The Faith of Farley
Remembering the comedian’s Catholicism on his 60th birthday
Almost five years ago, Adam Sandler brought his moving (and edited-for-television) Chris Farley tribute song to the Saturday Night Live stage they shared in the early 1990s.
Most of it was heartfelt, yet predictable — recalling Farley’s outsized personality both on-screen and off, while nodding at the over-the-top lifestyle that ultimately led to his untimely death. But one couplet of lines stood out as surprising:
After a show, he’d drink a quart of Jack Daniels and shove the bottle right up his ass.
But hungover as hell, that Catholic boy always showed up to morning Mass.
Okay, maybe just that second line was surprising. Even before an overdose of opiates and cocaine brought on his untimely death, Farley had earned his reputation as a hard partier, so the heavy drinking and, uh, bottle trick are believable. But are we to believe that person was a regular church-goer?
Yes, actually. The more you read up on Farley, the more you see that this apparent throwaway line about church attendance is anything but. Leave it to Sandler — whose Jewish faith pops up frequently in his own work — to appreciate his friend’s deeper faith.
Farley’s faith is a running theme in the excellent 2009 book The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts. This isn’t surprising, since the book is co-written by Farley’s brother, Tom Farley Jr., along with Tanner Colby. You might be forgiven for viewing the account skeptically given such heavy family involvement, but it relies heavily on interviews and doesn’t shy away from some of the uglier realities of Farley’s final days. In many of those interviews, friends and fellow comics mention Farley’s weekly Mass attendance at various stops in his comedy career — including Chicago, when he was a member of the Second City troupe; and in New York, during his time on Saturday Night Live.
One of the people interviewed and extensively quoted in The Chris Farley Show is Father Matt Foley, the namesake for Farley’s infamous motivational speaker and resident of “a van down by the river.” Foley and Farley go back to the early 1980s, during their time as rugby teammates at Marquette University. Not only did they forge a lifelong friendship, but Farley looked to Foley as a spiritual advisor as well, particularly as he struggled with the addictions that ultimately took his life.
Comedian and actor Pat Finn was also a friend of Farley from his Marquette Days. In the 2019 documentary Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh, Finn recounts college adventures (like drawers full of beer on ice) and the early days of his and Farley’s comedy careers, including early failed attempts to write jokes and sketches. But he also takes the documentary crew to the church where he and Farely made sure to attend weekly Mass. (He does depart from Sandler’s description here, though; Finn mentions that their Sunday morning condition usually pushed them to Sunday evening Masses.)
Farley’s faith went deeper than showing up to Mass and checking boxes, though. He was known for turning down payments for charity shows during his time with Second City (this was during his pre-SNL, pre-Tommy Boy, struggling comic era). He volunteered, without publicity or fanfare, to visit nursing homes and help out at soup kitchens. Al Franken recounted a story about Farley going to a hospital to visit a sick child, and then spending time going room-to-room to visit every other child in the ward.
Franken shared another insight into Farley’s character in a retelling of the infamous “Chippendale’s” sketch, the bit where Farley (then brand new to SNL) and Patrick Swayze compete for a job as a Chippendale’s dancer. Swayze is muscular and lean; Farley is not. Most of the laughs in the sketch come from Farley’s over-the-top (yet somehow still elegant) dance moves; but Franken seizes on a forgotten detail: The short part of the sketch when the competitors go backstage and bond in friendship:
While each has an enormous emotional investment in this dream job, both sincerely believe that the other guy will be chosen and vow that whatever happens, they will remain buddies. Here Chris’s extraordinary sweetness shines through. All of us at SNL loved Chris because he was a fan of everyone else’s work, always had a ready laugh, and genuinely rooted for every other actor, writer, and comedian.
Many of those interviewed about working with Farley recall his generosity with his laughter. In a largely competitive world, Farley went against the grain by staying positive and building up the people around him, just as he went against the grain by keeping up a weekly Mass schedule.
This year, Farley’s birthday — February 15 — falls adjacent to Ash Wednesday. That’s appropriate, and not only because of Farley’s faith.
This week, during the Ash Wednesday service at the church my family attends, the priest boiled down the ritual of applying ashes to demonstrate a point: “I’m going to press dirt into your forehead,” he told us, “and then I’m going to tell you that you’re going to die.” I dug the deadpan humor, but he’s factually right: Each year, receiving ashes is a reminder that our time on Earth is finite, so we better use it well.
It is tempting to remember Farley for his death, but there is much to admire about the way his friends and family remember his life: as a devout Catholic who was not content to leave his faith behind in the pew each Sunday.
Chris Farley was far from perfect (hey, who is?), but he tried to become a better person. He took his faith seriously and lived it as best he could. With his 60th birthday hitting just as the season of Lent kicks off, it’s a good reminder of an example worth following.
(Though maybe without the Jack Daniels bottle.)
