In compiling the stories of Chris Farley's life, we had far more than we could actually fit into a book that any publisher would be willing to publish. A complete digest of the funny things Chris did in his life would run roughly the length of Marcel Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, only with fewer baked goods and more potty jokes. Many of these "Chris stories" were funny, smart, and illuminating, yet still couldn't be fit into the larger story we were trying to tell. So, we present them to you here, much like those "deleted scenes" you're always disappointed by on special edition DVDs. Only, hopefully, these won't disappoint.

On Chris’s superstitions:

FR. MATT FOLEY, friend: 

Chris’s apartment in New York was pretty humble. He lived right next to the rehab, very much on purpose. You walked into the upstairs, where Chris’s bed was, in this loft area. Then you went downstairs to the living room and kitchenette and bathroom. 

His dad calls one morning when I’m visiting. We’d been up really late, and I’m downstairs sleeping on the couch while they’re talking. The apartment building he lived in had been a psych hospital where somebody had died, or so Chris thought. And all of a sudden Chris comes downstairs in his boxers and a T-shirt and says, “My dad says that we need to bless the apartment.”

“What?”

“We should bless the apartment.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

He was very concerned about being in a place where someone else had died. So we get up and go to his kitchen and get some water in a glass. I turn around, and there he is, following me around with his hands folded, just like an altar boy. So I say, “Here, take this. I better put some pants on if I’m going to bless your apartment.” I hand him the water and put on my pants. Then we walk around with the holy water saying Our Fathers and Hail Marys over every inch of the apartment. That was very important to him. He was very excited to have that done, to have that sacred blessing there. 

DAVID SPADE, cast member, SNL: 

When we went to Europe to promote Tommy Boy, he had to go a day early to take his mother to Ireland where he bought a shillelagh. God forbid we ever try and get on a plane without the fucking shillelagh. He was so superstitious. One time we’re getting on a private jet for some business thing. It’s late and everyone’s tired and Chris is like, “I don’t have my shillelagh.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“It’s lucky.”

We had to send a driver back to his apartment to get his shillelagh so he could carry it on the plane. 

On Woodstock:

TOM ARNOLD, friend: 

In 1994 they had the Woodstock twenty-fifth anniversary concert in upstate New York. We took a helicopter in there. Chris took his sister Barb. We were supposed to introduce some of the bands, and right before he went on, he said, “I just talked to my agent, and he says I should get paid for this.”

They weren’t paying anybody. I was like, “Well, they’re kind of letting us do this. We’re just going to introduce the band, and then we get to hang backstage, but I’ll let you decide what you’re gonna do.” So I went out and introduced Nine Inch Nails or one of the bands, and Chris saw that and it looked like fun and he said, “Fuck it. I’ll do it. After the next one, introduce me, and I’ll come out.” 

So I went back out there and I was all excited and I said—this is right after True Lies came out—I said, “Ladies and Gentlemen…Arnold Schwarzenegger!” The crowd went nuts. They were like, “YEAH!!!” So Chris came out and the whole place was like, “What the…?” Chris was so mad. And as soon as he got onstage, someone picked up a big piece of mud and hit him with it from about thirty yards out. 

He was of course hilarious in making something out of the whole thing for the audience. But he was pissed. He was pissed. I said, “Well, if you hadn’t been such a pussy about the money thing. Of course we’re not gonna get paid. From the looks of things, these guys are gonna lose money on this anyway.” So, you know, he didn’t want his “art” to be taken advantage of, and yet he would perform for anyone at any time wherever he was. 

On working his twelve steps:

DAN HEALY, friend: 

Later, when he was sober, he came to Madison one time with Tom Arnold. They flew up in Roseanne’s jet and they went to the Iowa football game. Tom was a huge Iowa fan. They were running around downtown, and I caught up with them. He was doing his twelve steps then. He took me aside and said, “I’m sorry for not being there for you. I’m sorry I missed your wedding, because I really wanted to be there.” He was supposed to be in my wedding, but he couldn’t because he was in rehab at the time. I was just so happy for him, and proud. He was really serious about it. I thought—I honestly thought—that he was in control of it, because he seemed to know that if he ever went back, it would be over. 

On Michael Stipe:

JOHN FARLEY, brother: 

Chris and I used to always go to the steam rooms at these hotels he was living at. One time at the Ritz-Carlton, I think, I went into the steam room, and Michael Stipe, the lead singer of R.E.M., was there, but there wasn’t any steam on. 

“Do you want some steam?” I asked.

“I didn’t know how to turn it on,” he said. 

So he was just sitting there with no steam. I turned it on and he started telling me all about how his dermatologist told him he needed steam for his nose or something. When I told Chris about it he was like, “Was he hitting on you or something?”

“I don’t know. Is he gay? Why wasn’t there any steam?”

“You’re going to get a new R.E.M. song coming,” he said. “ ‘Mayor of the Steam Room,’ by Michael Stipe. That’s going to be you.”

On pleasing his fans:

FRED WOLF, writer, Tommy Boy: 

Once he came out to see me perform at the Improv in L.A. We had worked out this thing beforehand where I’d be onstage, and he’d be out in the audience and he’d heckle me. He’d say mean stuff and I’d get really mad and challenge him to a fight and he’d come walking up onstage. So I’m up there performing, and he starts heckling, only the heckles weren’t very mean. They were somewhat good-natured, and he was supposed to be provoking me. Finally he came up onstage, and the audience just went crazy. It was one of those situations where people started yelling at me, “Go wait in the car!” They wanted to see Chris. And he stayed onstage for about fifteen minutes with really nothing to say. People were yelling out bits or scenes they wanted him to do from SNL, and he did them. At one point, I literally did walk off the stage. Later, when I was driving him home, I said, “Man, you just stayed up there.”

“I didn’t want to disappoint them,” he said. “I didn’t want to walk off stage and let them down.” He did talk a little bit about that, about the people constantly coming up to him and wanting a piece of him, wanting him to be funny. And he’d shrug about it and say, “Well, but I do get to make them laugh.” He was always nice to people who came up to him. Always. I think he was torn between not wanting to hurt anybody’s feelings, on the one hand. Then on the other, he felt that they were essentially saying to him, “Hey, fat guy, juggle for us!”  And yet he’d do it, and if he made them laugh, then I think he was genuinely happy about it. I don’t think you’ll find any big neuroses there. I think it was just having a big heart. 

On Chris’s relationship with his father:

DAVID SPADE: 

The father was a great guy, and Chris was very, very influenced by his dad. I saw it, and it kind of scared me. One time he was on the phone with his dad. His sister accidentally kicked out the phone cord, and he screamed, “You fucking bitch! He’s going to think I hung up on him!” 

I said, “Jesus, dude. It was an accident.” 

But he was kind of in fear and in awe of his dad, and his dad being a drinker and an overeater himself, I think Chris tried to impress him with his drinking and eating. Dads are very strong figures, and I think you try and be like your dad whether you want to or not. And that doesn’t always end well. 

On the Aspen Comedy Festival:

KEVIN FARLEY, brother: 

Aspen was horrible. It was a total disaster. Saturday Night Live was doing some kind of anniversary celebration. Johnny and I went out to meet him. He was staying at the Ritz in Aspen. We stayed with him, each in our own rooms. When we arrived he was already well into it. Pretty much the whole time he was drinking and doing coke. Spade tells a story—and it’s pretty funny; you have to remember that in the midst of all this horrible stuff, Chris was still funny—he called up room service and said, “I’ll have a cheeseburger and a Diet Coke. And, uh, do you have any real coke?”

And the guy did. The room service guy was a coke dealer. So he came up to the room with the cheeseburger and a Diet Coke and a side of cocaine. It was just weird. 

ROB LOWE, costar, Tommy Boy: 

In Aspen it had completely gotten the better of him, to the point where I didn’t recognize him. I saw him after the SNL reunion, and I’m not even sure he knew who I was. 

On (still) being the class clown:

ERICH “MANCOW” MULLER, friend: 

He called me and said, “I’ve broken out of prison. I’m out. I want to go see my boy Chris Rock!” Chris broke out of rehab to come and get me. I met him at his apartment and I begged him not to drink. I was sitting there going, “No. No, Chris. Please.” 

He said, “Just a little splash.” And that’s how it started off, a Coke with just a splash of whisky—and I mean just a drop. Then an hour later it turned into a glass of whisky with a splash of Coke. I spent the night fighting him not to drink.

At the concert, it was Tim Meadows, his wife, and Chris and I. Meadows told me that they had seen him like this. Chris went to the concession stand and kind of got lost and I went to go get him. We were downstairs at the Chicago Theater in the men’s room. This was a Chris Rock show, and white people were definitely in the minority. There was a row of those old-time urinals that go all the way down to the floor. Chris was grabbing these guys at the urinals, turning them around and going, “Holy shit! It’s true. Oh my God, it’s huge! Look at this guy!” And they were furious. They were like, “What the hell?” 

So here’s me and Chris in this restroom packed with black guys. If I had done that we would have been killed. But Chris had such an innocent way about him that what should have been offensive was just naughty and hilarious. He went down the entire row of urinals pulling all these guys back, and eventually they were all just laughing and having a great time. Who else but Farley?

On celebrity rehab:

JILLIAN SEELY, friend: 

Between going to so many different therapies and so many different counselors and so many weird people, he was just worn out. Even in the place where you go to find safety, people were taking advantage of him. 

There were a lot people in the recovery system that tried to use Chris, and that pissed me off. One of his counselors just tried to be his best friend and let him do things that weren’t by the book. There was a treatment center out in L.A. where I went to see him once. He said, “I’ve got a surprise.” We went to a meeting, and then afterward we took the counselor’s Jaguar to go and pick up a brand-new Dodge Viper that Chris had bought. The counselor had loaned Chris his Jaguar to take a break from treatment to go and buy a seventy-thousand-dollar car. What kind of a treatment counselor does that? That seemed a little unheard of. 

TIM MEADOWS, cast member, SNL: 

One time he called me. He must have been on the East Coast, because I had just done a “Ladies Man” sketch on the air. I was literally walking from the stage in 8H, and a page came over and got me and said that Farley was on the phone. I went over and picked it up and Chris was on the other end—he was whispering—and he said, “Meadows, that was so fucking funny. I was just watching you. That was so fucking funny, man.”

I said, “Chris, why are you whispering?”

“I’m in rehab.” 

Then somebody on his end knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right and Chris said, “Yes, yes, I’m fine. I’m just…praying.”

He couldn’t even talk on the phone in this place without somebody looking in on him. I remember telling him to hang in there, that rehab would be good for him, and in the middle of the conversation he said, “People think I’m trying to kill myself, Meadows. You don’t think that, do you?”

I said, “No, Chris. I don’t think you’re trying to kill yourself, but a lot of people care about you and know what a good person you are and don’t want to lose you.” 

On the final months:

FR. TOM GANNON, friend: 

One night, right when he started spiraling out of control at the end, we were supposed to go to dinner—me, Chris, John, and Kevin. We were going to dinner, and then Chris and I were supposed to talk later. 

I was picking Chris and Kevin up, and we were going to meet Johnny at Second City. But when I got there, Kevin came out and said, “Chris went on ahead. He’s going to meet us there.” 

I could tell something was up. I said, “What’s wrong?”

“He’s using again, and he’s high.”

We went over to Second City. I walked up to Chris and he was already high, on something stronger than marijuana, certainly. He looked at me, tears came to his eyes, he threw his arms around me and said, “I’m sorry, Father Tom. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Let’s just get through the night.”

Then at the intermission, I went back and saw Johnny, and he said, “We’re going to do an improv set after the show, and Chris is going to join us.”

“He can’t go onstage,” I said. “He’s high as a kite. Tell the director he’s going to make a fool of himself.”

“I don’t know. I can’t stop him if it’s what he wants to do. I’ll try to discourage him.” 

Then Chris went up regardless, and he was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. It’s a great mystery.

CHARNA HALPERN, director, ImprovOlympic: 

I saw him a few weeks before he died. He called me to come over to his apartment, and I went over there with my friends Mike and Rachel. And we had a lot of fun. Mike and Chris were improvising Caddyshack scenes. Chris knew Caddyshack by heart, word for word. So does Mike. 

Then some other people came over and were sitting in the other room. Chris was going back and forth out of the room for a while, so I was like, what the hell’s going on, you know? So I walked into the other room, and I saw these guys smoking something unusual. I’m not very well versed on other drugs, so I said, “What are you smoking over there? What is that? Is that crack?” 

At first they said it wasn’t, then they were like, “Yeah.” 

“You’re smoking crack in front of Chris?” I said. “Are you giving crack to Chris?  I thought you guys were friends with Chris. Are you guys friends with Chris? Because Chris’s friends would never give him crack. Are you kidding me? He’s the most addictive personality in the world. Who the fuck are you guys? Get the fuck outta here!”

And I got so mad that I just threw them out. They were like looking at Chris, and Chris was like, “You guys better go.” 

They left, and I started yelling at Chris. “Are you nuts?” 

“I’m not gonna get addicted to crack.” 

And I said, “I’m not worried about you getting addicted to crack, I’m worried that your little heart is going to explode as soon as you try it. You’re crazy!”

Then I made him show me everything else he was doing. We went to his medicine cabinet and he had diet pills, coke, and some other stuff. I said, “You can’t do this. You’re going to die. You can’t do this.”

“I’m not gonna die,” he said.

And before all that happened, things were so wonderful that night. He had showed me a smoking jacket that Christopher Guest gave him. He was so proud that he’d made this movie with Christopher Guest. He tried it on for me. It was this beautiful, deep, red velvet smoking jacket. It was so beautiful. He was so proud. I was like, “Look at everything you’ve got, Chris.” We’d also talked about the Fatty Arbuckle project. He said, “Do you think I’d be able to do that?” 

I said, “You’d be amazing, and not only that, it will make you the hugest movie star in the world, because people will see what you really are. They will see that you can really do a serious, intense movie. That you can make us laugh and cry.”

I was so excited for him. The evening had started out so great, but it ended with me just yelling at him. I kept saying, “You cannot do this, Chris. You’re going to die. And if you die, I will follow you to the depths of hell and hate you forever.” 

 “Jesus! I’m not gonna die.”

And that was the last time I ever saw him. 

On the media:

TOM FARLEY, brother: 

The family kind of pushed me out front to deal with the press inquiries after Chris died. The press was all over it. We had phone calls all the time. They tried everything. The guy from People came right up and knocked on our door. It was just an onslaught. Tommy Thompson, who was governor of Wisconsin at the time, called my father up and said, “Tom, let me just tell you one thing about the press: Fuck ’em.” 

On the funeral:

ROBERT SMIGEL, writer, SNL: 

The funeral was a fairly brief experience for me. I flew in and went right back out. I didn’t feel like hanging around and sharing stories with people. I was just too mad. I was mad at some people there, and I was mad at myself. I’m not mad about it nowadays; I like to think most of us learned something from it. But I’ll always believe more could have been done to save him.

TOM GIANAS, director, Second City: 

I was pretty composed on the way up there, but then there’s always that one moment, that moment where you see someone you haven’t seen since all this happened and seeing them just triggers all these emotions and they come welling up. And after all the people I’d seen— Smigel, Odenkirk, Sandler—my moment happened with Lorne. I turned and saw him and just started crying and grabbed him and gave him this big hug. Afterward I thought to myself, did I really just hug Lorne? Did I really just share my naked emotional moment with my boss? It was a really awkward hug. I don’t think I’ve hugged Lorne since.

On appropriate vs. inappropriate tributes:

TOM GIANAS: 

The Old Town Ale House, that was a place we used to go to a lot, because it was open ’til five in the morning. We’d go there and have a drink and talk about the show. A month or two after Chris died, I went in there for a drink, and on the wall was an article from some national magazine. It was an account of Chris’s last binge, the one that killed him, which had included a stop at the Ale House. They had the article up on the wall, and they had the bar’s name highlighted. I just thought, wow, really? You guys really need to do this? I ripped it off the wall, balled it up, threw it at the bartender, and walked out. And I didn’t set foot in that place again. For two weeks. So I guess I really showed ’em. 

On eternal rest:

JOHN FARLEY: 

He got a nice crypt, at least, right next to the archbishop, who I’m sure is shocked at seeing his neighbor. “Who’s this guy? I’m an archbishop, for God’s sake.”

CONAN O’BRIEN, writer, SNL: 

For those of us who worked with Chris or with Phil Hartman, when you see that there’s an E! True Hollywood Story about them, your mind just can’t accept that part of it, honestly. It’s an abstraction. It doesn’t make any sense. I always just turn those things off. Those were real people, who were hilarious and really made me laugh hard and were fun to be around and came to work everyday and did a good job. That’s the thing that I can connect to. That’s the way it should be. That’s why we’re still talking about him.

Two-thirds of my writing staff has always been Chicago/Second City people, so his name comes up a lot. And I work with so many people who performed with him or knew him. With us, people mostly talk about the really funny days in Chicago, or the fun times when we met him at SNL and he was this character around the office. That tends to be what we all gravitate toward. The guy who thought performing comedy for a living was like being the kid in the candy store. 

One of the things that keeps Chris in my head every day is that we have photos in the hallways of all the big interviews and funnier moments that we’ve done. Every night I walk out of the office on my way home, and it’s usually just me alone. I walk down the hallway and there’s this great shot of me at the desk, Andy Richter over on the couch, and Chris is between us, wearing this white suit, as wide as he is tall, in this sort of Al Jolsen pose, belting something out. That was a time when my show was just starting out. Things were a bit rocky, so for someone like Chris to come through and be on the show meant a lot to me. Andy—who’s a hard laugh—is screaming he’s laughing so hard, and I’m really cracking up. I walk past it every night on my way home, and it’s a way to stay connected to everything that was great about him.

DAN HEALY: 

My little girl is too young to ever really have known Chris, and of course she doesn’t know about the darker parts of his life. All she knows is that he was a special friend, and he died because he had a problem. But growing up I’d tell her stories all the time about the things that Chris did for us, just the simple, funny ways he’d make us laugh, like goofing off during football practice and things like that. She always laughs at them. And today, whenever she asks for a bedtime story, she always asks for one about Chris. She climbs under the covers, I tuck her in, and she looks up and says, “Tell me a Chris Farley story.” Because it’s the kind of story a child loves.