Searching for Candy: John Candy: A Biography by Tracey J Morgan

Author:Tracey J Morgan [Morgan, Tracey J]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2019-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Big Bear Chase Me

Imagine being chased.

Now imagine you are being chased through a wood.

It is raining heavily and you are trying to navigate your way through trees, over roots, through the terrain debris littered on the floor.

Imagine that the thing that is chasing you weighs over 800 pounds, has four legs, claws like razors, and a guttural roar that makes the ground beneath your feet shudder.

Your heart is pounding, it’s leaping out of your chest and you can hear it thumping in your head.

You slip a little.

Looking over your shoulder you can see the beast advancing. Your brow covered with sweat. You are literally running for your life.

Anyone who put themselves in this situation on purpose would - have to be a little crazy, or very dedicated to their art.

That’s exactly what John did, in one of the most memorable scenes in The Great Outdoors, and he was terrified.

Go south west of Yosemite National Park, California and it won’t be long before you hit Bass Lake Lodge, a 1940s resort that was the location for another John Candy and John Hughes classic, The Great Outdoors filmed in 1987.

Director, Howard Deutch (who had previously worked for Hughes when he directed Pretty In Pink), had not met John prior to The Great Outdoors, which was originally going to be called Big Country. Hughes had convinced Deutch that he should direct the film. John was excited to play the part of Chester ‘Chet’ Ripley, a sweet family man wanting to take his wife and kids on a holiday that would get them back to nature. Stephanie Faracy played his wife, Connie, and Chris Young and Ian Giatti would play their sons, Buckley and Ben respectively. After reading the script John was convinced his character should have a beard covering his face, after Deutch discussed this with Universal, the feedback was “he can’t have that beard, you can’t see his face!” Hughes advised Deutch he would have to be the one to tell John the bad news, “Candy was really upset about it, ‘this is my character and now this movie will always be a black spot on my soul’. He was pissed. We got off to a very rocky start because he was unhappy. However he never ever leaked that into his work, he never had an attitude, he was a fantastic person and one of my favourite people I have ever worked with. He was just an amazingly sweet man, the funniest, you can just imagine, but generous, generous, generous and always very giving to the other actors and me and everyone, but he was upset about the beard!”

The holiday for the Ripleys, although maybe a little more rustic than they remembered (Chet and Connie went there for their honeymoon), was going ok until out of the blue Connie’s sister turns up with her arrogant investor husband and twin girls. So John is reunited with his old pal and Second City Alumni, Dan Aykroyd who plays his brother in law, Roman Craig,

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