Comic Farley’s Antics Recalled in Eulogies

Many of the people who gathered in a towering Santa Monica cathedral Monday remembered Chris Farley less as the comic with a careening, out-of-control career than as the quiet, serious Catholic who took his seat in the middle of their cavernous church, the one who still wore around his neck a cross given to him as a boy by his mother, the one who still knew the responses to all the prayers.

“Do I have an explanation for it?” Pastor Michael Rocha of St. Monica’s Catholic Church asked of Farley’s much-publicized death from an accidental overdose of cocaine and morphine. “I don’t. Other than this very jovial outgoing man had things in his life that were demons, demons that were almost uncontrollable for him.”

Just as the bighearted, boombox-voiced Farley would have had it, more than 300 friends, family and fans who packed the memorial service laughed as much as they cried as they listened to eulogies given by two close Farley friends, including actor Tom Arnold.

Little of Farley’s bingeing, alcohol and drug-laden lifestyle was apparent to the parishioners at St. Monica, where for the last six years Farley had sought refuge from the pressures and put-ons of the fast-lane entertainment world.

Farley never let on to his star status. But when Rocha asked recently if he would serve as celebrity judge at the church’s annual chili cook-off, he gladly accepted.

Recalled Rocha in his eulogy: “He looked at me and said, ‘I love chili,’ and I said, ‘Chris, you’re going to be judging the chili, you’re not going to be eating it.’ ”

Rocha recalled how a gung-ho Farley showed up for the cook-off dressed in an apron and chef’s hat and how he patiently shook hands with and signed autographs for hundreds of fans who mobbed him that day.

“And now Chris is in heaven,” Rocha told mourners. “And you can hear the angels laughing right now. God himself might be straight-faced, though, because Chris is probably knocking things down that haven’t been touched for years.”

Arnold, comparing Farley to comic greats John Belushi and Jackie Gleason, gave a touching three-minute comic monologue.