by Justin Lloyd
In early 1998, Jim was also writing country music and collaborating with two talented musician friends. Bobby Boyd had lived with Jim for a short while in the ‘90s. After starting out in a country band called The Castaways, Boyd moved into songwriting, doing extremely well. Conway Twitty, George Jones and Jimmy Dean are just a few of the country artists who recorded his songs. His biggest success came from a song he co-wrote in the ‘80s called “Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House.” It later became a No. 1 hit for Garth Brooks.
Boyd, Jim and country singer Vern Gosdin gathered on Sunday mornings in Jim’s kitchen, a place where Jim often found inspiration, to write and play music. Gosdin, then in his mid-’60s, had first achieved success in the 1960s singing in a band with his brother Rex. He later began a solo career that brought him a long string of mainstream country hits in the 1980s as well as the impressive nickname: “The Voice.” In 1984 he landed his first No. 1 hit on the country chart with the song “I Can Tell by the Way You Dance (You’re Gonna Love Me Tonight).” Gosdin was working on a new album and was excited about the melodies created during these sessions. One of the many songs the three worked on was called “Maybe Then I’ll Be Over You.” The lyrics describe a man so wounded over a past relationship that he doesn’t believe his heart will recover until he is “six feet under.” Gosdin recorded the song for his 1998 album “The Voice.” Jim received a writing credit.
The time at home was a nice break for Jim, who was still going as hard as ever. On the heels of the two Ernest movies he had just shot in South Africa, he was traveling to California to record dialogue for “Toy Story 2” and reading over a number of scripts being sent his way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
THE END OF A “GREAT ADVENTURE”
In the summer of 1998, Jim was in Los Angeles shooting another children’s comedy movie. He was cast as small-time counterfeiter Carl Banks in “Treehouse Hostage.” In the movie, Carl manages to escape from jail but is soon strung up by a young boy’s booby trap while cutting through backyards. When the boy and his friends discover that Carl is the escapee cops are looking for, they decide to keep him as their hostage. Apart from a few Ernest-type facial expressions and a scene where he appears in drag, Carl is probably the only movie role where Jim played a character “straight,” that is, in a way closest to his true personality and mannerisms.
During the shooting, Jim began to experience severe coughing attacks. Before long, he was coughing up blood. He thought he may have contracted something in South Africa. After returning home from California he had chest x-rays at a hospital in Nashville. The news was not good. A mass was found on his lungs, and the doctor wanted Jim to have a bronchoscopy – where a piece of the mass is removed for testing.
As soon as he got the results, Jim called his sister Jake, a nurse, to find out just how worried he should be. He knew her schedule, and the phone rang just as she got home from work. Jake was an operating-room nurse at the time and had actually assisted in bronchoscopies. Jim filled her in, and Jake outlined what was involved, including the need to be put under anesthesia. Jake could tell Jim was worried.
Jake called Sandy soon after, and they both realized that their brother probably had lung cancer. As sad as the probable diagnosis was, it was something for which they had been preparing. Jake and Sandy had observed a noticeable change in Jim’s appearance the past few times they had seen him in person. He looked as if he had aged 10 years in the last two. Throw in the fact that Jim had been a lifelong smoker, and the conclusion was not a pretty one. No matter what the news was they were going to do everything they could to get him through it.
With the added reassurance he received from Jake, Jim proceeded with the bronchoscopy a few days after talking to her. The results of the biopsy confirmed everyone’s worst fears: The mass was a malignant tumor. Doctors wanted to schedule surgery as soon as possible to remove it. Knowing that the recovery time could be lengthy, Jim quickly began tying up loose ends. One was an exciting new project with Billy Bob Thornton.
Jim’s last onscreen performance was in “Daddy and Them,” directed and written by Thornton. The Southern-flavored comedy is set in Arkansas and tells the story of a struggling musician named Claude (Thornton), his wife, Ruby (Laura Dern), and the episode that drives their already-dysfunctional family into chaos. Claude’s Uncle Hazel, played by Jim, is arrested and jailed in Little Rock for assaulting a man with an iron doorstop. Claude and Ruby go to Little Rock to rally around him and the rest of the family while helping to hire a defense team. The only problem is, the family doesn’t get along any better than Claude and Ruby do.
By now, Thornton and Jim had been friends for a decade. Even though their busy careers kept them from getting together much, they kept in touch by phone, with Jim often entertaining Thornton for hours. Along with the fact that they both loved to act and sing, they were also unapologetic Southerners who loved the humor that came with the stereotypes of the region. Thornton has admitted borrowing phrases of Jim’s through the years, including “How ‘boutcha?” and “Getcha a knock off that steak.” Thornton used to stay at Jim’s house every so often. He recalled once how during a visit he saw Jim’s DeLorean up on blocks in the front yard. That prompted a warning from Thornton: “Never give a hillbilly money.”
With his recent diagnosis, Jim likely knew “Daddy and Them” could be his last movie. Perhaps his optimistic side hoped to use the performance to break away from Ernest for good. Thornton was giving Jim a shot at the type of dramatic movie role he had been yearning for since he had first come to Los Angeles. Not even cancer was going to stop Jim from pursuing this opportunity. Thornton, being the good friend he was, moved production around to allow Jim to film his scenes before his surgery.
In addition to Dern, the all-star cast includes such actors as Jamie Lee Curtis and Ben Affleck. The unfortunate thing is that Jim’s most memorable scene actually ended up on the cutting-room floor. It has been included, deservedly, in the deleted scenes of the DVD release.
In the scene, Jim barges into the house during a family meal. He immediately begins to loudly lecture everyone sitting at the table on how poorly they and other family members have been treating each other. With every word he becomes increasingly enraged until he is worked up into such a fury that he begins to smash furniture in an adjacent room. Never had Jim shown such raw emotion onscreen. It must have taken every ounce of his weakened body to bring forth the passion and physicality the scene required. He dug deep. Perhaps his performance was fueled by the years of being typecast, the elusive roles on Broadway, bad Ernest movie reviews and now the unfairness of a cancer diagnosis. If this were to be his final act, to borrow a phrase from his father’s world of boxing, he was determined to “go down swinging.”
“Daddy and Them” producer Bruce Heller spoke highly of Jim. “It’s amazing what Jim does in the film. It’s something different than you’ve ever seen from him before. He’s got the dramatic center of the movie.”
Just a few days after filming his scenes, Jim was back in Nashville undergoing a major operation. A large tumor piercing his heart was removed, along with almost two-thirds of his right lung.
Jim’s sisters traveled down from Lexington to visit him, as did a nephew, Brad Kelly, the son of Jim’s late sister Jo Gail. They were relieved the surgery was a success and hopeful the cancer would not return. Jim’s sense of humor gave them added confidence that he would weather this storm. Right before surgery, Jim had told his doctors that if they pulled him through he would give them a handsome tip.
In no time, Jim was using the missing portion of his lung as the butt of his “one lung” jokes. He found out his old friend Johnny Cash was staying in a nearby Nashville hospital undergoing treatment for pneumonia. He called Cash’s room and began joking with him: “There you go bragging about having double pneumonia when you know the best I can do is single pneumonia.” He also said one advantage to having the extra space in his chest was that it might be a good place to carry
a knife.
Jim was curious about all the different machines he was wired to in his hospital bed. One, the pulse oximeter, measured the oxygen in his blood. Jake explained that a desirable reading ranged from 96 percent to 100 percent. Jim’s reading was between 88 and 90. He admitted that it was better than most of his high school grades.
During this time, a movie set to feature Jim called “Pirates of the Plain” was announced. John Cherry had written the screenplay and was set to direct. It was the first non-Ernest movie Cherry would direct since “Dr. Otto.” The movie is about an 8-year-old Nebraska farm boy who is befriended by pirate Jezebel Jack (Jim) after a storm creates a vortex in time allowing the salty sea captain to be deposited into the future. Right before passing through time, Jack was being forced to walk the plank of his ship by his mutinous crew. Jack helps the boy find a treasure buried underneath a toolshed just before the rest of his crew arrive via another time vortex. Jack and the boy successfully fight off the crew, keeping the treasure out of their hands.
The movie was scheduled to start shooting that fall in Cape Town, but Jim had to pull out because of his health problems. Tim Curry ended up playing Jezebel Jack. The movie has remained a never-ending source of confusion for Ernest fans. It somehow became news that a movie called “Ernest the Pirate” was nearing completion when Jim passed. That was not true. Online petitions have actually demanded Disney release “Ernest the Pirate.”
Now not only was cancer affecting Jim’s health, it was having a major impact on his acting career. Luckily, he had already finished his voice work for “Toy Story 2” and another animated Disney feature, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” Jim was the voice of the cook, Jebidiah Allardyce “Cookie” Farnsworth.
• • •
Ever since the first “Toy Story” film, Jim had enjoyed a new niche in animated voice work. In 1997, he voiced a character named Walt Evergreen in an episode of “Duckman,” an animated sitcom on the USA Network that followed the adventures of a duck private detective. That same year, he portrayed Mr. Gus Holder in the animated Christmas film “Annabelle’s Wish,” about a calf that aspires to be one of Santa’s reindeer. Jim also voiced a carnie named Cooter on an episode of “The Simpsons” in 1998. Five years earlier, the show paid tribute to Jim in an episode where the Simpson family heads out to see a fictional movie called “Ernest Goes Somewhere Cheap.”
Meanwhile, Jim was still recovering from his surgery. Jim’s sisters Jake and Sandy continued to drive down from Lexington to his home in Tennessee to visit when they could. They would stay over for a night or two and fix him meals.
Another family member who spent a great deal of time with Jim during his recovery was his niece Andrea (Sandy’s daughter). Andrea was 25 at the time and able to take time off from her waitress job in Lexington to visit him. Andrea also cooked for Jim and provided welcome company. Jim loved her stir-fry with pineapple chunks. It was one of the few meals he would finish. During a few visits, Jim actually cooked for Andrea, once making his chili with chocolate syrup. She found it quite good.
When Andrea stayed at Jim’s she would fix him a pot of coffee in the morning. He wasn’t much for breakfast but usually drank most of the coffee. He occasionally talked about his dreams and tried to interpret them.
Then they would hang out on the couch in his den for much of the day and talk. They discussed such things as history, jewelry, politics and Jim’s career. Andrea remembers him talking about the Carter family album he had played on with his dulcimer.
Jim was not into technology and told Andrea he thought he wasn’t tech-savvy enough for the 21st century. He did not own a computer and had shelves full of VHS movies that he enjoyed watching on his VCR. Andrea remembers a conversation where Jim said he thought children were not as creative as when he was young, and he blamed technology (but remember, this was in 1999, years before such developments as the iPhone and Facebook).
Around March 1999 Jim suffered a seizure, and it turned out the cancer had spread to his brain. After receiving radiation, he lost most of his hair. He decided he might as well have the rest shaved. Ever the comedian, he talked about how much he enjoyed his “Mr. Clean” look. Andrea remembers Jim calling himself “Yul Bummer.” Sandy recalls how his bald head made his eyes look “electric and intensely blue.” Andrea also remembers her visits to the hospital and the positive outlook that carried Jim through some of his darkest periods:
“In the 18 months of Jim’s illness, he was hospitalized several times. He had pneumonia and (a major) seizure. I would sit up in his room the entire time he was there. He liked to watch the national news. He referred to it as “eye dope,” and it made him fall asleep. He chewed Nicorette like crazy, chewing twice the amount recommended, a total slave to the nicotine. He didn’t want to be left alone in the hospital for a minute while he was there, so I stayed. When he had the seizure, he couldn’t talk for a few days. He had to write everything left-handed.
“He got so frustrated so easily. He really had little patience. It was frustrating for me too. I wanted so bad to understand him. We got so close though; I could almost read his mind.
“He never acted the victim of his disease. I think deep down he knew he was going to lose, but he stayed so positive that he was going to beat it. He was a true inspiration. He absolutely never thought smoking would kill him; he said he (always) thought it would be the alcohol.
“Jim was religious. He read the Bible many times during the last year of his life, and he told me he grasped much of it. He never lost his creativity, his sense of humor or his hope.”
• • •
Andrea is my sister, and I was able to accompany her on one of her visits to Jim’s home in September 1999. I was 27 years old at the time. We arrived around dinnertime, and we all quickly made ourselves comfortable on the couches in his den. I cannot recall what we began talking about, or to be more specific, what Jim began talking about. What I do remember is that I had a front-row seat to a 12-hour one-man show. Aside from taking a few minutes to eat Andrea’s stir-fry, Jim touched on many things, including countless stories of his past. Andrea hung in there for the first few hours, and then it was just my uncle and me.
The conversation took us from Bowie knives and swordfight demonstrations (using a Wiffle Ball bat) to recollections of Lafayette High School. At one point, we moved into the kitchen. Jim retrieved a large bullet from a kitchen drawer and began a lesson on its uses. If only I had known the treat I was going to be in for that night, I would have brought along a tape recorder or video camera.
Jim gave the last major interview of his life in November 1999 with Beverly Keel of the alternative weekly Nashville Scene. She sat down with him in his home; during the conversation Jim showed himself in a way he had rarely done before.
He admitted self-medicating for years with alcohol to deal with his lifelong struggle with depression. Said Jim, “But that wears off in a few hours, and you’re back to square one again. I didn’t know that there weren’t super highs and lows in everybody’s life.” He even admitted to believing his depression was a contributing factor in his failed marriage to first wife, Jacqui.
As usual, Jim injected humor when speaking of the pressure to be funny in a crowd where he was almost always the center of attention. He joked about how he often wished during those times he could take a raincheck: “We’ll do lunch, a very depressing lunch.” Then he talked about how he had visited a psychiatrist three years earlier who had prescribed Wellbutrin. After taking it, he admitted, “I found out what normalcy was.”
One of the many things that kept Jim going during the trials of his illness was his excitement over the upcoming release of “Daddy and Them.” Its original release date had been scheduled for December 1999, just a month after “Toy Story 2.” His career was still very much on his mind, and he couldn’t wait to get back to work. He told his sisters to make sure not to tell anyone he was sick. He was afraid that it might cause him to get overlooked for future roles.
By November 13, 1999, Jim had regained enough strength to attend the premiere of “Toy Story 2” at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, the site of the first “Toy Story” premiere four years earlier. This time, however, the man walking that same red carpet looked much different. The cancer medication caused swelling in Jim’s face, a contrast to his frail frame. His cheeks were fuller and his complexion appeared smooth and pale, making his blue eyes more noticeable. Having lost all his hair, he was now sporting a goatee that was almost completely gray. But he didn’t let his looks affect his unique sense of style. Wearing a dark-green silk shirt, stylish black fedora and dangling gold earring, he conveyed the message that he was still the same unconventional Jim.
Just a month earlier in Nashville, Jim had received a special tribute at the Nashville Filmmakers Conference. Now, this big Hollywood premiere was icing on the cake. Janie and his attorney, Hoot Gibson, helped Jim walk through the photographers and crowds of onlookers as he made his way into the theater.
Up until that point, Jim had done a good job up keeping his battle with cancer concealed. But with so many media outlets in attendance, his appearance quickly brought up questions about his health. Following the event, news outlets reported on Jim’s battle with cancer and what Jim had described to them as an encouraging prognosis.
A few months later, I drove my mother, Sandy, down to see Jim. It was February 9, 2000. We arrived in the early evening, and right away I could tell things were very different than the last time I had visited the previous fall. A hospital bed had been set up in his living room. I could not believe how frail Jim was. It was obvious that he did not have much time. When my mother walked up with me to his bedside she said, “Look who I brought here with me; it’s Mistake,” referring to the dim-witted son of his Lloyd Worrell character. I managed a smile as I tried to remain as calm and collected as my mother. It seems very much a Varney trait to find humor during the most trying moments.