Celebrating John Candy's lovable comedy legacy

A NEW DOCUMENTARY AND BIOGRAPHY REVISIT THE 'SCTV' AND 'PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES' STAR'S GIANT BUT GENTLE PERSONALITY.

- DAVE ITZKOFF

IF THERE'S A scene that best encapsulates the tragically abbreviated career of John Candy, it's not necessarily from his time on the sketch-come.dy series "SCTV" or from movies like "Stripes" or "Uncle Buck." It's a moment in the 1987 comedy-drama "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," when his reluctant roommate Neal Page (played by Steve Martin) has spent several minutes berating him for his relentless storytelling.

With a lump in his throat, Candy's wounded character Del Griffith replies that he's proud of who he is.

"I like me," he says. "My wife likes me. My customers like me. Because I'm the real article-what you see is what you get." That moment proves pivotal to two new projects that retrace Candy's life and work some 31 years after the actor died from a heart attack at the age of 43. The actor would have turned 75 this month.

A biography, "John Candy: A Life in Comedy," written by Paul Myers (released last week by House of Anansi Press), and a documentary, "John Candy: I Like Me," directed by Colin Hanks (now streaming on Prime Video), both rely on Candy's friends, family members and colleagues to help tell the story of his ascent, his success and the void left by his death.

In their own ways, both the book and the film show how Candywhile not without his demons-was beloved by audiences for his fundamental and authentic likability, and why he is still mourned today for the potential he never got to completely fulfill.