Early in the new documentary John Candy: I Like Me , there’s an excerpt from Candy’s 1994 funeral. Saturday Night Live alum Dan Aykroyd eulogized his friend and collaborator.
“This is no meager life we reflect on today. This is as full a life as any human can live,” Aykroyd said. “Joy, emotional abundance of spirit, infectious rage, a tinge of Lugosi-like madness — with his bottom reverse-vampire teeth and all — a titan of a gentle, golden man. … There’s a word in our language we don’t hear much any more, but it applies to Candy. The word is ‘grand.’ He was a grand man.”
Candy shined in smaller roles — in movies like Stripes , The Blues Brothers , National Lampoon’s Vacation and Home Alone . But when he starred in the John Hughes films Planes, Trains and Automobiles and