The director also observed that he thought John had the ‘niceness disease’ where he just couldn’t say no and would always make others happy even if it was at the detriment to himself, he would “put his own needs second, especially when dealing with the public”. Turtletaub went to a Calgary Flames hockey game with John, “He couldn’t walk two steps without being surrounded. All he wanted to do was go to the bathroom or go home and it was this non-stop barrage of people and it would cause him a huge amount of anxiety, but he stopped and he was pleasant and kind to every single person. I think he swallowed all that frustration and put all that inside, rather than lash out, or be in a bad mood, or yell at people, or finally snap, he kept it all inside. I think that stuff percolated inside him and he would have huge conflict with the fact that he would be in a bad mood, or that he would be upset and he never felt it was OK to be angry. But as a result he was kind of torturing himself by beating himself up about it. He did take care of everybody, he was cursed with this, his lack of happiness was a curse, the reason he smoked and the reason he drank was his inability to be shitty in front of other people. But then he would beat himself up for having those feelings by drinking, smoking and eating.”
There was one time on set when John was angry though, and of course it was to defend others, not himself. Lewis told me that he and Doug where running five minutes late to set one day and the assistant director screamed at them, like really screamed at them, John was just behind the young actors but slightly out of sight and heard everything, he got right up in the AD’s face and said “DON’T you EVER talk to ANYONE like that again”, the AD looked like he had soiled himself, apologised and everything was nice from there on in.
Of course there was still time to joke, Turtletaub said “He would tease me, I would give him direction and he would say ‘you are not the boss of me’, then he would go ahead and do whatever I had suggested or at least try it. The only time I ever really got him to admit I was his boss, we were in Jamaica and my parents had flown in a hard kosher salami from the United States and we had smuggled it into Jamaica, plying him with it I got him to admit I was the boss of him.”
According to the production team John was really fun but he wasn’t one of those guys that was ‘on’ all the time, he wasn’t always performing for people off set and to Turtletaub the most impressive thing was the way John would laugh at other peoples jokes, “You don’t see that in comic geniuses, they either don’t react at all, or they smile and say ‘that is funny’. But he would delight and laugh and enjoy and make other people feel funny and that is such a gift to give to people as his opinion matters so much.”
At times the shoot could be quite physically challenging, during the scene when the toboggan team were learning how to toboggan down a grass hill in a pushcart, there was plenty of up and down that hill during filming. It was physically hard on John, running down wasn’t so much of a problem although he had bad knees, walking back up was hard, but then it was hard for everyone and the whole team made a point of getting those scenes out of the way very quickly. As previously stated, John was large however generally he was very physically fit for someone of his size. Robinson commented to me “He didn’t seem to have any health problems as such, yes he had a very strong appetite and I think if anything he seemed to be gaining some weight. But other than that he seemed to be relatively healthy. His fitness for his weight seemed pretty good at that time.” According to Turtletaub John was well aware of any physical limitations he had and he went out of his way that it never became an issue when filming.
There are two points where Cool Runnings makes me cry. The first is a scene between Robinson and John, when Robinson’s character Derice, asks John’s character, Irv, why he cheated in 1977. Robinson told me the scene didn’t take that long to do, they were both well-prepared and the chemistry was very good between them both which made for a very sincere and real performance.
The second is at the end of the film when the team crash, after the toboggan finally comes to a standstill and it’s apparent everyone in it is ok, the team get up and carry their toboggan to the end whilst the crowd slowly clap into a great applause. Coach Irv runs down to check his team and he hugs Derice and they thank each other. That hug was not scripted and according to Robinson it was “very warm to be hugged by John Candy, he was a really good hugger. That was just a moment, that wasn’t a scripted moment it just happened on camera, we just hugged – it captured and it was real.”
I’m getting teary-eyed right now just thinking about that scene, it’s such a powerful moment of love and hope and makes me cry like a baby when I watch it. Maybe add in the fact that this is the last John Candy film that would be released in his lifetime, he should be mighty proud of it.
“A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you aren’t enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it” - Irv Blizter, Cool Runnings.
John, you were so believable in this role, I really hope you knew you were most certainly enough ‘without it’.
Back to that tangent…
So remember Ken Tipton, the guy who owned the video stores and was John’s stand-in on Planes, Trains and Automobiles? Well here is a little more to that story. So it is 1993, Tipton’s life has been turned upside down, his business has gone bankrupt, his wife is divorcing him, he had been arrested and although was found innocent, he cannot get a job anywhere. “I thought f**k it, I had acting experience, so I moved to Hollywood. The way Hollywood works is no one makes it overnight, you need the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) Card - and in order to get it you need to do background extra work on the non-union side of acting. On these jobs you don’t get lines, you might get actions, if you work as an extra you might get a line, then you are eligible for your SAG card or you can get three vouchers and then you can apply.
Tipton was really struggling to get any work when he remembered what John Candy had said to him, that if he ever got serious about his acting to give him a call. Unfortunately that turned out even harder than it sounded. Tipton would call John’s agent, send faxes, leave messages, contact John’s attorney and no one would ever respond to Tipton, he just couldn’t get past the gatekeepers. Tipton kept wracking his brains on who to contact and who could help him. Eventually he thought of Dawn Steel, the producer of Cool Runnings. Tipton recalls, “I sent a fax to Dawn Steel and I got a letter back. Dawn says she totally understands and she can help me contact John Candy, she said to meet her at a book signing (her new book at the time was They Can Kill You but They Can’t Eat You.)” Tipton gets in line, pays his $20 for the book, then introduces himself to Steel advising he was the guy that had asked for help and that he would like to meet later. Steel said, “well everything you need to know is in the book.” Tipton tells me, “So for US$20 this lady snookered me for buying her book. So I finally read the book. It told me how she got started, the book is a brilliant, beautiful book on how Hollywood works, it’s a big bubble - it’s all about relationships.
“In one part of her book Dawn talks about needing a mentor to get into Hollywood, someone that will help you. So I thought I will just ask John to be my mentor, mentors don’t do anything apart from giving you advice, no bullshit - but you need to contact that person and you need to find any way you can, you just find a way.
“John was genuine in his (original) offer (of help). So there was a service back then called Baseline, which was an online database that had everyone’s contact details on it. If you wanted information Baseline had it, but it was expensive, I spent US$1700 in one month doing research on John Candy. Sifting through it, it went through all work etc, then it says he’s part owner of Toronto Argonauts football team. So I look into that, one partner is Wayne Gretzky - Wayne is married to Janet Jones - Janet is from St Louis and her mother was a customer back in the video shop days. So I found Janet’s mum, she remembered who I was and she gave a letter to Janet to Wayne to John. I heard nothing for 6 weeks. One day I get a call on my beeper, I pick it up, it’s John Candy, ‘Hey Ken, it’
s John Candy, What you doing in Hollywood? You need some advice, give me a call’. I got my questions together, I rang John and it went to voicemail, he called me back a few days later.”
Ken told him what had happened and John gives advice on how to get a SAG card.
“John said, ‘this is what you do, you go down to the LA film office and you find out what permits are filming on the weekend, you need to find a shoot that is far away from the city as possible on the weekend. You will find out where it’s shooting, you are going to show up and introduce yourself, just say ‘I am not on your call sheet but I’ll just sit over here until you need somebody and if you need somebody I will be ready to work’.” When Ken asked why, John said, “Well they have a lot of SAG extras, that have got their SAG card, sometimes they don’t show up especially if it’s the weekend and far from the city - and that was it.”
Ken did just that, he showed up at all the sets he could. “I found this one that they were shooting over the weekend, 20 miles outside town in a quarry, it was The Flintstones.
Ken shows up, does what John said, and advised the assistant director (AD) that John Candy is his mentor. Ken sat in parking lot, night after night, fourth or fifth night. “I bought a bucket and water and starting washing all the windows of all the cars, the AD saw I was being cool and thanked me for cleaning crap off their windows. One night he says to me
‘Tipton, put your bucket down, go to wardrobe and get some buffalo gear’, and I was in”.
OK, hang on right there, we will be back with the final episode in the trilogy later.
“Surrender Pronto, or We’ll Level Toronto!”
1993 was also the year John popped his directing cherry! His PA and Chongo, Bob Crane, had written a screenplay with his partner Kari Hildebrand, Hostage For a Day. They had sold the screenplay to Fox as a TV movie. John had agreed to direct it and have a cameo part as Yuri Petrovich, a Russian terrorist. Filmed in Toronto, John loved taking control back on his old stomping ground. He recruited Second City alumni George Wendt (Cheers) to playing the main protagonist, Warren Kooey, a man broken by his wife and his job, who is desperate to escape his mundane life. Kooey fabricates being held hostage by a Russian terrorist to extort money for a new life, and calls the SWAT team in (who turn out to be incompetent). In a strange turn of events, Kooey is then actually taken hostage by two Russian terrorists, one of whom is Candy.
Bruce Appleby was brought in as the key hairdresser for Hostage For a Day, he told me about his time working on set with Candy. “The whole crew loved him, it didn’t matter what they were working on, he treated everyone the same. He was so generous with everyone - even the fans that came to see him, in the end they had to employ someone to stop the fans from interrupting the shoot. He was always bringing us surprise presents, Argos football jackets and hats, pen sets, gag presents, he would give us something every week. He was one in a million. I had never worked with anyone like him, before or after.
“He seemed to love directing and he told me he would love to come back to Canada and make more films here, to leave LA and the USA. He was such a proud Canadian”.
Over twenty years after that initial Colgate advert, Jim Henshaw went to see John on the set of Hostage. John was soon to be starring in a film that would be using the same studio as Top Cops, a TV series Henshaw was working on. He went to meet John and producer of the new film, Canadian Bacon, to negotiate studio time. Henshaw was unsure if John would remember him, “I walked down to the set and John pointed at me, hollered my name and came over and gave me a hug. Then he said ‘are you hungry?’ and I said ‘sure’ and he walked me into the craft service truck and made one of the largest sandwiches I have ever tried to eat in my life! He was just talking a mile a minute. He made three sandwiches, one for me, one for his line producer and one for himself, and there was just layers and layers, it was his own secret recipe and concoction and he was really proud of it.
“In that 20 years he hadn’t changed a bit. It was just really nice. That time, he really reminded me of why I had gone into the business in the first place. He had this ability to have fun, that feeling of ‘we are here to do something special even though we don’t know what it is’. And we started walking around set and he started describing to me what Canadian Bacon was going to be.”
Hostage For a Day would be released April 1994.
Shortly after they wrapped Hostage For a Day, production started on Canadian Bacon, it was the first time documentary maker, Michael Moore, dipped his toe in the water of satirical comedy. John starred as the main character, Sheriff Bud Boomer (Sheriff of Niagara County), alongside Rhea Perlman, Alan Alda, Kevin Pollak, Bill Dunn and Rip Torn. Alda plays the President of the United States, he’s low in the opinion polls and wants to orchestrate an event to win back some popularity, as well as increasing war and crime to generate income. Looking at those previously defeated, they decide to start a war with Canada after a fight breaks out at a hockey game - they see their opportunity to build propaganda, escalate it and give the people something to fight for.
This was another Marmite film, some love it, some can’t stand it, a few are in the middle with their opinions, some may say it’s like Moore had a crystal ball - but we aren’t getting political here, it’s not what this book is aboot!
Kevin Pollak talked to me about the time he spent with John. He had been a long time fan of John’s he had heard lots of great things about him, did he meet up to Pollak’s expectations? ”And beyond! He was super generous, very gregarious and funny, open to improvise, just a very generous actor. You sensed immediately John was there to have fun and everyone would have fun around him.”
Pollak had a very sweet memory of John that he shared with me “One of the most interesting conversations we had - he was having a cigarette one day on set and he said how his father had died from a young age from genetic heart failure / disease. He said, “I’ve known for a long time that I’m not long for this life because of this genetic defect. I just kind of decided to live to the fullest. So I have done a lot of projects I may not have done, just so I could bankroll some money for my family, and I didn’t really expect to live this long.” Pollak felt that John was explaining in the most polite and Canadian way that he knows he shouldn’t be smoking or drinking etc. but he wanted to justify his reasons.
*************
Sadly all was not well with the Argos, they were in financial trouble. Brian Cooper told me, “You know what, the team was losing money. Bruce McNall went to jail afterwards for fraud. I was running this team and I had to keep going back to Bruce to say we are losing so much money here. We paid so much for Ismail. My background is in accounting and I can juggle any book but at some point you need to put cash in.
“John was capped on a certain amount of money, Bruce and Wayne weren’t and they were losing money. They asked me to sell the team unbeknownst to John, they didn’t want John to know. So I was out getting perspective buyers and eventually I did lineup TSN who were broadcasters to buy the team and John found out about it, not from me but from someone else. When we had the conversation I said ‘John first of all I am only doing what Bruce was telling me to do’ and he felt it was a betrayal that One: I didn’t tell him and Two: that I would ever consider doing what the other two partners wanted me to do for them. Again I was listening to who was paying my mortgage.
“When somebody crossed John he would write you off I believe. He stopped talking to me. I went back to Wayne and said ‘John isn’t even talking to me’ and Wayne said, ‘Don’t worry, I will speak to him’.”
I talked at length with Cooper, I could see how hard this situation had been for him. It was also apparent how much he loved and respected John. Personally I think John just needed a little time to get over the hurt, I think he would have come around eventually.
Talking to McNall, who knew he was heading for real trouble, when he discussed the sale with John about what was at stake, John understood. “We talked at length about it, we really didn’t h
ave any choice but to sell the team, Wayne wanted out too because he wasn’t capped either and it had come very expensive. I said ‘John I need to sell the team, it’s not even up to me.’ He was trying to find a group of people to buy the team, but he really couldn’t because it didn’t make any economic sense. So when were in discussion with TSN (who ended up buying them eventually) they wanted John involved, he knew that, I told him they would want him involved, they would have been crazy not to. For John it wouldn’t have changed that much. He was sad about the whole thing but he understood.”
John was certainly sad and stressed over this news, but I know he would have made it work.
Meantime, although Canadian Bacon hadn’t fully wrapped it was pretty much there, John went to Mexico to fulfil another acting obligation. Canadian Bacon would be released in 1995 with the closing credit being: “To Johnny LaRue - thanks to you we got our crane shot”.
Searching for Candy Page 18