After his star-making turn on Saturday Night Live and three straight number-one hit movies, Chris Farley’s overdose at the age of thirty-three seemed like just another sad Hollywood story of indulgence and excess — and an eerie parallel to the fate of his idol, John Belushi.
While fans knew Chris as the sweaty, swaggering Motivational Speaker and the hyperkinetic Chippendales stripper, his family and friends knew him as a deeply spiritual and earnest kid who never stopped trying to make people laugh. This oral biography includes exclusive interviews with those who knew him best: David Spade, Chris Rock, Lorne Michaels, Alec Baldwin, and other celebrity contemporaries; his brothers Tom, Kevin, and Johnny; and his closest childhood friends. The result is a portrait, hilarious and heartbreaking, of a young man whose battle with addiction began long before he became famous.
This is a book about the intersections of comedy, celebrity, performance, and family — with a deeply moving message about the demons that face even the most gifted among us.
Tom Farley, Jr., Chris’s older brother, is president and managing director of the Chris Farley Foundation, which educates young people about substance abuse and addiction. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin
Tanner Colby, is former head writer of The National Lampoon Radio Hour and coauthor of Belushi: A Biography. He lives in New York City.
For more information please visit www.chrisfarleyshow.com
Published by Penguin – paperback – 978-0-14-311556-4 – $16.00