Silly stories about meeting celebrities – #7 – Drinking beer in Chicago with Chris Farley

In the early 1990s, I was immersed in trying to learn how to improvise.  Second City was the home of improvisational comedy, so I took classes there and tried to find out as much about it as I could from those who earned a living doing it.

That led me to U.S. Blues, a bar a block south of Second City owned in part by Dan Aykroyd and frequented by many of the actors who working at the iconic theater.

I had been there before, as much because of the cool location as the clientele.  US Blues was down an alley and then a staircase led to a cellar.  It was more like a small speakeasy than a modern bar.  Steve Beshekas ran the place and tended bar.  He was a friend of the late John Belushi, and made good conversation.

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On a Wednesday night after class, I popped in, and there were four people in the bar.  Beshekas behind the bar, two guys sitting at the bar, and a fourth at a small table.  I introduced myself to the two guys at the bar, and one was Tim O’Malley, a longtime cast member at Second City.  Like many had done before me, I’m sure, I asked O’Malley about improvisation.  Very nicely, with an almost invisible eye roll, O’Malley left his stool and walked me over to the big guy sitting alone at the table, “Chris, I want you to meet Kent.  He’s taking improv classes and has some questions.  Kent, Chris is in the main stage cast too.”

The big guy smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Chris Farley.”

Clearly, O’Malley had passed me off – either as a joke or because Farley was a friendly guy who didn’t mind talking to a pain in the ass with a bunch of the same silly questions as the thousands of other dreamers who came to Chicago hope to be the next John Belushi – minus the overdose.

I didn’t know who Chris was at the time, but he told me about how cool it was that Bill Murray had been in the bar a few nights before filming a little vignette that played during the pregame for the All Star Game at Wrigley Field the previous night.  He was jacked to meet Murray, who was his comedic hero.

We talked about his time in Madison and Marquette, how improv was the most fun he ever had, and how his path led to Second City.  He was a sweet guy who asked about my family and what my life was like.  We sat for a couple of hours, drank a few beers, and had a good conversation.

This behavior of chatting up strangers is as unusual for me as being launched into space.  Approaching people I’ve never met in a bar is not my cup of tea, but I wanted to learn about improv.  These guys were where I wanted to be, so I bit the bullet.  I assume strangers are even less eager to talk to me than I am to them, but Farley made it fun and easy.  We told stories and laughed until it was time for me to head home to Julie and Ryan.

I remember thinking that Farley was too normal to be successful in a cut-throat business like sketch comedy.

The next time I went to U.S. Blues, Farley was there again.  This was four weeks after our conversation, and there was a crowd in the bar that night.  I sat at the bar, and Bashekas said, “Farley found out he’s been cast on SNL.”

That’s the holy grail for Second City actors.  They all dream of getting the call from Lorne Michaels to join the cast.  There has been a steady pipeline from Second City to SNL since the original cast.  Belushi, Aykroyd, and Gilda Radner were from Second City, and Murray joined the cast during season two.  Dozens of others have followed.

This was Farley’s dream, and he celebrated like it.  Every seven minutes, he would do a shot of tequila, insult O’Malley, and then duck into the back room.  I didn’t know what the hell was going on in back, but this was a different Farley.  He wasn’t sweet at all.  He was frenetic, caustic, and entirely unappealing.

I stayed for an hour out of curiosity, and then bolted.  I’m pretty good at reading a room, and there were things going on in that place I wanted no part of.

You know the rest of the story.  Farley became a star on SNL with characters like Matt Foley and Bears super fan Todd O’Connor.  He starred in Tommy Boy and Black Sheep as he fell down a Belushian hole of opiate addiction which killed him in late 1997.

I don’t know enough about Farley or addiction to have an answer for how the sweet guy who was so jacked to meet his idol skyrocketed to intense fame and then died of an overdose in just seven-and-a-half years.

I just know that on that one Wednesday in 1990, Chris Farley was good company.