We miss you, Troy McClure: the tragic death of Simpsons star Phil Hartman (2024)

At 3.45 am on May 28, 1998, musician Ron Douglas was woken by a pounding at the door of his home in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley. He opened it to find a former girlfriend, Brynn Hartman, in a state of advanced incoherence. She was wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt, pyjama bottoms and socks. In one trembling hand she clutched a designer purse.

Somewhat reluctantly Douglas invited her in. Between sobs the 40 year-old ex-model whispered “I killed Phil”, meaning her husband, former-Saturday Night Live comedian Phil Hartman who had become internationally famous voicing Simpsons character Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz.

Douglas (57) didn’t believe her. Not until she opened her Prada purse and a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver fell out. Scrutinising it, Douglas noticed three bullets missing.

All three were lodged in Phil Hartman. A 20-minute drive away he lay dead in the four-bedroom home he shared with his wife, their nine-year-old son and six-year-old daughter.

Douglas still wasn’t convinced as he drove Brynn back to her house. It was only when he saw Hartman, 49, slumped in the bedroom, in boxers and t-shirt, that he accepted the horrible truth.

He dialled 911 and then escaped out the back door with nine-year-old Sean Hartman, fearing the hysterical Brynn was about to turn the gun on one or either. As a police officer likewise rushed out with Sean’s six-year-old sister, Birgen, there was a bang from the bedroom. Brynn had shot herself through the mouth. Her body was found next to her husband’s, almost touching.

There are many strange stories in the 30-year history of The Simpsons, which enters the binge-watch wars with the UK debut of Disney+ this week (all 660 episodes are waiting to be rediscovered). None is stranger or more tragic than that of Hartman, whose final Simpsons would not air until the following September.

In Bart, The Mother he plays cornball actor McClure in a public information video about raising small birds – “our fine feathered colleagues”. “Hi, I’m Troy McClure,” begins Hartman from beyond the grave. “You may remember me from such nature films as Earwigs – Euugh! and Man Versus Nature : The Road to Victory.” His bit lasts 76 seconds and is hilarious. The episode is dedicated to his memory.

Hartman was doing well long before the Simpsons. In the early 1980s he’d helped Paul Reubens create childlike character Pee-wee Herman. Later, he was a well-regarded member of the Saturday Night Live ensemble, his Bill Clinton impersonation drawing on the same hammy insincerity that fuelled Hutz and McClure.

After leaving SNL in 1994 he’d had further success with his NBC sitcom NewsRadio, in which he portrayed a smarmy news anchor. He was paid $50,000 per episode – decent for the time and twice what the Simpsons cast were receiving.

Hence his ambivalence when Simpsons show runner Mike Reiss wondered if was interested in appearing in the cartoon. Hartman agreed on the proviso it was a one-off. Stints in the Eighties voicing the Smurfs, GoBots, and Scooby-Doo had left Hartman leery of cartoons. He enjoyed the Simpsons. But this was to be a one-and-done.

And so it was that in November 1990, he found himself turning into the Fox lot at West Pico Boulevard and making his way to the down-at-heel Darryl F. Zanuck ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) stage. He was to voice an incompetent lawyer name Lionel Hutz, who would appear for the first time in season two episode 10, Bart Gets Hit by A Car.

“[Hutz] never doubted his ability in the courtroom for some reason, even though he had no idea what was going on,” is how Reiss’s successor as showrunner, Mike Scully, would describe the character. He added that Hutz was a mix of “overconfidence and incompetence”.

As he got out of his car, Hartman may still have wondered what he had let himself in for. In cartoons, the convention was to cast established voice-actors. The Simpsons had gone where no animated series had previously ventured by instead using comedians (Jon Lovitz and Kelsey Grammar, aka Sideshow Bob, would make their Simpsons debuts around this time).

Inside the Darryl F Zanuck ADR Stage, the Simpsons crew must have been similarly struck at how out of place Hartman seemed. The comedian wasn’t a movie star. He did, however, carry himself like one.

“He had a real star quality,” Simpsons writer Jay Kogen would tell Mike Thomas in his book You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman.

“But I felt it was an old-timey star quality. He was a sharp dresser. Even offstage, he always sort of resembled some sort of weird combination of a 1950s intellectual and Jack Benny.”

The surprises were just starting. A full two hours had been allocated to Hartman’s segment. In he went and out of thin air conjured Lionel Hutz. On the page the lawyer was grubby and inept. Hartman made him tragically hilarious.

And he did it all in 15 minutes. He had so much fun that, on the way out, he mentioned he’d be up for doing it all again, if the Simpsons could find a way to feature Hutz.

A way was found. And then there was a second character, fading Hollywood cheeseball Troy McClure. The hammy matinee star on the way down debuted in episode 13 of the second season, Homer v Lisa and the 8th Commandment. McClure, based loosely on 1970s hacks such as Doug McClure and Troy Donahue, was an immediate hit.

“Everybody loved Phil Hartman,” Simpsons writer and executive producer Jonah Weinstein would say. “He was one of those people who, even if he had a straight line in the episode, he’d make it funny. He was funny and super, super kind and charming. We always wanted to do more with him.”

The Simpsons made Hartman famous. It also hugely increased the strain on his troubled third marriage to former model and aspiring actress Brynn. She was said to be envious of his success. And resentful he didn’t use his new-found prominence to hustle for work on her behalf.

“She was upset with Phil on one, maybe two occasions,” her brother, Greg Omdahl later commented. “He would be doing the Simpsons or NewsRadio. He’d mention, 'maybe I can get you can me a part'. [She would ask] 'did you talk about getting me a part?''Oh I forget'. And she’d be upset about that.”

Brynn had a history of drug and alcohol issues. She’d been off cocaine 10 years when she was reintroduced to it at a New Year’s party at her home. She was also taking antidepressant Zoloft. After the murder-suicide her brother would sue her doctor and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, asserting neither had made his sister aware of possible suicidal side-effects (Pfizer settled out of court).

In public the couple portrayed themselves as a golden couple. That is certainly the impression they conveyed interviewed side-by-side by Howard Stern to publicise NewsRadio in 1993. “I don’t think you should do the show,” said Stern told Phil at the end. “Stay with Saturday Night Live. Do some movies.”

"I have a plane. I have a boat. I have a great house. I have a great family. In fact I have everything I ever wanted," film director Joe Dante remembered Hartman telling him shortly before Hartman’s death. "It feels great."

Nonetheless, cracks were appearing. Brynn wrongly accused Hartman of having an affair. He failed to show up at several marriage counselling sessions. On Mother’s Day 1997 she passed out after drinking too much, leading Hartman to insist she go into rehab. She left early, saying she missed the children.

There was also the time the couple had a furious row in Hartman’s dressing room on Saturday Night Live. Outside, his make-up artist Norman Bryn was shocked by the level of rancour. “Well, Norm, looks like the wife's gonna divorce me this time,” Hartman said, trying to pass it off as a joke.

Brynn’s temper was an open secret. Hartman would arrive at NewsRadio with scratches on his face. On other occasions, he would sleep on his boat. When Hartman’s second wife Lisa sent the couple a congratulations card on the birth of their first child she received from Brynn a letter “that was hair-curling, fury, rage and [a] death threat”.

“The gist of it was, 'Don't ever f****gget near me or my family or I will hurt you. I never want to hear from you… never, ever, ever come near us or you will really be sorry'.”

She had trouble controlling her anger," Steve Small, the lawyer who had looked after Hartman's two previous divorces, told the LA Times. "She got attention by losing her temper. Phil said he had to… restrain her at times."

And then, horribly it all came to a head. On May 27, Brynn went for dinner with writer and producer Christine Zander at Buca di Beppo on Ventura Boulevard. She had two cocktails and a beer. At 10.15pm she called on her ex, Douglas. She left at 12.45am. Douglas does not recall her as particularly inebriated.

But then, at the family home, as Hartman slept, she shot him three times: between the eyes, in the throat, in the upper chest. She called Douglas, asking if she could come over again. He did his best to dissuade her. She went anyway. A few hours later she was dead too.

“She was a failed actress who deeply resented [Phil’s] success,” Hartman’s NewsRadio co-star Joe Rogan would say in 2014. “As he became more and more successful, their relationship became more and more contentious.”

Hartman at least left behind a rich legacy. He appeared in just 52 Simpsons episodes out of 660. Yet Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure are two of the show’s most beloved creations. For as long as they live on so, in a sense, will he

We miss you, Troy McClure: the tragic death of Simpsons star Phil Hartman (2024)

FAQs

Why did The Simpsons get rid of Troy McClure? ›

Phil Hartman was murdered in 1998. Rather than re-casting the role with a new voice actor, the production staff retired McClure, along with Hartman's other recurring character, Lionel Hutz. McClure last appeared in the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", which was dedicated to Hartman.

How many voices did Phil Hartman do on The Simpsons? ›

Phil Hartman has voiced 20 characters on The Simpsons: Troy McClure. Lionel Hutz. Fat Tony (in the episode "A Fish Called Selma")

How did Phil Hartman pass away? ›

Hartman was shot to death by his wife of 10 years, Brynn, in a shocking murder-suicide. The NewsRadio star was asleep in their bedroom when Brynn shot him three separate times with his . 38 handgun: Twice in the head and once in his right side.

Who did the voice for Troy McClure on The Simpsons? ›

Who was removed from The Simpsons? ›

Here are all The Simpsons characters that died or were written off the show in its 35 seasons.
  • 'Bleeding Gums' Murphy. ...
  • Maude Flanders. ...
  • Dr Marvin Monroe. ...
  • Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky. ...
  • Mona Simpson. ...
  • Fat Tony. ...
  • Edna Krabappel. ...
  • Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.
Apr 26, 2024

Why Bart doesn't call Homer dad? ›

Bart often addresses Homer by his given name instead of "Dad" (when he was a baby, this was because other adults would refer to him as this; he now mainly does this to him out of disrespect), while Homer in turn often refers to him as "the boy" rather than "son" or "Bart".

Who did Tom Hanks play in The Simpsons? ›

Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker, born in California. He voiced himself in The Simpsons Movie.

Who did Benedict Cumberbatch voice in The Simpsons? ›

Benedict Cumberbatch was cast in this episode following a meeting in the same studio in which the voice-overs for The Simpsons (1989) are recorded. After noticing that there was an uncast role, he asked if he could do the voice. He ended up voicing the Prime Minister character and Severus Snape.

Who speaks the most in The Simpsons? ›

If you include the main cast, it's fairly obvious who has the most lines: It's Homer, by hundreds of thousand of words, followed by Marge, Bart, and Lisa all bunched up pretty close together.

Who died first Phil Hartman or Chris Farley? ›

Chris Farley, an SNL star, notorious for his over-the-top performances, especially his motivational speaker character Matt Foley, died in 1997 of a drug overdose. He was 33. Phil Hartman, star of “SNL,” “NewsRadio” and “The Simpsons” died at age 49 in 1998 of an apparent murder-suicide by his wife.

What was Phil Hartman's last movie? ›

Bilko (1996), and his last live action film, Small Soldiers (1998). His last role was the English language dub of Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), as the quick-witted cat Jiji, which featured Small Soldiers co-star Kirsten Dunst in the lead voice role.

Was Phil Hartman shot in his sleep? ›

After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Hartman, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before 3:00 a.m. PDT on May 28, 1998, and, as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat and once in the upper chest with a .38 caliber handgun.

Who did Zooey Deschanel voice in The Simpsons? ›

Mary Spuckler (guest voice Zooey Deschanel) returns to Springfield and pulls Bart's heartstrings once again; Homer winds up in the dog house.

Who did Jeff Goldblum voice in The Simpsons? ›

"The Simpsons" A Fish Called Selma (TV Episode 1996) - Jeff Goldblum as MacArthur Parker - IMDb.

What was Troy McClure's last episode? ›

"Bart the Mother" marked the last guest appearance of Phil Hartman on The Simpsons as Troy McClure. On May 28, 1998, four months before the episode aired, he was shot and killed by his wife Brynn. "Bart the Mother" was dedicated in his memory in response to this.

Is Troy McClure in The Simpsons tapped out? ›

The Simpsons: Tapped Out was released in 2012. Both Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz were voiced by Phil Hartman, who was tragically shot to death by his wife in 1998; he was only 49 years old. Both Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz were retired following Hartman's untimely death, at least as speaking characters.

What happened to the German kid on The Simpsons? ›

Üter has a habit of going missing or dying in episodes of The Simpsons, with this dark turn usually played for laughs. He's died in multiple "Treehouse of Horror" segments, particularly being eaten by numerous characters. In the canon series, Üter has been implied to have died, only to reappear.

What happened to the one armed guy in The Simpsons? ›

Herman formerly had two arms. He told Bart that the other arm was lost by sticking it out of the window of a moving bus (hailing) and it was torn off by a truck driving in the other direction. It was also implied it was him, as Ms. Krabappel said not to do it because a kid once lost an arm that way, while on a bus.

Why did they change voices in The Simpsons? ›

Over 760 episodes of The Simpsons have aired since 1990, and not every actor has decided to stick around to voice their character for the last 34 years. For various reasons, actors have stepped down from roles - whether due to political backlash or actors tragically dying.

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