John Candy: Read PEOPLE’s Cover Story About His Death 30 Years Later — ‘None of Us Believed It Would Happen’

Monday marks 30 years since John Candy died at age 43 on March 4, 1994. The Canadian — who is survived by his wife (and high school sweetheart) Rosemary and their two children, Jennifer and Christopher — was a member of the famed Second City Group comedy troupe before gaining wider fame in its spinoff television series SCTV and in movies like Stripes and Splash.

He suddenly went from “macaroni and cheese to macaroni and lobster,” he joked PEOPLE in 1981.

Candy became a leading man himself, starring in comedies such as Planes, Trains and Cars with Steve Martin, uncle buck with Macaulay Culkin and delirium with Mariel Hemingway. He died while filming a comedy in 1994 Wagons eastwhich was published shortly after he passed away.

Read on for an excerpt PEOPLEthe cover story about his death.

He rarely called his colleagues after hours before – not because he wasn’t friendly, but because John Candy, who appeared in almost every other film over the past 10 years, was basically a shy and self-conscious man.

Steve Martin and John Candy in the movie ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’.

Paramount/Getty Images

However, a little after midnight on March 4, he couldn’t help himself and reached for the phone. A few hours earlier, he finished filming his last scene Wagons easta comedy he has been filming since January near the small village of Chupaderos in Mexico, not far from Durango.

Playing a drunken wagon driver desperate to get a job – and one last chance at redemption – from two businessmen, played by Richard Lewis and Robert Picardo, he manages to mix his own brand of slapstick with a heart-wrenching sense of humility. and pain.

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People who witnessed the kidnapping – including Candy himself – felt that it changed the performance of his career. The genius actor was so elated that after a late-night spaghetti dinner, he called Lewis and Picard as his assistants, and for a few minutes the actors enjoyed their own and others’ achievements.

John Candy in 1983.

Ron Galella, Ltd./Collection of Ron Galella via Getty Images

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“He was like a little kid who had a great day at camp,” says Picardo. ”He wanted to thank us.”

Saying that, Candy hung up, soon turned off the light and went to sleep. He never woke up.

The next morning, when Lewis and Picardo arrived on set, they hadn’t even gotten out of their car when an ashen-faced production assistant broke the news: Around 6 a.m., 43-year-old Candy had suffered a heart attack and died in her sleep.

Picardo slumped in his seat. Lewis ran into the field and fell to the ground. “And then,” says Picardo, “we both started to cry.”

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John Candy on the cover of PEOPLE.

Candy’s family was stunned. “‘None of us believed it was going to happen,'” says Frank Hober, 56, the older brother of Candy’s wife, Rosemary. “The whole family is in turmoil.”

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, colleagues who were considered the star of hits like 1987. Planes, Trains and Cars and last year’s Cool running a permanent member of their community fell over in shock.

“Are you sure he’s dead? Did you get that right?” demanded comedian Paul Rodriguez. “He looked so healthy.”

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