‘Chris Farley Show’ a brother’s account

Tom Farley Jr. didn’t want his book, “The Chris Farley Show,” to be about a celebrity. He wanted it to be about a brother.

“That’s who he was to me. He was always just my brother,” says Tom, who lives in Madison, Wis., where the Farley family grew up.

That his famous brother’s story has never fully been told – at least the side that didn’t revolve around his fatal drug overdose at age 33 in 1997 – stuck with Tom as he traveled to schools throughout the country.

The lectures were a way for him to not only educate students about drug and alcohol abuse, but to deal with his personal grief as an older brother who lost a sibling.

“By going out and talking at middle schools, high schools, colleges … I realized very quickly that these groups required all that honesty,” says Tom, who heads the Chris Farley Foundation, which educates young people about addiction. “So I was in that mode, and you know, it was a relief, because it was such a roller coaster with Chris.

“It was hard to see someone you were so connected to and really enjoyed as a true friend go through what Chris did. And to be put through what Chris put us all through, nobody was interested in a ‘Yeah, Chris was such a great, funny guy’ book. It had to be the whole story.”

“The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts” (Viking, 368 pages, $26.95), co-written with Tanner Colby, digs into his background as an athletic, but insecure child growing up in suburban Madison.

That Chris was well-liked stemmed from his natural ability to make people laugh.

“It started out on the playground,” Tom says. “You had to be damn quick to beat him to the punch if you were going to call him ‘fatty.’ He got there first. And it just disarmed you – you know, ‘Watch fatty! Now what are you gonna say?’

“And then he made them laugh and kind of won them over to his side. That is how the process went with Chris throughout his life.”

A stint with Chicago’s famed Second City – home of Bill Murray and John Belushi, among others – led to Lorne Michaels hiring him for “Saturday Night Live.”

But it wasn’t the bright lights of New York City or a fascination with his idol Belushi, as many media reports pounced on following their similar overdoses, that caused Farley’s downfall.

The family’s penchant for alcohol consumption was well established around Madison, and once Chris had his first drink as a 17-year-old, he didn’t just reach for an occasional six-pack. He was a blackout drunk.

“Anyone touched by addiction knows it so well. You go through all the emotions,” Tom says. “And you see it in the book, that the same person will talk about Chris with loving remembrance and humor, but then there’s some anger.

“And we tried every tactic. Chris went through every type of rehab.”

Chris was on top of his game during a three-year sober period that culminated in his first No. 1 movie, “Tommy Boy.”

His eventual relapse, which coincided with a rough patch careerwise, devastated his family and friends.

Chris died in his Chicago apartment in the John Hancock building on Dec. 18, 1997. The last person to see him alive was a female escort, who reportedly stole his watch and took pictures of his body on the floor.

“When he was sober, Chris was untouchable. Incomparable,” Tom says. “But drugs and alcohol robbed him of that talent.

“Was he still funny? Yeah. Maybe for the first five minutes … but not compared to what he could be, and was at one time. That’s really the legacy going forward.”