John Candy.Photo:DMI/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
DMI/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Suddenly, he went from “macaroni and cheese to macaroni and lobster," he joked toPEOPLEin 1981.
Candy became a leading man himself, starring in comedies likePlanes, Trains and AutomobileswithSteve Martin,Uncle BuckwithMacaulay Culkin, andDeliriouswithMariel Hemingway. He died while making the 1994 comedyWagons East, which was released shortly after he passed away.
Read on for an excerpt ofPEOPLE’s cover story about his death.
Rarely before had he called his costars after hours — not because he was unfriendly, but because John Candy, who seemed to pop up in nearly every other movie during the past 10 years, was at bottom a shy and self-conscious man.
Steve Martin and John Candy in ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’.Paramount/Getty Images
Paramount/Getty Images
Still, just after midnight on March 4, he couldn’t help himself, and he reached for the phone. Hours earlier, he had finished shooting his final scene inWagons East, a comedy he had been filming since January near the tiny village of Chupaderos, Mexico, just outside Durango.
People who witnessed the take — including Candy himself — felt that he had turned in the performance of his career. So elated was the genial actor that after cooking a late-night spaghetti dinner for his assistants, he put in calls to Lewis and Picardo, and for a few minutes the actors reveled in their own and each other’s accomplishments.
John Candy in 1983.Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
“He was like a little kid who had had a great day at camp,'' says Picardo. ‘‘He wanted to thank us.'”
With that, Candy hung up, soon turned out the light and went to sleep. He never woke up.
The next morning, when Lewis and Picardo arrived on the set, they had not yet stepped from their car when an ashen-faced production assistant broke the news: At about 6 a.m. the 43-year-old Candy had suffered a heart attack and died in his sleep.
Picardo slumped down in his seat. Lewis ran into a field and fell to the ground. ‘‘And then,’’ says Picardo, “we both began to weep.”
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John Candy on the cover of PEOPLE.
Candy’s family was stunned. “‘None of us believed it would happen,” says Frank Hober, 56, the elder brother of Candy’s wife, Rosemary. “The whole family is in turmoil.”
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, colleagues who considered the star of such hits as 1987’sPlanes, Trains and Automobilesand last year’sCool Runningsa fixture in their community reeled in shock.
“Are you sure he’s dead? Did you get it right?” demanded comedian Paul Rodriguez. “He looked so healthy.”
source: people.com
