Kevin Farley

Kevin Farley

Best-known as the younger (by one year) brother of talented but ill-fated Saturday Night Live comedian Chris Farley, Kevin Farley followed in the footsteps of his older sibling and established himself as a comedic screen presence in his own right. He grew up in Madison, Wisconsin as the third of five children and the son of an asphalt company owner, and - like Chris - soon fell into a niche as the class clown. Both young men grew up as members of the Saturday Night Live generation and idolized performers such as John Belushi and Bill Murray beyond belief; Kevin attended Marquette University as a business major (graduating in 1986) and went to work for his dad, but so grew to hate the business life that he eventually moved to Chicago and enrolled in comedy classes, then relocated to Los Angeles and began signing for bit parts in Chris's features, such as Tommy Boy and Black Sheep, as well as guest spots in series programs such as That '70s Show and 3rd Rock from the Sun. Following Chris's death from an overdose in December 1997, Kevin landed a starring role on the briefly-run MTV sitcom 2Gether, then moved into features, with an unsurprising emphasis almost exclusively on comedy, much of it in the destructive and anarchic vein of his late brother. Projects in which Kevin appeared included the Adam Sandler animated comedy Eight Crazy Nights (2002), the Cedric the Entertainer laugh-fest Johnson Family Vacation, and - in a starring capacity - a turn as a Michael Moore-like anti-patriotic director who gets the Ebenezer Scrooge treatment in the David Zucker gag-fest An American Carol (2008). ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide