He would have been the voice of Shrek and was in talks to play Fatty Arbuckle in a biopic and Ignatius J. Reilly in a film of "A Confederacy of Dunces."

But he died. Had he lived, Chris Farley would have turned 50 today.

By the way, why has there never been a film version of "A Confederacy of Dunces"? Is it cursed? Look at the list of actors around whom projects were attempted. In addition to Chris Farley, John Belushi, John Candy, and Divine. There was another failed project, built around Will Ferrell (in 2005). At least Ferrell lived. Steven Soderbergh, who co-wrote that adaptation, said: "I think it’s cursed. I’m not prone to superstition, but that project has got bad mojo on it."

"John told me about why he left Hollywood just a few years earlier. He was terrified of the impact it was having on his sons..."

"... he was scared it was going to cause them to lose perspective on what was important and what happiness meant. And he told me a sad story about how, a big reason behind his decision to give it all up was that 'they' (Hollywood) had 'killed' his friend, John Candy, by greedily working him too hard."

Alison Byrne Fields was a high school student when she started writing to John Hughes. We were talking about Hughes's death, and Reader_Iam pointed us to Fields's blog post.