physical and agile. Like Belushi, Chris Farley's most iconic SNL characters were born at Second City. Motivational speaker Matt Foley had years of practice perfecting this scene. Back on the right track! The original Motivational Speaker scene, we did at Second City. It is clear in this scene that Farley has perfected the physical comedy and timing of his act through years of practice on another stage. He punctuates the scene by crashing through the coffee table. On stage, there was no coffee table ` there was a fake coffee table. So he would just do the prat fall on the stage. Here's you, here's me. There's you, there's... Another one of Farley's iconic characters was as a Chippendale dancer opposite Patrick Swayze ` a sketch that also had its roots on the Second City stage. I don't think people really knew how big that sketch was gonna be. It was also a reflection of this whole thing he'd been doing his whole life ` making fun of himself to make people laugh. So there's a lot of psychology wrapped up in that sketch. In the original Second City scene, Chris wouldn't take his shirt off, but the pressure to please at SNL made it hard for him to say no to anything. Here at Second City, I said, 'Would you take your shirt off?' He said, 'No.' But on SNL, he said, 'OK.' The stakes were much higher on SNL. It was the big time. The shirt comes off, but the cuffs and collar from the original version remain. I think it was a pivotal sketch in Chris's career. Chris was just so honest and brave to be out there, and to be with Patrick Swayze, with a ripped body and a professional dancer, and Farley wearing the same dance pants with his little tummy hanging over, and doing the same great dance moves and really dancing, uh, equal to Patrick Swayze, brought it up to another level, and I think it endeared people, and that is a classic SNL scene. Chris just killed it. At just 26 years old, Chris is a celebrity on a national scale, and the toast of a town filled with seduction and provocation. His star kept rising and rising and rising. People would come and want his autograph, they would want a photograph with him, like, his phone was ringing off the hook. This was a lot of pressure. Everyone wanted a piece of him. And I still remember hanging out at Chris's apartment, and he was so, just, normal and relaxed. And when we were heading down the stairs, I truly saw him, like, go from just, like, relaxed to, like, gearing up to like, be on the street and be Chris Farley! I mean, I'm an actress and I know that sometimes you have to go out and put the personality on, but not to just walk down the street! Oh my god, that's exhausting! Everywhere you go, people recognize you. They want to be your friend. There's endless possibilities to be able to do whatever you want. So many times, we'd be at a restaurant, sitting with him and ordering ` he's like, 'I'm gonna get what she's gonna get.' And I'd say, 'OK, I want... I'll have fish and a salad,' and, you know, we'd be drinking Evian water, and they're like, 'Well, we have this beautiful wine,' it's like, 'No, no, no, we're not gonna drink tonight.' 'Oh, OK, OK. Well, we have this great steak tonight`' 'No, no, no, I'm gonna try to watch what I eat,' and then they'd have the chef would come and bring special dishes, or bring over the dessert platter. I would leave Chris at the table, and there'd be people sitting in my chair, and trying to do shots with him. How are you gonna say no to that kind of temptation? Surrounded by temptations, Chris Farley's drug use escalates when he stars on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s. By the time Chris got to Saturday Night Live, he'd kind of graduated from marijuana into cocaine as well. There was a lot of recreational and social drug users in that group, but not addicts of Chris's level. I think the drug use accelerated. From the stories that I hear, he did heroin when he was on Saturday Night Live. Uh, he got heavier and got into more drugs and harder drugs, unfortunately. Colleagues and friends know that Chris needs help. SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels intervenes. I'm sure Lorne Michaels wanted the best for Chris Farley, and he also wanted the best for SNL. But he knew that if this continued, it'd be a lose-lose for both of them. Lorne made it very clear ` you clean up your act, or you get out of here. For Chris, the show was everything. So he goes to a really tough rehab at Lorne's insistence in Alabama, and it looks like it's gonna work for a while. The tough love seems to work, and Chris cleans up his act. He starts surrounding himself with people who support his sobriety. He invited me to a birthday party that he was having, and he's like, 'Hey, I noticed that you drank water all night. Do you not drink?' And I said, 'No, I don't drink.' He's like, 'Well, I don't drink either,' and I'm like, 'Great!' There's a bond that you get when you're with another person that's sober, and also in recovery like me. While working on his sobriety and SNL, Chris lands his first starring role in a movie. After his second season of SNL, it was pretty clear that, you know, Chris Farley had a real career in film. And Tommy Boy, he just hit it out of the ballpark. Tommy Boy is a hit, and people love that movie. Tommy Boy really proved that Chris Farley could open a film. Despite his attempts to get clean, Chris is still under the influence of his own popularity. This only magnifies after the success of Tommy Boy. At the heart of Chris Farley is this shy person. Any time he tried to get sober, his fans' demands, and the expectations, and people that had sort of typecast him as this guy, in and out of his professional life ` he couldn't get away from it. MAN: Think you can do some crazy (BLEEP) for the camera? (GROANS HALF-HEARTEDLY) People knew who he was - I mean, my god, he was a water cooler kind of conversation guy. While his fans demand more, Farley's famous friends try to help him stay sober. All his friends from SNL were great, supportive, amazing to him. Timmy Meadows, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock ` they were 100% backing Chris in his sobriety. Tom Arnold really tried to stick with Chris through his addictions, and really help him, because he'd been through it, the trappings of fame and celebrity, and he kind of knew the specific things Chris was going through. But I remember I came to see a taping of Chris do the show, and after the show, Tom Arnold wouldn't let him see anyone, and he was, like, whisked off. And I wanted to go, 'No, I'm OK,' but I understand Tom Arnold didn't know who had drugs and who didn't. Despite the efforts of his friends, Chris continues to struggle with sobriety. He goes to rehab 17 times. Chris went to a lot of soft rehabs where it was just kind of a break. There wasn't any hard-core counselling, it's probably just like detox. And he often treated it like a time-out, like a naughty kid treated time-out. He'd be back in a couple days. Even in rehabilitation, he was passed drugs at times. VIP syndrome is very real. People are starstruck, so they deliver celebrities what they want. They change the rules. Even doctors. They may be afraid to stand up to them because they're so starstruck. There's fuzzy boundaries all over the place, if there are proper boundaries at all. It was Chris Farley's dream to make it to Saturday Night Live, but his addictions, enabled by his A-list fame, turned that dream into a nightmare. Chris is in crisis, and people see it. Everyone sees it. This isn't his first rehab, it's not even his tenth rehab. This is getting to be the end of the spiral here. And it began to affect his work, and Lorne Michaels saw it, and Lorne Michaels knew. So, eventually, that relationship had to end. In 1995, Chris Farley is written off SNL. He will only live two more years. (BRIGHT, ENERGETIC MUSIC) SONG: # I can make your hands clap... # VOICEOVER: Centrum provides multiple health benefits in just one tablet. A bad influence can often overpower a good one. Chris Farley was surrounded by both. In and out of countless treatment programs, he couldn't get clean, and his star-making turn on Saturday Night Live ended in 1995. But Chris is still a bankable movie star, with a busy film career. Tommy Boy leads to roles in Black Sheep in 1996, and Beverly Hills Ninja in 1997. However, Chris becomes more and more unhappy with the roles he is exclusively typecast in. I think Chris Farley really struggled with his weight, and I think it was something that he felt, sort of, really sad about, but I think he knew that that weight, uh, also was able to get a laugh. Chris saw the preview of Beverly Hills Ninja and he started to cry. He actually thought, 'Oh my god, this is it, this is my life from now on. 'I'm gonna be the fat guy falls down forever.' I think it was this really rare moment where he got to see that people were probably laughing at him as much as they were laughing with him, and I think it was probably a really painful moment for him. If you are fat, you're bullied, you've been made to feel bad, no matter where you go, no matter how thin you are, that fat shadow follows you everywhere. Production on Farley's film Almost Heroes is put on hold several times, as Chris is in and out of rehab. Chris is increasingly surrounded by bad influencers, including at home. I think you really can't talk about Chris's addictions without talking about his relationship with his father. There's one story where the two of them went to a fat camp together, and they're gonna give it a shot. They're gonna do this together. They were sitting in a circle with a group of people, talking about their addictions, and as the story goes, Chris's father stood up and said, 'This is ridiculous, we are not like these people.' And got up and left, with Chris in tow. There was a real denial there ` a really serious denial there. Chris's weight nears 300 pounds, and his relapse cycle continues. In July 1997, at cast mate Tim Meadows' wedding, Chris's friends are concerned about his drinking. He was aggravated that we were telling him to stop. Again, if you are with your friends and you wanna be sober, your friends are gonna tell you not to drink, and if you wanna drink, that's just annoying. I went over to him and I said, 'You know what, I'm leaving, you have a great night.' I went to the limo driver and I said, 'Take me to Chicago.' And all of a sudden I heard (THUMPS) and on the back of the trunk of the car, it was Chris going, 'Stop, stop!' And he jumped in the car, he's like, 'I'm leaving with you, I'm leaving with you, you're right, 'you're right, I shouldn't be drinking.' The reality is that people around Chris Farley generally wanted to help him, but, like most addicts, he would wanna push those people away at a time when, I think, he didn't have a lot of control in his life. But a friend wouldn't let him do drugs, so he couldn't be with a friend. It's a horrible irony. And again, the people that he originally started with are starting to disappear, and kind of being replaced by hangers on and groupies, and low-lifes, and then, eventually, prostitutes. On October 25th, 1997, Chris Farley is set to make his return to Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live next week, the 25th, in New York. So Chris was an absolute Saturday Night Live legend, and a fan favourite, and people loved him, they were clamouring for him to host, but Lorne was wary. And a lot of people were wary. And it became very clear from the time he arrived that he was just not in the right mind, and not in the right health to be able to do it. He shows up with two prostitutes, and he's not looking well at all, and the sketches are sort of referencing his early death. It was a very dark show. In December 1997, just seven weeks after his infamous appearance on SNL, Chris Farley goes on a four-day bender in Chicago. He's seen bar hopping around town. I was bartending in Chicago during Chris's last run, and he popped in the bar ` and this is one of my idols, you know? And he comes in, and he does a little bit of a song and dance for us. I get to talk to him for a few minutes, and it was really nice. But he also didn't have life in his eyes. You could see that something wasn't quite right. Chris Farley is in a downward social drift that pushes good friends away and draws bad influences in. Chris had this interesting thing called addiction substitution. So you kick one thing, but you get another one. So Chris went from food, to drugs, to prostitutes. A lot of people will turn to escorts and call girls, particularly if they don't want to complicate their lives, so it's easier for them to just have a transaction. Chris actually spends his last couple of days with a prostitute, Heidi Hauser, and Heidi Hauser is somebody that he hires, and she procures some cocaine and heroin, and they're doing drugs together for a couple of days. I didn't hear from him for two days, and a friend of mine called me, and said, 'I saw Chris out, I was worried about him.' And I called his house, and he picked up. Didn't sound great, but then I heard someone laughing in the background. And I said, 'Who is that?' And he's, like, 'Oh, it's nobody.' And he's, like, 'I love you, 'I'm gonna call you in an hour,' and I said, 'I love you too,' but I knew he wasn't gonna call, and I expected him to call the next day or whatever. That's the last time I ever talked to him. December 18th, 1997. With Heidi in his Chicago apartment, Chris becomes unwell. Chris is not well at all. He's so lonely, and he's so miserable, and he doesn't want her to leave, and he falls over, and he says, 'Don't leave me, don't leave me,' and Heidi's mad because he hasn't paid her, and issues about money and things like that. Heidi Hauser took Chris's watch and she also took a picture of him, and she leaves. It's so cold-blooded in that moment to take a picture of this man that's obviously not doing well. Chris Farley's little brother John discovers his body. Chris died alone from an overdose of cocaine and morphine. It makes me sad to think that he was with someone he didn't know when he died, and he could've been saved, perhaps, uh, if that person had called 911 or done something to help him. Heidi Hauser was not charged with any crime in the death of Chris Farley. Chris used to say to me all the time, 'I'm gonna die at 33, just like Belushi.' He actually did it. He actually died at 33, just like Belushi, just like he said. It actually happened. It was tragic. I don't know, it hit me on a very, very personal level. Before that, I wanted to be a comedian ` I was gonna be the next Chris Farley, I mean, you know, I wasn't as good as he was, but,... uh,... you know, I think it was a real wake-up call for me personally to just kind of see how that story evolved. Chris was, like, funny and thoughtful and kind and considerate. The thing I do miss most about Chris is his friendship. When he'd do one of the big pratfalls, he would say, 'That's gonna leave a mark.' And that's, like, a classic joke now. If someone does a fall, they'll say, 'That's gonna leave a mark,' and I'm like, 'That's a Farley line!' So he certainly left his mark on society, and I love that people still do impressions of him and know who he is, and he'll be famous forever. In his fast and furious rise to fame, Chris Farley was under the influence of a dangerous creative mentor. His popularity and magnetic personality attracted people who inadvertently harmed him. In the end, a revolving door of enablers left him all alone. John Belushi and Chris Farley were self-made stars with unique talents ` legends who were larger than life, and forever linked in death. John Belushi and Chris Farley were under the influence. Copyright Able 2018