John Candy's Former Co-Stars Have A Lot To Say About Him

The 1980s was a boom period for film comedy, and the blockbusters, critical favorites, and enduring home video and cable TV staples of the era were generally populated by a loosely affiliated group of actors and funny people. The United States' late-night institution, "Saturday Night Live," and Canadian television's "SCTV" served as a farm system for comedy, and the latter gave the world one of the all-time greats in John Candy. In a career that lasted just under two decades because of a tragic death, Candy stole scenes in early work like "Stripes," "National Lampoon's Vacation," and "Splash" before going on to show the full potential of his talents. He became an A-lister with "Spaceballs," "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," "The Great Outdoors," and "Cool Runnings."

Almost without fail, Candy was never a traditional leading man, but instead acted as a major part of an ensemble. He made his co-stars' work better, and they elevated him, too, and that's a big reason why Candy is so beloved for so many movies released between 1981 and 1994. Working with the actor was a life-changing experience for his cohort, and here's what John Candy was really like, as an actor and person, according to those who knew him the best.

John Candy and Eugene Levy performed together so much throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s that they constituted a comedy team. Their tenures on "SCTV" overlapped by three years, and they'd both appear in "Double Negative," "Heavy Metal," "Going Berserk," "Splash," "Armed and Dangerous," among others. Collaborating so often could only come from, or result in, a tight friendship. "I loved John dearly. We were very, very close friends. I think I worked with John more than anybody else in TV, and on four or five movies," Levy told the National Post in 2019.

Levy harbored a deep respect for Candy both personal and professional. "John was a lovely man, first of all, who cared deeply about people. And he was, I think, one of the most gifted comedic actors that honestly has ever been in the business. He made such an impact in his movies and people truly loved him. It always seems like John is still around."

Catherine O'Hara got her big break as a comic actor in the Toronto wing of the Second City comedy theatrical group in the 1970s, as did John Candy. "He would always be willing to do an improv with me after the show. And he was always willing to try any idea," O'Hara recalled to People. They appeared in sketches on the television adaptation, "SCTV," together, and eventually, several movies, including the mockumentary "The Last Polka" and the Christmas classic "Home Alone."

According to O'Hara, the actor was "just as wonderful and fun and sweet and great as you would imagine he would be. He could also be playful," she told the National Post. "You'd be on the street with him, in a mall, and somebody would come up and just want to do a comedy bit with him, and he would always pick up on it right away and give something back and see their eyes light up, like, 'Oh, I'm doing a bit with John Candy,'" O'Hara explained to People.

Before they both became movie stars in the United States' movie industry, John Candy and Martin Short were Canadian comedy icons. They appeared in countless sketches together in the various incarnations of "SCTV" that aired throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as in the Canadian comedy films "Lost and Found," "Really Weird Tales," "The Canadian Conspiracy," and "The Incredible Time Travels of Henry Osgood." "John was a genius," Short proclaimed in a speech to the Hudson Union Society in 2015. "He was affable, he was funny, he was a brilliant comedian, a brilliant, brilliant actor."

Candy often played characters who were warm and gregarious, and very unsubtle in their feelings. In that regard, according to Short, Candy didn't have to act very hard. "People would say to me, 'tell me about John,'" Short said in a clip in the documentary compilation "Tell Me About John" (via Entertainment Weekly). "The thing about John was what you saw on the screen was basically John."

In 1991, John Candy ventured into a dramatic role with "Only the Lonely." He portrayed a lovelorn middle-aged man dealing with an overbearing mother, portrayed by Hollywood legend Maureen O'Hara. A modestly budgeted film, producers claimed that there wasn't a lot of money to make any of the actors besides Candy comfortable.

"The production company gave him a great trailer. And Maureen O'Hara had this little dinky trailer. And John said, 'You know Maureen should have a trailer like this. Are you kidding? She was in "The Quiet Man." She worked with the Duke. How can you put her in a trailer like this?'" recalled "Only the Lonely" third lead Jim Belushi in an interview surrounding the release of the film (via TikTok). "They said, 'Well we can't afford it. We want to put the money on the screen.' John said, 'Okay, I see. Alright, Maureen will take my trailer.'" Candy vacated his quarters and gave the luxurious space to O'Hara, while he took a tiny trailer outfitted with little more than a cot and a mirror. It embarrassed the production so much that they eventually brought in another big trailer for Candy.

Before he starred in great biopics, Tom Hanks was almost purely a comic actor. In 1984 and 1985, he starred in four comedy movies, and two of them — "Splash" and "Volunteers" — featured supporting performances from John Candy. His ascendency to stardom occurred just before Hanks' rise, and before filming began on "Splash," Hanks was uneasy about acting opposite such a titan of humor. "That was scary. I was such a big fan of both John and Eugene Levy for their work on Second City that I was a little bit trepidatious about going into this, quite certain that they could blow me off the screen without too much effort," Hanks told KATU-TV while promoting "Splash" in 1984. Once the cameras started rolling, however, Hanks found it tough to control his emotions. "When we were doing the scenes my attention gravitated so much that I had trouble not laughing at what he was doing," Hanks explained. "He's a very funny guy."

Five years after Candy's death, Hanks reflected on his co-star's charm on  "Inside the Actors Studio." "One of the great gifts to humankind," Hanks said. "I don't think he ever met a person who didn't feel as though they were lucky to have been able to chat with John for a while. And I must say, the gregariousness that he had was actually born of how big his heart was."

When director Mel Brooks plucked Bill Pullman out of a play to portray the hero Lone Starr in his 1987 "Star Wars" parody "Spaceballs," it was the actor's first ever significant film role. Most of his scenes were opposite John Candy, who played the Chewbacca-spoofing dog-man Barf. Pullman was such a newbie that he had a hard time talking to any members of the crew or cast, daunted by the mere idea of approaching the various comedy luminaries, until Candy invited him to have lunch with him in his trailer. That served as Pullman's introduction to "Spaceballs" and to Hollywood in general, and he teasingly chastised him to break him of his unnecessary shyness. "'And you, Mr. Still Waters, Mr. Smiling-on-the-Outside, you had it all figured out and stayed out of it.' He was both calling me out for being quiet and making me feel noticed, secure," Pullman recalled to The New York Times.

Later on, Candy approached Brooks and persuaded him to give more laugh lines to Pullman's character. "John was feeling that, as scripted, most of the funny lines were being given to Barf, and he suggested I might take one of the wisecracks," Pullman said. "I have never forgotten John Candy's generosity. He showed me how to be a gentle leader. He lightened my load. He had my back."

John Candy played the small but crucial role of Gus Polinski in the 1990 holiday blockbuster "Home Alone." He's the leader of a polka band traveling through the Midwest via van who helps reunite Kate McAllister (Catherine O'Hara) with her accidentally abandoned son, Kevin. Macaulay Culkin played Kevin, while his real-life brother Kieran Culkin, about 7 years old at the time, had a minor role as his character's bed-wetting cousin, Fuller.

All of Candy's scenes were with O'Hara, and he was only on the set for one day. "Most of what he did in 'Home Alone' was improvised," Kieran Culkin told Esquire. "If you see that it's a big chunk of movie that he's in, all in one like twenty-something-hour-long day that's mostly improvised. The man was brilliant." Culkin also sought out Candy with what limited time he had. "I only met him once as far as I know. I remember going in the trailer and seeing him and was just starstruck. I don't remember anything specific, except that he was really nice. That's all. And I was like, 'I love this guy.'"

John Hughes directed 1987's "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" from his own script. Even though it would've been a four-hour-plus movie if nothing had been cut, Hughes welcomed improvisation from stars Steve Martin and John Candy, playing complete opposites who wind up stuck in a comically tedious Thanksgiving travel situation together. Some of the most memorable moments in the film came from ad-libbing by Martin and Candy in particular. One improvised bit includes when the duo accidentally wind up intimately snuggling together, mistaking body parts for pillows. "He was so sweet and we got along so great," Martin told the "Fly on the Wall" podcast. "He would make me laugh so much, he would do a gladiator movie, like an Italian dubbed gladiator movie where he would say the line in Italian and his lips would keep moving like it was dubbed."

Toward the end of the film, Candy's character, Del, tells Martin's character, Neal, that the reason he's so annoyingly clingy is because he's grown extremely lonely since the death of his wife, whom he spoke of in the present tense throughout the film. "And I was opposite him," Martin recalled of the production process in the documentary "STEVE!" (via Cracked). "I was weeping as he was performing it," Martin said, crying a little at even the recollection.

Mermaids look different in different cultures, and in the United States, the mythical fish-woman creatures look a lot like how Daryl Hannah portrayed one in the 1984 romantic comedy "Splash." Hannah played Madison, a mermaid who falls in love with a human man, Allen (Tom Hanks); John Candy landed the role of Allen's sleazy brother, Freddie.

During the filming of "Splash," Hannah and Candy quickly became close friends and even developed a two-person comedy act. "I just absolutely adored him. He was just so full of heart and soul, and so hilarious. Tears-coming-out-of-your-eyes, pee-your-pants hilarious," Hannah told Empire. "I used to sit on his lap all the time and he would talk for me and I'd mime what he was saying like a ventriloquist doll. He'd answer questions for me in interviews." Hannah and Candy stayed in touch over the next decade, and the latter's death in 1994 spelled the end of a comedy film they'd long been planning to make together.

Bill Murray's life in comedy began in earnest in the 1970s, when he was accepted into the Chicago company of Second City, the live sketch and improvisational comedy troupe. Invited at the behest of his brother, Murray's tenure there began at the same time as another future comedy luminary just beginning his professional era. "John Candy and I started the same week, and the other actors hated us," Murray told the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder in 2016. The actor wasn't really sure why, but it allowed him a chance to connect with Candy on stage and hone their skills together. "He and I improvised together every night because they didn't want to have anything to do with us."

Less than a decade later, after Murray went to "Saturday Night Live" and Candy headed to "Second City," they co-starred in one of their first mutual major motion pictures. "We did 'Stripes' together," Murray said of the 1981 comedy, "and he was really great to work with. He was a real good guy."

After becoming the sweethearts of the Winter Olympics, the 1988 Jamaican Bobsled team went on to be the focus of a gently fictionalized biopic, 1993's "Cool Runnings." John Candy portrayed the team's gruff coach Irv, while Doug E. Doug, Malik Yoba, Rawle D. Lewis, and Leon played the bobsledders.

As the most experienced actor in the film by far, Candy went out of his way to connect with the cast and to make them feel important. "The first dinner I remember having was John Candy inviting us all to dinner. He picked up some music that he thought represented each character and gave it to us. I remember thinking that was a classy move," Yoba told Entertainment Weekly. "[Candy] played a song for each one of us that he thought represented the essence of our characters," Doug added. "I know it was a Rolling Stones song, but he was just a beautiful dude, the long and short of it, he was a beautiful guy."

Writer-director John Hughes clearly appreciated working with John Candy, as he cast him in seven of his film projects. One of their last collaborations was the 1989 comedy "Uncle Buck," in which Candy played a slovenly and obnoxious relative called in to watch his brother's uptight suburban children on short notice, to the chagrin of almost everyone. This included a nosy neighbor played by Laurie Metcalf, now possibly best known for being part of the cast of "The Big Bang Theory."

As Metcalf hadn't made many films at that point, "Uncle Buck" was a nerve-wracking experience, particularly a scripted slow-dance scene with Candy. However, the other actor put her at ease. "What I found helpful at the time was to drill the scene over and over. And I'm sure that it was the last thing he wanted to do, having appeared in probably every frame of that movie, was to spend time doing something over and over again before it was even shot," Metcalf told People. "But he was so patient and generous with me, and that's what we did," she said. "That for me sums up how big-hearted he was and what a sweetheart he was. He just taught me a lot about being a great scene partner.

The mainstream entertainment performance careers of John Candy and Conan O'Brien overlapped by only a few months. Candy passed away while filming the 1994 comedy "Wagons East!" just after the 1993 debut of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," and the actor never appeared on that talk show. But they did meet years earlier, and it was a pivotal moment in the professional development of the younger comedian. O'Brien attended Harvard University in the 1980s, and he was in a position of authority at the college's storied humor magazine, the "Lampoon." "John Candy was one of my comedy heroes. I grew up watching 'SCTV,'" he said on the "Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend" podcast. "I orchestrated basically a scam to get John Candy to come and visit the Lampoon building, and I got to go and get him and chauffeur him around and I got to spend about a day and a half with him."

O'Brien enjoyed his time with Candy, and the conversation went to some deep places. "I remember talking to him pretty late at night having a chat with him. And he asked me what I was thinking of doing and I said, 'I might like to try comedy,'" O'Brien recalled. "He said, 'Kid, you don't try comedy, you do it 'cause you have to.' And I walked away from that thinking, he's right. If I'm in, I'm all in."