John Candy Kept Himself Afloat

"In the 1984 Ron Howard comedy "Splash," Tom Hanks and John Candy play lovelorn Manhattan brothers-one tidy, one rascally-whose lives are upended when Hanks falls in love with a mermaid. On a recent Tuesday, their sons Colin Hanks and Chris Candy, visiting from Los Angeles, took in the site of one of "Splash"'s climactic scenes, the American Museum of Natural History, where, disguised as Swedish scientists, their dads had raced through the majestic ocean-life exhibit alongside Eugene Levy to rescue the mermaid from a government research lab."

"Colin Hanks, a forty-seven-year-old actor and director, resembles a younger, intensely thoughtful Tom Hanks; Chris Candy, a forty-one-year-old actor and musician, is bearded, with his late father's kind eyes. In the vast Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life, they gazed at the ninety-four-foot fibreglass blue whale hanging from the ceiling. "The whale," Hanks said. "At this angle, it looks like the Starship Enterprise." "It looks like a big sunflower seed," Candy said."

"They sat on a bench between the ocean-floor and sea-kelp displays and surveyed the scene: babies staring from strollers while rolling by, whale noises resonating. Colin Hanks directed a new documentary, "John Candy: I Like Me," in which Chris appears. In it, John Candy, who died at forty-three, of a heart attack, is remembered with admiration and tenderness by his widow, Rose, his daughter, Jen, and Chris; fellow "S.C.T.V." luminaries, including Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, and Martin Short; and movie co-stars like Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Macaulay Culkin, and Dan Aykroyd."

Colin Hanks and Chris Candy visited the American Museum of Natural History at the site of Splash's climactic ocean-life exhibit. They observed the ninety-four-foot fibreglass blue whale and recalled their fathers' disguised Swedish-scientist rescue sequence filmed there. Colin Hanks directed a new documentary, John Candy: I Like Me, featuring Chris Candy and interviews with family, S.C.T.V. colleagues, and movie co-stars. The documentary remembers John Candy, who died at forty-three of a heart attack, with admiration and tenderness. The account emphasizes Candy's talent for playing larger-than-life characters who reveal hidden depths in films like Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

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