Comic actors’ darker sides

Marley & Me is one great big, barking-dog holiday hit. And it will benefit Owen Wilson more than anyone, easing him back into the mainstream after his 2007 suicide attempt. It’s lighthearted and high-spirited, just as we like to think Wilson himself is.

But almost every comic actor has a dark side, and the tears of a clown have been immortalized in verse, on stage and screen and in pop music. Among them:

Jim Carrey discussed his bouts of depression in a 60 Minutes interview in 2004. Chevy Chase also suffered similar despondent spells.

Bill Murray always has been candid in interviews — at least until studio reps tried to shut him up. When doing interviews for 1988’s Scrooged, he told reporters that the flop of his long-planned remake of The Razor’s Edge had left him with a nervous breakdown. When a Studio Type barked, “They want to hear about Scrooged, Bill!,” reporters urged Bill to just keep talking. Last year, he honestly said that the thought of his ongoing messy divorce was “devastating.”

Jackie Chan may be a lovable, chipper action/comic figure on screen. Off screen, he’s said in interviews that American schools are “soft” and he deplores the hour-long lunch breaks allowed in Hollywood moviemaking. He also travels with only two sets of underwear, personally washing at least one pair each night.

Phil Hartman attained tabloid immortality the hard way. On May 28, 1998, the onetime Saturday Night Live headliner was murdered by his wife, who committed suicide later the same morning.

Paul Reubens, a.k.a Pee-wee Herman, became tabloid fodder with his arrest for “lewd conduct” while watching the skin flick Nurse Nancy in a Florida porn theater. Pee-wee practically went bye-bye, but Reubens has stayed afloat in supporting roles under his own name. Pee-wee’s “little adventure” in Florida definitely cast dark shadows.

Dana Carvey shied away from show business for almost six years when, after the success of Wayne’s World, his subsequent films flopped. He reached the decision that he’s best as a stand-up comic and last year did an HBO comedy special.

Steve Martin has been successful in movies, but his stand-up comic routines had a freshness that few of his films have caught. He once expressed a fear that in a dozen years, he’d be making Father of the Bride, Part XII. His writing efforts reveal a sensitivity that his movies also rarely allow. Last year’s memoir, Born Standing Up, was a poignant reverie of his early stand-up years and of his painful relationship with his jealous father.

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