Wagons East
So hear we find ourselves back in Mexico, 1994, on the set of Wagons East. I have been dreading writing this chapter. If you didn’t know already, the beginning of the book fills you in a little on what happens here and it’s just heartbreaking.
The place where John was staying in Durango was found for him by his assistant Bob Crane and Crane’s stepfather, Chuck Sloan. It was a “single-story circular home featuring a large living room and satellite bedrooms and baths. It was located in the ‘nice section’ of Durango, next to a public park that featured only occasional gunfire at night,” as Crane described in his book, Sex, Celebrity and My Father’s Unsolved Murder. ‘The Chongos’ were staying in the nicest hotel in Durango, the El Presidente, but it wasn’t quite private enough for a bona fide movie star.
Crane stayed in Durango until the end of February, then left to go back to Los Angeles to take care of business.
In the book Crane remembers Frankie Hernandez calling him at 7am in the morning, 4th March 1994. Frankie broke the news, he remembers Frankie saying “We went to his house to pick him up to go out to location. There was no answer so we busted the door open and found him in the bedroom”. “It looks like a heart attack” Frankie said to Crane, “He must have been sitting on the edge of the bed putting his shoes on. It looked like he’d just fallen backward onto the bed. His feet were on the floor. ‘This is un-f**king-believable, Bob!’”.
Crane knew that he had to get to Rose Candy and tell her the sad news before the news-reporters did. He met Sloan en route and they drove to the Candy’s house in Mandeville Canyon, much to Crane’s relief there were no reporters outside the house.
Crane remembers “Rose opened the door. Chuck and I didn’t say a word. She looked at Chuck, trying to figure out why he was there with me. Then she looked at me. It took her only a few seconds to work it out. No one said a word. Rose let out the loudest shriek I’ve ever heard. Chuck and I surrounded her, worried she was going to pass out. We took her back inside, and when she calmed down enough to make sense of it, we told her what Frankie had told us.”
Crane went with Rose to St. Martin of Tours, the Catholic school both Jennifer and Christopher were attending.
In 2016 Jennifer and Christopher spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about their memories of that sad and fateful day.
Christopher: "I was 9. It was a Friday. I remember talking to him the night before he passed away and he said, 'I love you and goodnight.' And I will always remember that."
Jennifer adds: "I remember my dad the night before. I was studying for a vocabulary test. I was 14. He had just come home for my 14th birthday, which is Feb. 3. So I was talking to him on the phone, and, I hate this, but I was slightly distant because I was studying. So I was like, 'Yeah, OK, I love you. I will talk to you later. Have a great night.' Then I hang up, and I go back to studying."
"They wouldn’t tell me what was going on," Jen says.
Chris breaks in, "I have this one memory of seeing this kid in mass, and he is playing around, and I had this weird energy come over me where I was able to feel older. And then Father Donie walked us down to the rectory. Bob Crane, my dad’s assistant was there. Our mom was there, in tears."
"And someone says, I don’t remember who, 'Your dad has passed away,'" Jen says.
"And we just erupted into tears," Chris adds.
On the day John died a massive piece of amethyst rock he brought his family from Mexico, just suddenly shattered for no reason. Rose told her children it was John’s way of saying goodbye.
Back in Durango the actors and the crew were told to stay in their hotel rooms and not speak to anyone who wasn’t from the set. Boom operator, Mark Jennings spoke to me about his memories of John and that awful day. “The last three weeks to a month of shooting he was obviously in more and more pain, you could tell cos he would have a way of standing that he was in a lot of discomfort, but he would never complain about it. He never let on as to how much pain he was in. Those last couple of weeks he just seemed tired, just really tired. But he never let it affect his demeanour. He was always smiling. I’m not sure I could have done it, I’m not sure I’m that strong a man to have handled that way.
“The very strange thing was getting driven to the set that morning in the crew van (unaware of what had happened), and I was suddenly sick to my stomach and I couldn’t figure out why. We got to the set and all assistant directors were in a really sombre mood. We had a gaffer on the shoot whose name was John who had heart problems. The first AD called us all around and made the announcement that John had died. At first we thought it was our gaffer, that was the first thing that I thought. Then when they said John Candy, just the appal that descended over the entire set, it affected everyone, every single person. They sent us back to the hotel and we were sequestered as journalists had already started to gather. We had a meeting with everyone and just went over what we were going to try and do to get through it.
“The one thing that has stuck with me, the very night before we were doing the opening of the movie, where John is supposedly drunk, we were shooting that whole scene. He’s supposed to walk off camera and he walked into the closet instead of the exit he was supposed to go out of, and he utters a line where he says something about wrong room and comes back on camera. I hadn’t planted a microphone in that closet to catch that line. It must have been around one in the morning. I said to John, ‘I need a favour, can I just get a line from you real quick’. He said to me, ‘I’m really sorry Mark, I’m really tired, can we do it tomorrow?’ and I said ‘Sure, it’s just a line and we’ll get it tomorrow’ and he died that night and we didn’t get the line. It’s not about me not getting the line, it’s about how quickly circumstances can change and from that moment on it has literally affected my life, you don’t wait to do things anymore as you just don’t know.
“He was probably one of the kindest, gentlest people I have ever known or encountered.”
Allegedly, Rose insisted that they didn’t do an autopsy on John’s body and personally, I can understand why. I am sure John didn’t want anyone messing with his body, it was obvious that it was his heart that had gone, and no coroner’s report was going to be able to bring him back. For someone that had likely inherited heart problems, for the weight he was carrying, the altitude in Durango, the long days and exhaustion, the pain he was in, the heat - which if he had been sweating - would likely mean his electrolytes were low, I guess everything just added up and that sweet man’s heart just had enough. It sounded like it was very quick, literally just sitting on his bed putting his shoes on and then gone.
I once chatted to someone who survived a major heart attack, they actually died at the scene, but luckily for them they were in the middle of an exercise class and the instructors had access to a defibrillator so they managed to get her back. In terms of her recollection, she had none, she wasn’t feeling funny beforehand, she could not remember anything about it whatsoever, and for me that was comforting, it was unlikely John knew what was happening, it just happened, he wouldn’t have been scared.
For his family and his friends however, they are the ones that really suffered after this. The shock of losing someone you love, without warning, is more than painful or horrific, it is pretty much indescribable. It is hard enough when someone close to you is terminally ill, but eventually you can make peace with the fact they were suffering and although it’s still so hard, you console yourself that they are out of pain. When someone literally just disappears overnight, totally unexpected, nothing in the world makes sense anymore. There are literally no words.
John’s death was mourned all over the world and still is, to this day. However, he is also celebrated day in day out as the comedic, dramatic actor that he was, an influence to many and still spreading love with his work.
John’s funeral was held at St Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Los Angeles. Many remember that day, especially as the police shut down part of the San Diego freeway for the funeral
procession, which is totally unheard of, they would usually only do this for the President - that is how much John Candy was respected. The service was a star studded affair, with a eulogy included from his old friend Dan Aykroyd.
The late Tino Insana recalled in an interview that as John’s casket was being wheeled down the aisle one of the wheels was making a comedy squeaking noise, other than complete silence you could hear ha-hee... ha-hee... ha-hee... ha-hee... as the casket was wheeled along. Insana inferred that John was there with them, lightening the moment.
John’s body was interred in a beautiful resting spot, at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. He is surrounded by marble and being smiled upon by vibrant stained glass windows.
In Toronto, Canada, a memorial service was held by John’s Second City Alumni, in St Basil’s Church, which was full to the brim with people paying respects. From schoolchildren to senior citizens, the streets were lined with mourners undeterred by the freezing cold temperature and snow. John was even given an honor guard from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The service was shown live on TV and Radio.
Catherine O’Hara delivered a eulogy;
“"You all have a story" said O'Hara, "You stopped for his autograph and he asked you about you. You carried his bags up to the hotel room and he said, `That's too heavy, let me get that for you.' And then he tipped you."
Mary Margaret O’Hara, Catherine’s sister and a critically acclaimed singer songwriter, beautifully performed Dear, Dark Heart.
When I interviewed Dave Thomas he told me that he spoke to Dan Aykroyd at John’s funeral, they discussed how if you added up every waking hour, John actually lived the life of an 80 year old. “John did everything a lot. John stayed up a lot, John had a lot of friends, John ate a lot, John drank a lot, John loved life and for him, it wasn’t possible to get enough of it.”
May we all have a life as full as John Candy’s - for he did not waste a second.
The final tangent in the Tipton trilogy
Remember Ken Tipton? We left him on the set of The Flintstones after taking John Candy’s advice. Well a couple of months after John passed away, Tipton finally gets the three vouchers he needs and qualifies for his SAG card. Tipton remembers, “I got it on May 5th 1994, it takes 30 days to process, when it does process you get to union side of casting, you get paid better, you are a professional actor and that was the most important thing. As soon as I was transferred over I got a beep on my pager a few hours later from Central Casting. It said, ‘We have a job for you, you will need to go to Universal to be a photo double, you will stand in front of a green screen, they will put you in certain costumes and ask you to stand in certain positions and here is your contact, the time etc.’ All I knew I was going to be a photo double insert for something.”
Ken drives into the Universal Studios parking lot as a professional actor going to his first professional gig, feeling positive as his career is on a much brighter path.
“They had a fake bar, a stable, a couple of horses and a green screen set up. They were going to put me in digitally later”. The costume lady comes in to see Tipton and she says they are going to have to pad him out a bit, she brings him leather trousers, chaps, a big leather coat, a shirt, and a big hat. “I tried it on and it was loose, so they put some padding in my jacket - I didn’t know who I was playing. This costume smelt like shit, it smelt like it had just come off the range, but it also had a human scent to it like someone had been wearing it. I asked, ‘Where did you get this jacket?’ I was already sweating in it, so whoever else had warn it must have been sweating big time. They said ‘that’s the jacket John Candy wore in a movie called Wagons East!’, much to Tipton’s shock, ‘What? I am wearing John Candy’s coat?’, they replied, ‘Yeah you are the photo double insert for John Candy.’
“John didn’t know me for shit, but he was a nice guy in St Louis and he was a nice guy letting me call him and just because he was a nice guy I got to earn my SAG card. I’m from Missouri, I don’t see this karma stuff, in Missouri the motto is ‘show me’, here in California they talk about karmic stuff.
“I don’t know how much more karmic you can get, than a chance meeting with a guy in St Louis in a trailer when you’re an asshole, that leads to a phone call, leads to you earning you a screen actors guild card and you doing your first professional acting job as replacing him (John) in a movie. It was very cool.”
As Tipton recalled this story to me I began to cry, I felt like John had said “here, have your first proper job on me”, some would call it a crazy coincidence, I like to think of it as John working his magic, because that was exactly the type of thing he would have done.
John’s children have grown up successful, talented and a credit to both John and Rose. Both Jennifer and Christopher have gone into acting following their father’s footsteps, but they also have other creative interests too. Jennifer runs a show at Second City Hollywood called Couch Candy where she interviews her cool aunties and uncles about their time at Second City and also about working with her dad, like her mum she is also an artist. Christopher has his own radio show called Neuz Pollution on KXLU and is the lead singer in a band called Chotto Ghetto.
John has taught me so much about life and how we can go on living afterwards, about working hard, loving harder and how to treat people.
I said it at the beginning of this book and I will say it again at the end...
Legends like John Candy never really die.
Thank you, John. Love… love is not a big enough word.
Filmography (Dates of release)
1973 Class of ’44
1975 It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
1976 Tunnel Vision
The Clown Murders
Find The Lady
1978 The Silent Partner
1979Lost and Found
1941
1980Double Negative (aka Deadly Companion)
The Blues Brothers
1981Stripes
Heavy Metal
1982It Came from Hollywood
1983National Lampoon’s Vacation
Going Berserk
1984Splash
1985 Brewster’s Millions
Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird
Summer Rental
Volunteers
1986Armed and Dangerous
Little Shop of Horrors
1987 Spaceballs
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
1988The Great Outdoors
She’s Having a Baby
Hot to Trot
1989Who’s Harry Crumb?
Speed Zone! (Cannonball 3)
Uncle Buck
1990Masters of Menace
Home Alone
The Rescuers Down Under
1991Nothing But Trouble
Only the Lonely
Delirious
Career Opportunities
JFK
1992Once Upon a Crime
Boris and Natasha: The Movie
1993Rookie of the Year
Cool Runnings
1994 Wagons East
Hostage For a Day (TV Movie)
1995 Canadian Bacon
Selected Bibliography
Thomas, Dave, SCTV Behind the Scenes, 1996, Canada, M&S
Patinkin, Sheldon, The Second City: backstage at the world’s greatest comedy theatre, 2000, USA, Sourcebooks
Thomas, Mike, The Second City: Unscripted, 2009, USA, Villard Books
O’Leary, Jim and Parrish, Wayne, Double Blue: an illustrated history of the Toronto Argonauts), 2007, Canada, ECW Press
McCrohan, Donna, The Second City: A Backstage History of Comedy’s Hottest Troupe, 1987, USA, Perigree Books
Knelman, Martin, Laughing on the Outside: The Life of John Candy, 1996, Canada, Viking Press
McNall, Bruce, Fun While It Lasted, 2003, USA, Hyperion Books
McNall, Bruce, Fun While It Lasted, 2003, USA, Hyperion Books
Mankiewicz, Tom and Crane, Robert, My Life As A Mankiewicz, 201
2, USA, University Press of Kentucky
Mulligan, Terry David, Mulligan’s Stew, 2011, Canada, Heritage House
O’Hara, Maureen, T’is Herself, 2005, UK, Simon & Schuster UK
Crane, Robert, Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father’s Unsolved Murder, 2017, USA, University Press of Kentucky
Websites
www.johncandy.com
www.imdb.com
About the Author
Tracey J Morgan lives in Shropshire, UK, with her boyfriend and her rescue cats. Born in the late 70s, growing up in the 80s, Morgan is a huge John Candy fan. She has worked in the creative industries as a music band manager, promoter, record label owner and DJ. This book, seven years in the making, is both a love letter to the inspirational John Candy, as well as an in-depth biography. Whilst working on this book Morgan found Candy was everything she wanted him to be, and more.
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