There are no good fat actors left

There are no good fat actors left

Last Saturday was the first chance I've had in a long while to plant my butt in the Lay-Z-Boy recliner and sit down to a marathon of old comedy movies. As I watched, buttered and salted old-fashioned popcorn in one hand, malted Dairy Queen strawberry milkshake in the other, viewing hour after hour of such classics as The Great Outdoors and Tommy Boy, I made a sad realization: there are no good fat actors left.

By Fred White

John Candy, Chris Farley, John Belushi - undoubtedly some of the greatest comedic actors of our time - all made their bones in Hollywood and delighted millions of movie-goers despite the harboring of acute glandular disorders. They're all legends. They all sent camera director after camera director to the equipment room to find a wide-angle lense. And they're all as dead as dead can get.

This grim observation, which I'm surprised I had never before considered, turned what had begun as a cheery afternoon of comedy film appreciation into a glum evening of memorial movie viewing.

John Candy may have been as big as a house, but how many film aficionados could watch Brewster's Millions or Canadian Bacon and honestly resist the hilarious physical comedy of the happy fat man with the thousand-dollar smile and the heart of gold. It was the untimely failure of that very same heart - fatigued from the tremendous task that had become its charge - that literally took him out of the picture.

Tears filled my eyes as I removed Stripes from the VCR and realized that my movie collection was nothing short of a video graveyard filled with dead fat actors.

I looked at my copy of The Blues Brothers and mentally damned the drugs that allowed the Grim Reaper to eternally cast both that clumsy but lovable teddy bear, Chris Farley, and the blue-eyed bad boy that could always cut a rug, John Belushi.

Granted, Belushi wasn't that physically large, but in my opinion, he was the pioneer for fat male thespians - a feat that earned him an honorary 100 pounds in my book.

Who do casting agents call now when a script calls for a comedic blubber-butt? All of the good fat actors are simply gone. Who, for instance, would play the fat, pretentious slob from Confederacy Of Dunces, should they ever convert the book into screenplay?

Of course, John Goodman is still kicking around, but he can't play every fat-guy role. And Goodman isn't really even that fat. Not like Candy and Burr. Those guys were behemoths.

Brando is too mentally disturbed anymore, George Wendt seems to have retired and Louie Anderson just plain sucks. Who's left? Sam Kinison? No. Also dead, as I was reminded during my viewing of Back To School.

Jack Black? He's a lightweight at best. Maybe that guy who played Newman on Seinfield? Please. Those guys may dominate their local buffet bars, but Burr makes those punks look like Calista Flockhart.

Believe it or not, I turned off my television Saturday night. Film after film starring dead fat actor after dead fat actor - I could bear no more.

Instead of falling asleep in my chair to an audio backdrop of Armed and Dangerous, I retired to my bedroom to listen to my Blues Traveler albums. And to say a prayer for the health of John Popper.