Personal improvement deserves recognition. That's progress you can feel. And the very definition of the Audi 241 range. From the striking style and comfort of the enhanced Audi A6 to the era-defining iconic Audi A4 with Competition Edition and the quietly efficient Audi Q4 e-tron, electrified driving with no compromise. Test drive the Audi 241 Range at an Audi dealer near you today. Hi, everybody. It's Deborah Roberts, co-anchor of 2020. We're bringing you more 2020 each week with the 2020 True Crime Vault. That's right. You're going to hear a story pulled from our archives. Shows that we just can't seem to get out of our heads, and we think you're going to be drawn in, too. Thanks for listening. Please welcome Phil Hartman. Mr. Phil Hartman, ladies. Phil Hartman was a total cop of genius. Phil Hartman is the last person in the world this is supposed to happen to, and yet it does. Time to be live online. Phil Hartman. He's got this fantastic career. There's going to be a whole bunch of things we don't tell, Mrs. Clinton. The voices and the gags are perfect for late night TV. He's beloved by the public. He's become a bona fide star.

Hi, I'm Troy McClure. Brin, my wife's Brin. Phil was getting what he wanted, a beautiful woman, and I thought Brin was getting She wanted a successful guy. Hi, Phil. How was your ski trip today? Are you going to stay home tonight? Things are rocky at home. I would say Brin confided in me quite a bit. Phil was getting a lot of attention, and she wasn't getting any attention. I got back a letter that was death threat from Brinn. Never, ever, ever come near us or you will really be sorry. Have there been many murders in this area? I remember saying to him, She doesn't have a gun, does she? Bren shot Phil. I could... What? The enemy has been in your house, indeed in your bed, all along. I think I'm going to like it here at Emerald Bay. Phil fell in love with Catalina. He made the videos because he wanted to share with his children how beautiful Catalina was. You're on TV. And as He fancied himself a director of sorts. He would narrate, shoot, and drive the boat. This is why they call it Emeral Bed. And that's where I came in as a copilot.

You think they take cash here? Sure. Phil Hartman loved the outdoors because it was so different than Phil Hartman, the actor, the comedian, the voiceover guy. And he realized that as good as he was at being a celebrity, he really liked being a normal guy. I think in my old age, I've come to realize just how precious everything is. And I try to value the many blessings that have been bestowed upon me. But there's also this sense of vulnerability if fortune took a turn for the worse. And you live with the awareness that anything can happen in this world. Phil Hartman was born in the same town that gave us... But here is what's named... The greatest hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretsky. A child that came out of this small town in Ontario, and like Wayne Gretsky, made it big in Los Angeles. He had a huge family there before he came down to the California lifestyle. He was one of eight kids, and he was a middle child. And like a lot of middle children, he's looking for a way to get attention. And he found that by being funny, doing voices, doing skits, he got that attention.

Phil Hartman drank deeply of the life of Southern California in the 1960s. He did it all He had an amazingly rich, full life, and that began in school. He started surfing more. He started living that beach bomb lifestyle. He's the class clown, getting high, various romances when he's quite popular and is trying to figure out what to do with his life. Phil was able to blend in with a bunch of disparate groups, whether it was the jocks, the artsy types, or the stoneers. He talked to friends of Phil Hartman's high school, and they will tell you that he was hysterical, always trying to make people laugh. So in school, Phil has any number of people who he's entertaining, but one of the people is Squeaky Frome, the adherent of Charles Manson, who also attempted to assassinate Harold Ford when he was President. Squeaky Frome, then known as Lynn, who I believe is identified by the yearbook as having personality plus. They had no idea. She was about to affiliate herself with a personality plus, I'll tell you that much. I decided to go to Santa Monica City College. One of my courses was a public speaking course where I met Phil Hartman.

He was just so brilliant. I don't know if anyone on the planet that could instantly create like Phil could. That's where he starts taking courses in painting and drawing, and it brings out a lot of his natural talent. He'd go on surfing adventures, sailing to Catalina, just had some of the best times ever. My favorite trip was up to Mammoth Mountain skiing, and we wanted to go to this place called Hot Creek. It's a geothermically heated pool that's well over 100 degrees. On this one night, we went down there and there was a ground fog of four feet off the ground. So when you sat down in the water, you could not see the hand in front of your face. But you could hear like 100 voices in the pool that were buried in fog. There's over 100 people in here laughing. And then I thought, Phil, do John Wayne, Jack Binnie. Oh, Josh. Now, Josh gave me this house. For two hours, he held 100 people in the palm of his hand who could not see him. It was just this voice in the night. And I'll never forget, at the very end, I said, That was Phil Hartman, ladies and gentlemen.

He's going to be a big star one day. And around this time, his older brother, John, is managing a rock group called The Rock 'n' Foo. And he says, Phil, why don't you come and work for me? Why don't you come and be a roadie for The Rock & Foo? And it was just this Bohemian existence. Groupies in and out, plenty of pot, among other substances. And he really comes to dig this rock and roll surfer lifestyle. Phil is meeting Janice Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix. Excuse me, why not this this When Buddy Miles, the legendary drummer, has some issue with his drum kit during a set he's playing for Hendrix, who comes out and holds Buddy Miles' kick drum? Phil Hartman. That's the life he was living. He's like a Forrest Gump figure. He is everywhere in the 1960s. He's trying to figure out what to do with his life. He knows that he's funny in these small groups. He knows that people respond to his humor, but he's trying to figure out, how do I make a career, a living, out of this skill that I have and this talent that I have. So around 1970, Phil meets this woman who lives nearby named Gretchen Lewis.

They end up getting married. She was a very pretty, slender, hippie girl. Phil and Gretchen appeared not to have much in terms of money to spend on a fancy home. So they lived in a very simple apartment poolside. As they went on, Phil started pulling away emotionally, and that would become his MO in years to come. It seemed that Phil in love easy, but wasn't very skilled at continuing a relationship. He was really, really into somebody, and then it would dissipate. As easily as they came together, they fell apart, and they divorced in 1972. Phil winds up joining up with his brother, who by that time is running a management company on Sunset Boulevard. And while his brother manages some of these bands, Phil begins to do graphic design for their albums. It's also so '70s, Hey, man, you're my brother. Come design album covers at my company. I mean, that doesn't happen. And we're talking about bands like America. Their biggest hit was Horse with No Name. You see, I've been through the desert on a horse with He designs a lot of album covers for a band called Poco. Then among their big hits was a song called Crazy Love.

Poco legend was the album. That was my favorite. It was a very simple cover, white with a line drawing of a horse. Sort of a less is more statement. Always in Phil, there's this throb that he could be something else. One of the things that I realized was that I was stuck in a very introverted lifestyle. Phil can be the creative guy behind the scenes. I was working long hours with very little social interaction, so there was a part of me that wasn't really getting to be expressed. But Phil also feels like maybe there's a performing streak that he needs to check out. How he will apply this energy remains a mystery until 1975. Phil Hartman discovered that there was this place just starting up. It was an improv true called the Groundlings. Hi, I'm Rhonda. This is my Pit Bull, Leroy. It's an improv comedy sketch group. They teach classes. I thought you told me you loved me. I did it one time before I met Tyler. I mean, Jessica. For an actor to take a Groundly's class, it's a great thing because you have to work without a script. And they would grow into this improvisational juggernaut that schooled all kinds of famous folks, including Will Farrell and Sherry O'Terry, more SNL folks.

There's many varied careers that came out of the Groundlings. People want to make money. Mostly, you want to survive. You want to quit your job as a waiter. In 1975, I saw the Groundlings. It was somewhat of an epiphany. I realized that I had to do this just to get some extroversion into the equation. They'd ask for an audience member to come up, then I was backstage. Phil all of a sudden leaps up and begins doing impressions. I never saw an audience member come up with that excitement and energy. It was like a hurricane hit that stage, and I mean in a good way. They thought he was so good that they invited him to join the troupe. Seeing Philip the Groundings was Phil being truly Phil. As time went on, you understand that his personas are his protection and are his personality. Not unlike Jonathan Winters or Robin Williams, people around Phil who know him say that he can tend to hide behind his characters. It's hard to find the real Phil in there. If you think about improv or stand-up, most people are just playing a bigger version of themselves. Phil was exactly the opposite of that.

I got to keep this straight face or it won't work. He could absolutely get lost into any character, but oftentimes, there was no there there with Phil. He had a fabulous character called Chickhazard, Private Investigator. Worthing could sail through the air and a lofty Ark over the Boulevard and abruptly large himself in the hole of a 40-foot fiber glass donut. Phil always had this classic sensibility to him. He was almost like this dude who came up in the '30s, in the '40s. He loved old Hollywood, that rat-tat-tat sensibility. He loved the clothes, he loved the personalities. As he begins to pursue improv and the Groundlings, he gets better and better and starts getting more and more work. One of Phil's co-stars at the Groundlings was a guy named Paul Rubens. He developed a character named Peewee Hermann. Well, good morning. It's incredibly clever. It's enjoyable if you're seven years old, but if you're an When you're an adult, you find another humor there. He's winking at you the entire time, and that's what made it so effective. Permission to come aboard, Peewee. You have to do the passwords. Phil was the first person that Paul and I brought in to be an actor in the show, and he had a character, Captain Carl.

I got to use your latrine. Latrine, that's the best word. And that's the moment I knew that this show was going to be a hit. Miss Yvonne. Yes, Captain Carl. I knew that I wanted to be Phil's girlfriend in it. It was really just hitching my wagon to a star. Captain Carl, I always thought, was Phil's alter ego. It was who he would rather be so that he didn't have to deal with the hassles of the world. He could just get on his boat and sail around the world. Please welcome Philip Hartman. Phil. One thing we can pretty much establish is that every Los Angeles male went on the dating game at some point. A lot of celebrities, people who went on to become famous when they were young, passed through that as a ride in passage. It was a stop people made on the road to fame. Okay, bachelor number three. What road sign should I heat while dating you and why? Slippery when wet. Mostly, it was a way to get paid. And Philip was selected by the woman he was opposite, and then she stood him up for the date. And then it seems like everyone in the Groundlings went out on a first date with Phil.

Oh, my God. He was a rock star around the Groundlings because he was just one of those people you wanted to be with. And then the idea that has always been noted with Phil and that will be noted up until the last day of his life begins to take hold, which is that there is some part of Phil that is very hard to reach. Phil Hartman is not vulnerable. Phil Hartman will not let you into that place. So the problem is, by the time you find out that Phil might not be marriage material, you're already married to him. I, Philip, take you, Lisa. As my lawful and wedded wife. As my lawful and wedded wife. I really believe in marriage. I took him at his word that our relationship is going to deepen and expand and grow and be forever. We didn't have the money to have a big wedding, so we just had a party. Lisa and Phil's wedding was beautiful. How do you feel, Ms. Yvonne, about Captain Carl getting married to someone else? I couldn't be happier for him. I'm very happy. They looked adorable and he was crazy about Lisa. This was the one.

We decided to have our wedding videotaped in 3D. I know that his career started to happen. A little bit. He got up pilot for something. He was doing more commercials. Do you have Ice Hockey by Activision? I think you're ready for it. I'm ready, I'm ready. Fine. Cash your charge. Phil was in the a Cheech and Chung movie. Well, can I show it to you now? If you were in the Groundlings, those are the gigs that you got. Phil was in a Cheech and Chung movie. Hey, I don't think you better light it in here, man. Why? These gas fumes, man. Oh, man. And they paid the rent for a week. That was how you started to make money. We're all caught and Phil still in front of the camera. What would you do? We've been married just a few weeks, and the relationship changed dramatically. They shoot the bride group. I was the wife, and he no longer had to pay attention. He would tell me, You need to go have your own life. You're a black hole. No one could ever fill you. My sense of Phil was that he was really two people.

He was the guy who wanted to draw and write and create and come up with ideas. I had my hair changed to pure brass. The actor entertainer, and then he was the recluse. On our first anniversary, we went to Santa Barbara. I dressed up in this trashy lingerie or something and got a whole outfit. I jumped up on the bed and I stood over him and he said, Must you Really? So I said, No. Took it off, put a robe on, got my book out, and I knew that was at the end. Doesn't seem like there are noisy fights, but he is elusive. He is beyond her reach. And then she has to walk away. Surprisingly, Phil is not done with the institution of marriage. His next relationship is going to take him through the highs and lows of his professional and personal life. But he's also going to find that it's going to lead to his untimely end. Okay, Jim, that's enough. Welcome, mystery enthusiasts. If you're a fan of uncovering hidden clues and solving mind-bending mysteries, then you're in for a treat with June's Journey, the thrilling detective game set in the mesmerizing world of the Roaring Twenties.

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What do voters really think and which game changers will actually change the game? That's 538 Politics, every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. Not long after Phil and Lisa divorce, Phil meets this blonde, statuesque woman named Brin Omdahl. And once again, as with Lisa, as with Gretchen, he's almost immediately head over heels. When they meet, Phil is a decade older than Brin, but neither one seems to have a problem with that. Brin is an advent. Brin is actually named Vicky Joe, and she's a small town girl from Minnesota. Vicky, she was a really fun She had a lot of friends. She was very artistic, creative. She'd do a lot of drawing, and she was very good on the piano. She was tall and blonde and good-looking and probably a very big fish in the small pond. She came to Hollywood like a lot of people do. She had that beautiful Nordic face. She was the archetypical, beautiful, striking woman that when she walks into a restaurant or a party, everyone turns and looks at her. This is somebody who could be a movie star. She looks like Grace Kelly. She was flawless. Rin was beautiful, and she was also funny.

She had tryouts for Heha to be one of the Heha girls that pops out of the corn stocks or whatever. Brin came to LA wanting to be an actress. She went on some auditions, wasn't having a lot She had success on that front, but she did date some famous Hollywood men. And she did date Rob Reiner for a while, and she enjoyed Rob and all his friends. I remember thinking it was funny and so Hollywood-y that Phil thought her pedigree with another super famous guy was a plus. That was something that made her more valuable. He wanted that person on his arm. I think for Phil, that was a sign of success. I know she did start using cocaine, and she would tell me about parties she would go to and how fun it was and that this cocaine was a great drug. She had a problem with cocaine. She did too much cocaine. She agreed to come to Fargo, and she went through treatment. He talked about that she'd been in rehab and had a lot of troubles, but she was great, and they got along great. That's where Brin is at the moment they meet.

She was struggling, but people liked her. She was charismatic. She was fun. For whatever reason, they clicked, and he was extremely enthusiastic about her pretty much from the beginning. Brin told me that Phil got his hooks in her by saying, Stick with me, baby, and I'll see that you get acting roles, and you will have a career, too. Brin went out Los Angeles to become an actress. And then she met Phil, and I think she thought that there would be benefits off of that relationship for her. He was looking for that young, pretty trophy wife. She was looking for someone that could help her out in her career. So seemingly, This is kismet here. Phil, I think, was really enamored with her and her warmth and her look. I think all those things were really attractive at first. And then I think, with anything, especially people like that, there's a lot of baggage with it, and it seems romantic at the beginning, and then it just becomes personality problems later. As with Lisa, as with Gretchen, it becomes very intense, very fast. But as the months go on, the cracks begin to show, and Phil does what he did with his last two relationships.

He begins to withdraw emotionally. They begin this pattern of fighting and making up and fighting and making up that would mark their relationship from there on out. I thought Phil was getting what he wanted, a beautiful woman, and I thought Brin was getting what she wanted, a successful guy. With Brin now on his arm, Phil has found the Hollywood beauty that matches his stature. But professionally, he's still looking for that one job that will define him and in his mind, be what Fame and Fortune is all about. Phil Hartman, after a long apprenticeship in improvisational Comedy and sketch comedy in 1986, finally gets to audition for Lorin Michael's and the crowd at SNL. Now, this is a show that's a star maker. I mean, you've got everybody from Chevy Chase to Eddie Murphy to John Balushi, who began on SNL and went on to box off the success in the movies. You can see his audition on videotape. I can also do any dialect. Go ahead, call out a dialect. I don't do that. Phil, in fact, gets hired for the 1986-1987 season. Phil said, When you're on SNL, you're at the center of the universe of America.

Phil would say that, Right now, you get to be at the center of the universe, and that's not going to last forever. Cut tape. Cut tape. Get that camera. Saturday Night Dead. In the '80s, particularly the middle '80s, Saturday Night Live was almost at its death's door. It was so bad that Madonna came on the opening episode of the 1986 season and read a statement on behalf of NBC apologizing for what had been such a crummy season the year before. It was all a dream, a horrible, horrible dream. The 1986 season would start a new golden era in the show's history. The cast includes John Lovitz, Dana Carvie, and of course, a 38-year-old newcomer, Phil Hartman. That cast, still my favorite cast, was ever on Saturday Night Live. If you were to When you see the DVD, Saturday Night Live, The Best of Phil Hartman, you would see this incredible range of characters that he played. Hi, I'm Johnny Cash, and I'm a greatfully recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Phil had a lot of great tones. He had a terrific voice, and there was almost nothing you could ask him to do that he couldn't do.

He does a fantastic Frank Sinatra. You don't scare me. I got chunks of guys like you in my stool. Televangelist Jim Baker. We need their emotional and financial support now more than ever. Ed McMahon. You are correct, sir. Yes. Frozen caveman lawyer. That was his own character. Your world frightens and confuses me. And he even goes on to play Jesus. Hello, my son. Hi there. And you are... He was extremely versatile and never a false note. Hello, little girl. What's your name? That sketch where you find out that Reagan in front of the cameras or in front of public, he was just the folksy old like, Well, and he would really play it up. Then the kids would be taken out, and he had turned like that to be the mastermind of evil. Back to work. It was so funny because Phil's character switched on the dime. Phil loved being on SNL. He appreciated how important it was and how lucky it was that he got there against all odds. He loved it. Julia Sweeney became known for her character, Pat, but she also was known for being frequently paired up with Phil Hartman. I did play Phil's Wife many, many times, but Jan Hooks played his wife more times than me, and I felt jealous of that because I wanted to be Phil's Wife.

But in real life, the lucky woman who does become his third wife is Brin Omdahl, who marries Phil in the fall of 1987. Phil got married in New York. They just had a very small ceremony. No family was there, and that's what they wanted, just a small wedding. Since they'd both been married before. While Phil was at SNL, Brin made some friends among the writers and cast members on the show, including Julia Sweeney, who was a cast member. Brin came to SNL, maybe not every single week, but a lot. She didn't go somewhere to fade into the background. She wore bright red clothes. Her legs, she showed as much of her legs as she could. She would come in and visit in the writers room, and she would flirt with the guys in the room and sit on their laps and play with their hair and their ears. And Phil was right there, and I thought, Well, that's odd. But he didn't seem bothered by it. What he would say was, How does a chubby guy like me have somebody like her on my arm? So he was very proud of her. Work. I'm doing all the work.

In one of the home videos, we see Brin acting. She's playing in some skit acting as a model. It's a nice living. I get to travel all over. Brin would tell me that she had wanted to be an actress. With Phil on SNL, Brin apparently saw an opportunity to get some screen time. When they shot the opening for Saturday Night Live and they introduced Phil, you see Phil full face at a diner, and there's a blonde woman sitting across from him. That's Brin, the back of her head. She tried to turn her head and get her face on camera, and the director said, No, just look at Phil. So that's why her earring is dancing back and forth. Phil Hartman. It was as much as she got onto that show. Live from West Hollywood, it's Baby Shower, starring, Rendon Hartman and Babyboy Hartman. And Brin, baby boy. At the end of Phil's second season on Saturday Night Live, he and Brin welcome their first child. Sean is born in 1988, and Phil loves being a father. He just takes the fatherhood right away. Hey, Sean, look. You're on TV. He calls me and says, I just became a father.

And so I wrote a card. Dear Phil and Brin, much love from aunt Lisa. If you ever need a babysitter. I'm so thrilled for you. And I got back a letter that was hair-curling, fury, rage, and death threat from Brin. The gist of it was, Don't ever even get near me or my family, or I will hurt you. I never want to hear from you. Do not be in touch with Phil. Do not be in touch with me. Never, ever, ever come near us or you will really be sorry. Yeah. And it was two pages. Completely and utterly shocking. So I called him and he said, You should have seen the letter she wanted to send you. She said, She's very intense. I didn't speak to him or see him for many years after that. By this point in his career, Phil and Brin are bi-coastal. He has an apartment in New York for when Saturday Night Live is filming. Hi, Daddy. They also have a 4,000-square-foot house, a mansion, really, in Encino, which is part of Los Angeles. This is the entrance to the home. This is a family room. Hi. Here's my sink.

Two mirrors because my split personality. On the hallway to the master bedroom. It's almost as big as our old house. In this bar area. Not much in the way of drinkers, but we love it anyway. So pretty much this is what our dream house is all about. By 1989, Phil is on top of the professionally and personally. He wins an Emmy Award as being part of the writing team for Saturday Night Live. After Phil was at SNL for a few years, the show started adding younger cast members, including David Spade and Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and they were much sillier, much more physical. There's you there. Phil was very ambitious, but he was often the person who wasn't getting the laughs. He was the straight man. We call him the Glue. Chris Farley actually talks about that with Phil on CNBC. Phil Phil Hartman, the Glue. We call Phil the Glue because he holds the show together. Without the Glue, there's trouble. What changed the game for Phil Hartman at that time was the arrival of a politician named Bill Clinton. Nice to see you. I pray for Phil's most famous scene on SNL to this day is when he plays Bill Clinton, wandering into a McDonald's with his two Secret Service bodyguards after a morning run.

Please don't tell Mrs. Clinton. Jim, let me tell you something. There's going to be a whole A bunch of things we don't tell, Mrs. Clinton. After that sketch, Phil was on the map at SNL like never before. Also, he looked forward to earning money on the side as Clinton. Are you there, Mr. President? Hartman's Clinton is so popular that he actually is interviewed as the President by Jay Lennoh on The Tonight Show. Well, you know my motto, Jay, if you got the Republic, I got the Banana. Phil is riding high. He's He's beloved by his cast mates. He's beloved by the public, the viewers. He's become a bona fide star. But things are rocky at home. He just said, I just got to pretend to be asleep or we'll be fighting all night long. And I said, Phil, I feel so bad. Everything seems so perfect. He goes, Yeah, but no one knows behind closed doors. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Sean. Happy birthday to you. When I watched the old home videos of Brin and Phil, it really brought home what loving parents they were. Phil and Brin's second child, a daughter named Bergen, is born in 1992 on a Saturday.

And so, in fact, that night, the host of the show, Susan Day, her birth on the air. We would like to welcome into this world Ms. Bergen Hartman. I remember him calling me when Bergen was born, and he was very, very choked up, and he said, She's the most beautiful baby in the world. Bergen. And she was. She's so pretty today. What makes me the happiest? Well, without question, it's being a father. Simon says, Run in a circle. Simon says, Stop. Simon says, Hands in the air. Hands on your sides. The video of Phil playing Simon says with the two kids. They were a fun family. They did a lot of things, and they loved them very much. It showed on the videos. Hello. I thought Brennan was the greatest mom. She was wonderful. Sing, I love you with me, okay? I love you, you love me. Family. We're a happy family. By all external appearances, they look like a very, very happy couple in family, but there are cracks in the armor. On this particular evening, Brin Hartman showed up at 10:00 in a black cocktail dress, and Phil went down to meet her at the elevator bank on the eighth floor, and it's like a mile from the stage door.

It's a very long corridor, and a group of us were at the stage door, and we could see what was going You could see Brin and Phil obviously having an animated argument, and the proof of that was the arm gestures. So we just turned and let them to go at it. It's lucky that there wasn't an NBC tour walking through that evening. It would have been quite a tour. I remember one time walking into the restroom and seeing her snorting Coke, and she offered me some, but I didn't think, Oh, here's a person with problems. Oh, my. She shouldn't be doing that. I mean, it's SNL. She had a habit of zapping him before the dress rehearsal. One night, I could hear through the dressing room door some provocative language. I heard him say, Brin, several times. He was yelling at her. He was obviously talking to his wife. And on at least one occasion that was even more dramatic, he came to the makeup chair, trembling, just trembling. He was white as a sheet. And I said, Phil, what's the matter? And he said in a comedy, Phil Hartman He said, Well, Norm, looks like the wife's going to divorce me this time.

And I was like, Wow. And he said, Well, it's my schedule. I work so much, and she doesn't have a career, and I'm away from the house a lot, and she'd like me to trim things back. But he's like, I'm the breadwinner. I'm the one who's making the money. Phil was always working, and Brin was resenting him more and more because of that. She even brings it up when she calls a friend about a play date. It's Brin Hartman. I got your message. Phil's just been working like crazy, and he's real cranky. Work was very important to him, and so he did what he had to do. That's his name, Mr. Simpson. Meanwhile, of course, he has this great gig at the Simpson, this phenomenal gig at the Simpson. I was just about to be showrunner in season 2, and we were looking for a sleazy lawyer to represent Bart, and we thought, Oh, Phil would be a great voice to play Lionel Hutz, the lawyer. You can ching, ching, ching, cash in on this tragedy. And he plays one of the great Simpsons characters of all time, Troy McClure. Hello, this is Troy McClure.

The troubled actor, pitchman. He had the famous catchphrase, You may remember from such films as Blank and Blank. You may know me from such self film videos as, Smoke yourself thin and get confidence, stupid. I directed Phil several times, but I was really directed. I said action and cut and then and laughed in between. He just had it. Absolutely, Phil made the material funnier than we originally imagined, and I couldn't imagine anybody else doing it. Phil, my wife's friend. Phil was getting a lot of attention, and she wasn't getting any attention. We reinvented it and reinvigorated it. I suppose some of that's natural. Maybe part of it is she just wanted to be more part of the spotlight than she was. With his profile rising, Phil appears on The Howard Stern Show on E. And what's interesting is that he brings along Brin. What did you do? Swimsuits, linger? Did a lot of swimsuits. Because she was a runway model for swimsuits. Clearly, Phil's making an effort to raise her profile. If he screws up this marriage, then there's something wrong with him. Did you ever meet the other two wives? No. Were I talked to Gretchen on the phone.

Never wanted to meet the second one. Were they as beautiful as Brin? No. As his stardom rose, he became busier and busier. Max Jerome, Private Eye. Phil was making big bucks doing commercials for brands like Cheetos and McDonald's. Hello, I'm Hugh McAdic. This just in. A meteor landed near a McDonald's. Here's eyewitness Louise Sanders. I think they paid him a million, too, to do that. He couldn't believe that he was making that money. When Phil starts making real money, he starts buying more toys. He buys a Bentley, he buys a Ferrari, a Mercedes. He's got a couple of boats. He started with a small Boston whaler and graduated to a larger Boston whaler. Then he bought a small yacht. It was called the Egg Harbor. Eventually, he bought an airplane. Phil had a very safe, very well-made French airplane called an aerospace Tobago. Five, seven Delta, are you straight in? Roger. That's what I was going to do. He spent a lot of time away from the house and away from his wife with his toys. I think I'm going to like it here at Emerald Bay. Maybe she felt Phil was spending too much time with his boat or airplane or not enough time with the kids, or she wanted him to go to the grocery store with him, and he didn't.

I would reassure that that's normal, and that he still loved her. He wasn't home nearly as much as she thought he should be. He wasn't being a father nearly as much as she thought he would be. And so that was also a source of friction in their relationship. By 1994, Phil decides it's time to move on after eight seasons of Saturday Night Live. It's time to do something else. On Phil's last show, they did a cast sign off to the tune of So Long, Farewell from The Sound of Music. So Long, Farewell. And after the end, there were just two characters remaining on stage, and one was Chris Farley, and one was Phil. It was one of the memorable moments that anyone of that era would remember. In the next few years, they would both be gone. Perhaps Chris Farley's death wouldn't shock that many people, but Phil's absolutely would. Listen up. This February. Oh, my God, you're Ellie Conway. I am such a fan. What does it you do? Espionage. Don't miss the new action adventure, Argyll. I want all assets fixed on them now. Who are these people? Real-life spies. From the director of Kingsman.

I can't pull off a spy mission. Every Everything hinges on this. It's time for you to meet the real Agent Argyll. Oh, my God. Argyll in Cinemas Now, Cert 12A. It's Mr. Hartman, sir. It's the early '90s, and funny man Phil Hartman has the world on his strength. He's got this fantastic career, beautiful family, and this wonderful house in Los Angeles. Please welcome Phil Hartman. Mr. Phil Hartman, ladies and gentlemen. When he's not working with his family, he can be found on the late night talk show circuit. Please welcome one of TV's funniest stars, Phil Hartman. Phil. Phil was a guy that whenever he was available to do the show, we would take him. Phil was on Letterman 13 times. So that gives you an example of how highly thought of he was. He was a go-to guy. Always come on prepared. Letterman always trusted him, and he knew the importance of getting to that punchline. You want a light for your cigarette? I know I'm a nonsmoker, Dave. He's a very entertaining talk show guest. I want to thank you and your wife for all your help. The voices in the gags are perfect for late night TV, but in there, you get little glimpses into the real guy.

He talks about having a variety show. Well, I'm going to do my own show for NBC, The Phil Show, which will be a sketch-comedy show. Phil brought in the young comedy writers, Kevin and Brian Phil Hearn to develop the show. It was just going to be a series of sketches, commercial parodies, not unlike what you would see on Saturday Night Live, but this one would be more Phil-centric. Hi, Brian and Kevin. It's Phil Hartman calling. I'm back in New York after a shaky two weeks in LA, and I've just gone over your stuff, and it looks great. Congratulations, and we'll take it from here. Bye. My wife, Brin. So remember, Brin has been after Phil to get her some acting work. So Phil wants to actually create a part for his wife on his new show. Brin would seek his assistance in her career. He told me that she pestered him over and over. That was a stressor in their relationship. The first time Phil brought up the prospect of bringing Brin on as a cast member was a little bit awkward. My brother and I were both huge fans of Jan Hooks, and we thought that she it would be perfect.

And immediately, he shot it down. Phil said, My wife, I think, would be a perfect foil for me. At which point, my brother and I looked at each other and said, Well, is she funny? He said, In her own way. And we thought, Uh-oh. And the more that he talked about it, I could see that this was more about trying to work on the marriage and placate her more so than maybe her being the most qualified person to do that job. Phil also tried to develop a sitcom with a role for Brin. She had a very prominent role in it. I would have separate meetings with both of them, and they all loved what I was writing, and we had just hilarious times together. But neither that sitcom nor The Variety Show ever made it to the pilot stage. You're talking about going on to start your own Variety Show. The Phil Show. That's right. It's not going to happen. He called and said, You know what? I've decided I just want to be an actor. Nbc has this show called Newsradio, and it's a perfect role for me, and so I'm just going to do that.

At a certain point, Brin called and she was really upset. I said, Well, maybe they'll work you into it. No, he's doing this because he doesn't want to work with me. That's why. Just tell her I'm busy acting or something. Oh, good evening. I'm Phil Hart from the NBC sitcom.Newsradio. Yes, exactly. Newsradio premiered in the springtime of 1995, and it stars Phil Hartman, Vicky Lewis, and Andy Dick. It was a quirky ensemble sitcom about the antics at a morning radio station. It's time for The Real Deal with Bill McNeill. I'm your host, Bill McNeill. Bill McNeill was basically an ego-maniacal news radio personality. His character was just so full of himself. He's completely the opposite of his character. It was very difficult to hate the character because Phil was so lovable. Jerry, how are we doing? The fact that Jerry Seinfeld would do a thing on news radio, it gives you an idea of the degree to which Phil Hartman was regarded. Come on, Jerry, you know me. No, I don't. He was happy that he wasn't carrying the show. I think he loved it. What an interesting thing. I would say, Brin confided in me quite a bit.

I know she was upset with Phil on one, maybe two occasions where he would be doing apart The Simpsons or news radio. He had mentioned to Brin that, maybe I can get you apart. And when he'd come home, she'd say, Well, did you talk to him about getting me apart? And he'd say, Oh, I forgot. And she'd be upset about that. And her substance abuse issues really had not gone away. She would stop, and there'd be a period of peace, and then she would indulge. On Mother's Day in 1997, Brin apparently went out and was in very bad shape when she came home the next morning, and Phil was furious. He told his mother a little bit later, I cannot live with someone who can't control drugs and alcohol. And he insisted that Brin to rehab. And so Brin ultimately agreed and said, Okay, I'll go. But months later, she would relapse again. I was partying hard, and I'm not ashamed, and I never hid this. So I'm at a Christmas party at Phil's house with Brin and one of her friends, and they both say, Andy, do you have any Coke? And I went, Yeah, I do.

Can we have some? Sure, sure. Here. I gave him a little bump. She was was already in relapse mode, which I didn't even know she had a problem at all in the first place. Didn't know. She took cocaine and probably took too much of it, and it scared her, and it scared Phil. Phil had a very strong opinion that he didn't want to be married to someone that's addicted to cocaine. He basically told her he's going to have a zero tolerance policy towards cocaine usage. So Brin goes back to rehab, but she doesn't stay for long. Five, six days, she left, and she missed the kids, wanted to be with the kids, and she had the relapse, and she felt terribly remorseful about it. I started to see a hate and more of the signs of the wear and tear of that on him. On one occasion, I recall him coming in looking very unkept, which was out of character for him. He hadn't shaved, and there were some marks on his face, like a scrape. I remember saying to him, She doesn't have a gun, does she? And he said, Oh, yeah, she has a gun.

She has a gun for protection. And I said, Protection against what? You live in Encino. What went through in my mind was the irony that here you are buying guns because you're afraid of home invasion. And in fact, the enemy has been in your house, indeed, in your bed all along. By the late '90s, Phil is officially SNL royalty, and they have paid him the highest compliment, inviting him back to host a show twice. When he's not on TV, he's on the big screen. It's not all the same to me, Bilgo. Co-starring with the likes of Steve Martin. It's not what you think it is. Arnold Schwarksneger, You can't bench press your way out of this one. I've got a metal plate in my head. And Michael J. Fox. You do? No. But Brin's career, not so much. It pales in comparison. She's only getting some minor acting work. She appeared in the movie North that was directed by Rob Reiner, and she plays a waitress. One Coca-Cola right here, and one sex on the beach. She had done a few bit parts, like third rock to the sun. Let's go, gentlemen. We watched it together, and she thought it was pretty funny.

It was a nice little boost for her. But Phil tells a friend that he doesn't think Brinda's cut out to be an actress. He was saying that she wasn't acting material. She felt like he was losing interest, but not in the way where he's interested in other women. Hi, Phil. How was your ski trip today? She talked about him ignoring her. Are you going to stay home tonight? I'll probably go to the office for a short time. Okay. Phil hated confrontation, so he would do a few things to avoid it. Maybe he'd smoke a joint, get high. Maybe he'd take his plane to Catalina Island for a few days. Phil wanted his downtime, his Phil time. I would say Phil was definitely a guy's guy. He liked going places where there weren't a lot of people. That's why we went to Catalina. Yeah, I wrote up this thing once, and it was just gorgeous. That was his escape. I remember him telling me, I took Bren over to Catalina, but the weather was really bad, and she got sick. I think that was intentional. I think he didn't want her to embrace the boat. That's how he could get away from Bren.

My main avocation is in the area of nature worship. It's It was almost a religion to me. Bren did say that Phil was distant sometimes, and sometimes actually he would go to his hangar, just wax the airplane and just get away. She felt like Phil wasn't giving her very much attention, and he was sailing all the time, and he didn't want to spend time with her. Action. Somebody told me that Brin, Phil's wife, had us being followed by somebody, a private investigator, with a camera for a number of years. Have there been many murders in this area? That's how we had meant to. Either she thought that we were gay, and/or she thought that he was having an affair. He wasn't hiding anything, so he'd tell her. Going back to Catalina. Somebody out there had thousands of photographs of us.What? That outcropping right there?Yeah, right there. Smoking dope, inflated He was waiting the boat. He didn't have anything of great interest because Phil never had girls on the boat. He was adamant about not having women on the boat. He was a faithful guy, and I respected that him. Phil and I had We established our friendship, and Phil had to go to really extreme lengths to have any contact with me.

Brin was so jealous and so crazy jealous that a couple of times he came to my apartment in Santa Monica, I'd make lunch, and we'd just sit and talk and hang out because he wanted to be my friend, and he couldn't be my friend in public. He said, No, I have to sneak in. He'd wear a hat and glasses, and he parked in Side Street, and he'd sneak into my apartment because he said, If a photograph is ever taken with us. I mean, that's it. Brin had low self-esteem. She worried about looking older, getting older. The A month before they died, Brin turned 40. So for many women, a 40th birthday is a big line in the sand in an emotional event. She was always aware of, I need to look perfect. I need to be perfect. I need to be perfect in this situation. The one thing that I did know was that she had been given some Zoloft to take from Sean's doctor. Zoloft is an antidepressant which came on the market in the early 1990s. She talked about having anxiety at times. When Brin talked about the Zoloft, she didn't really go into detail about why, and I didn't think to ask, Are you sad?

Are you okay? I mean, I just thought it was, Okay, she's going on Zoloft. It's what people do in Hollywood. They She told me that Brin had been on cocaine and Zoloft and alcohol, and she's just been crazy lately, and that she wanted to fight every night before they went to sleep. I know some reports said friends say they were fighting more the last six months. I find that to be totally untrue. I know I've talked to both of them, and that wasn't the case. I know they had seen a counselor, and both of them said that really helped, and they're trying to improve for their spouse. I mean, they cared that much about each other. Phil mentioned more than once that it became physical. He said that Brian would lose control and physically attack him, and he would have to hold her arms down and restrain her. He said, Yeah, our fights are getting much worse, and we keep going in and out of therapy. He said, And she gets vicious. She gets violent. And I said, Violent? And he said, Yeah, she throws things at me. She slaps me. I said, Honey, she doesn't have a gun, does she?

And he said, Oh, yeah, she has a gun. She has a gun for protection. And I said, Protection against what? You live in Encino. Bren and Phil both told me they had taking self-protection classes and shooting classes, and they a lot of firearms, and they had them both in safes, and it was for protections against a stalker, an intruder. I've had some difficulties. I've had an extortion attempt on me. I've been a target just because I'm famous. I don't want to invite the attention of unbalanced individuals. In early May, 1998, Phil Hartman sat for his very last press junket. Talk about his upcoming movie, Small Soldiers. I'm here to negotiate the surrender. Small Soldiers is a splashy summer popcorn movie with razzle-dazzle special effects. You'd have to be crazy not to be scared. Oh, man, I get drugged and kidnapped and shot at with a bazooka and beat up and flame-throwed. It's pretty astounding. But what no one can see coming, least of all Phil, is that he won't live to see the movie open. I think Bren was insecure and impulsive, and of drugs make you more impulsive. That's a very scary combination that can lead to terrible things happening.

Phil Hartman and Brinn Hartman are not Sid and Nancy. This is not destined to end in flames and gunfire. They are a nice, prosperous suburban couple. There's always stuff going on underneath. Of course, everybody has secrets and stories and personal and private lives, but no one thinks this is going to happen. No. Phil and I were driving down to Newport Beach on the way back, and he dropped me off, and I didn't know it was the last time I was going to see him. He came home. I was waiting for him to come home because that was going to be the time for me to go. And Brent had just gone out, and she wasn't going to be back until late. So Phil was going to take over in taking care of the children. On the last night of Phil's life, He gave me a call to let me know that he thought things were going great and to keep at it. I expressed some career issues I was having at the time, and he said to me, Don't worry about that stuff. You're talented guy. It's all going to work out. He said, The most important thing in your life is your family, your friends.

Two days before I called him, and I was driving, I remember this very clearly. I called to take his temperature. The question was, So how are things with you and Brin. Great. Really great. She's listening to me. Things are quiet. And it also demonstrated his illusion that he was in control. That was important to him. Phil was always in control. When we went on a boat ride, we took the boat over to Catalina, he was the captain and gave orders. Brin goes out for drinks around 7:00 or 7:30 with Christine Xander, who we will later know as a writer on shows like Third Rock from the Sun. They go to Bucco di Beppo, which is just a thousand feet from their home. Brin has two cosmopolitans. There was nothing abnormal about Brin at all that day. It was just a normal evening. Brin and Christine start talking about Brin's relationship with Phil, and she's not happy with it. Brin just doesn't feel valued at home. She says, Phil wants somebody to take care of the kids, but he doesn't care enough about my own wants and needs. He doesn't care enough about my career aspirations.

Christine does go to the bathroom once or twice, and when she comes back, she believes that she sees Brin twice on a pay phone in what I believe she describes as a somewhat agitated state. It's also clear to Christine later that Brin wants to keep the night going. Christine would prefer not to. So they part. Brin tells the bartender at Bucca di Peppo, I'll come back and I'll bring Phil next time. So she's literally identifying herself as this person that's married to a famous person. I'll bring the important part of me back to dinner next time I come. Brin wants to keep the night going. How will she do that? She goes to the home of a longtime friend, Ron Douglas. Brin shows up at Ron's house at about 10:15. She's driving her Jeep Cherokee. She has a few beers, and according to Ron, seems starved for attention. He feels that she's hopped up and doesn't want to go back home and is a little gloom about her relationship with Phil. And so as she keeps drinking, he describes an evening where he's trying to entertain her. Douglas and Brin go back a long time, about 15 years, and indeed, they had been lovers, but that has since ended.

While she's at Ron's house, Brin complains about Phil. She says he's spending all of his time with his friend, Brit. I think for Brin, it was more she would have preferred to have steered him towards his celebrity friends. I'm just a friend. It's not in the business. Ron Douglas said to the police that she left his house at about 12:45 that morning. When she gets back to the Hartman home. The kids have been put to bed, and what happens afterwards, we don't really know. The only information we have that there was even an argument seems to have come from Sean, the boy, remembering a slammed door and somebody yelling, Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. That's all we have. Phil hated conflict, and he hated the fact that his third marriage was not going well. He didn't want to be a three-time loser when it came to marriage. At some point in the early morning hours of May 28, 1998, Brinn Hartman gets her hand on a Smith & Weston gun. Phil is lying With his legs crossed on the bed, Brin gets next to him on the bed and fires three shots into him and kills him.

Phil told repeatedly that when they had fights, he would go to bed, go to sleep. And so it doesn't take a lot of thought to realize that she probably came home high. They had a fight. He went to sleep, and then he never woke up. It's 3:45 in the morning, and Ron Douglas is awakened by the pounding on his front door. He goes downstairs, and it's Brin, and she's in her pajamas and appears to be drunk. Ron has had quite enough of Brin Hartman for the evening, but that does not dissuade Brin Hartman. She walks inside and she says, Don't yell at me. Phil yells at me all the time. And she tells Ron Douglas, I killed Phil. I don't know why. He hears these words and doesn't believe them, literally. It doesn't sound real. So Brin is looking for something in her purse, and a gun falls out. Douglas immediately picks it up and takes possession of the weapon. Ron Douglas takes the gun and puts it in his trunk, and they drive in separate cars back to the Hartman home. They go inside, and Ron Douglas sees that Phil Hartman is dead, and he calls 911.

Little does Ron Douglas know, Phil isn't the only person who will die there that morning. So it's around 6:00 AM, and Ron Douglas finds himself in the most bizarre circumstance. He's in the Hartman home, and Brin is now leading him into the master bedroom to see if, in fact, she has killed Phil. They go inside, and Ron Douglas sees that Phil Hartman is dead. So Brin tells Douglas, I killed him. I killed him. I told you I did it. I told you I did it. I killed him. I don't know why. And that will always be the question, what scenario can you create in which Brin Hartman's life is improved for the better by the murder of Phil Hartman? Douglas steps into the hallway to call 911. I think there's been a shooting here. Okay, do you see a victim? Yes. Brin, meanwhile, stays in the bedroom and is speaking to someone else on a different phone. The bedroom door closes. Ron goes to open it, but he finds out that it's locked. The wife shot him and you're both there. Is this on purpose? Was this an accident? Do you know what happened? I have no idea if it was more from the house and she was drunk.

He said she had killed her husband. I didn't believe her. Where's the weapon now? It's in my hand because she brought it to my house. What is your name, sir? My name is Ron. Brin is screaming and crying. She's calling a lot of people. My husband answered the phone, and I heard him talking, and he came in, and he was like, The white is a ghost? And I said, What's wrong? And he said, Well, Brin just called. She's hysterical. I can barely understand. She thinks Phil is dead. She needs you. We threw some clothes on and we ran over there. Just then, I could hear coming from the direction of their bedroom, the most pitiful, agonizing screams I've ever heard in my life. The last 12 hours of Phil and Brin Hartman's life are almost so hard to comprehend that you forget that there were two small children in the house when the police arrived. Ron has grabbed Sean and gotten him into the hands of the LAPD. As the officers got there, they immediately saw Mr. Douglas and the older son at the doorway, and they remove them from the location. Ron also gives the gun to the LAPD.

Brin is locked inside her bedroom with Phil. Ron then also tells the LAPD that there is a girl, Bergen, who is inside the house. She was found in one of the bedrooms for the back of the house, and the officer told me that when he found her, she was cowering with fright in the corner with a blanket over her. It seems that by the time she is back in that bedroom with another gun, she cannot see a way out. And she calls her sister and tells her sister always to remind her children that she loved them. To make arrangements for your children's care when you know you're going to be dead in a few minutes is actually the actions of a rational person. The enormity of what she'd done probably was fading in and out of her head throughout that night. But I think in that moment, it all became very, very clear. And then she puts the gun to her lips, and she pulls the trigger. Officers were actually in the house removing the Hartman children when they heard a shot. One officer heard a gun shot, and it came from the north end of the I'm assuming we got an active shooter inside.

Garage doors looked just like this. They were closed. I remember my way out, there was a red Ferrari parked in that garage. Walked down, passed to this entrance over here. I had two officers go outside. I wanted them to set diversion. The next thing I know, all of these policemen are running up to the house. I told them to gather up rocks. And upon my command, I want you to break those windows and keep throwing the rocks to the windows until we make entry. When we got to the last place where she could be, which was a master bedroom, we called to her and asked her to surrender and come out with her hands up. And this is the moment when the cops realize they're facing off against absolutely no one. When you go through the door, we find a man laying on the bed. He has a bull go through his forehead. There's a woman lying next to him, and she also has a gunshot wound. Looking at the bodies, it's obvious that they were not alive. Got in the car and drove straight to the house. I did the normal thing. I jumped out of the car and panicked.

Was like, Where are the children? Where are the kids? Where's Bergen and Sean? Tell me where they are. The bodies of Phil Hartman and his wife had now been loaded into in a coroner's van and removed from the home. For me, it is one of the most tragic things. He had actually experienced the American dream that most people don't get to experience. And to have that taken away in this fashion seems so contradictory and so out of place and so unfair. The children, a nine-year-old boy and six-year-old girl, have been taken into protective custody. When I went down police station, Bergen show over there, and I said, Can I take the kids out somewhere? How does this environment, it was crazy this there. They said, There's a park across the street. Take them into the park. I remember I was pushing Sean on a swing. I said, Sean, is there anything I could do for you? And he said, no. He said, No. He said, My mom promised me she'd take me to a lot of fun places, and now she'll never be able to. Bergen looked like she was more in shock than anything else.

I remember her saying, I know I'll never see my mommy and daddy again. I don't know how she knew it, but it was one of the worst days of my life seeing those kids. After I heard Bren had shot Phil, and then heard Bren had shot herself, I think everyone was in shock in the family. And I cannot imagine why she would do that. So selfish. How she get to take him away from everybody? I have to stop. How could she? It's a question everybody has, including Brin's family. One year later, the family thinks they might have the answer. They looked like a happy couple, but today this peaceful family portrait is shattered. Actor, comedian Phil Hartman and his wife are found dead in their Encino home. Saw it on the news, and then I went, What? The corner has now arrived here in Encino, joining police in their investigation into the death of comedian Phil Hartman and his wife. This has got to be some publicity stunt. We had to Phil to turn the tables on everybody. It was just all real. In Los Angeles today, the actor and comedian Phil Hartman was shot to death in his own home, apparently by his wife, who then killed herself.

It was like, Bren shot Phil, then and she shot herself. And it... What? What? It was so shocking that you couldn't even understand it. You couldn't even know enough and be sad enough to cry in that moment. Focus now is on his marriage with 40-year-old Brin Hartman. They weren't together a lot. I mean, I usually see either him come and go or her come and go. They were rarely together. I've lost a sister that was such a wonderful person and a my mother-in-law, who was wonderful, and it was very hard. It was like getting punched in the gut because I knew my sister would never murder anyone. It was such a hard thing to face. The frustrating thing about this is that the question lingers in the air, why? There's nothing to fully explain or to put your finger on as to why Phil Hartman, even if his marriage was not the most successful, died in such a tragic, horrible, violent way at the hands of his wife. A toxicology report which should reveal whether Mrs. Hartman was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the shooting, should be completed late next week.

In the absence of any real solid information, it leads some people in the Hollywood community to start pointing fingers. The blame game is on, and one of the people who has a bullseye on his back is Andy Dick, who once gave Brin cocaine at a party. I think John Lovitz blamed Andy in a lot of ways for Brin's relapse. John loved Phil, and I know he was angry, and he probably wanted somebody to blame in a sense. I was driving, Andy never had a car because Andy always was on probation. Vicky and I are driving out of the parking lot, and John Lovett stopped us and leaned in and whispered in my ear, I know you killed Phil Hartman. I was like, What the hell are you talking about? And they just started to go at each other. John was blaming Andy, and Andy was fighting back. You gave Brin cocaine that made her go crazy and shoot Phil. I'm like, No, No, I didn't cause her to relapse, and I didn't give her cocaine, and then she ran off, got a gun, and shot her husband and herself. No, that happened six months later.

So ABC News reached out to John Lovitz, and he had no comment. Mrs. Hartman had a blood alcohol level of 0.12, as well as evidence of the prescription drug Zoloft, which is an antidepressant, and also showed evidence of cocaine usage. When the tragedy happened, there were so many different stories that were so far off base. I just wanted the truth to be told that there was a drug involved that was prescribed to that contributed greatly to both their deaths. On the anniversary of the murder suicide, Brinn Hartman's brother is suing the maker of the antidepressant she was taking. I did file a lawsuit against Pfizer alleging that the use of Zoloft caused my sister not to know what she was doing, and she shot her husband. And when she came out of that, she shot herself. Brinn Hartman was suffering ill effects from the drug, according to the lawsuit, telling friends she felt like she was going to jump out of her skin. The suit says the doctor told her simply to cut the dosage by half. To disavow or say, Well, gee, the cocaine had nothing to do with it or the alcohol. Of course, they had something to do with it.

The question under the law is, was the Zoloft a substantial contributing factor? I believe that it was. At the time the lawsuit was filed in 1999, Pfizer said there was no medical or scientific evidence that Zoloft caused violent or suicidal behavior. We did reach a settlement. Pfizer settled the case for $100,000, and there was no admission of any wrongdoing. But it's just a TV show. None of us really died.Right, gang?That's right. Eerily, that was Phil's last line on news radio. The next season started with the death of Phil's character, Bill McNeill, who had written letters to everyone in the event of his passing. Distributed to the appropriate parties. It was happening while the camera was on us and as we were actually having to read these things out loud. Dear Beth, I am sorry about that time. I said that your outfit looked like I think you fished out of the garbage can after the circus left town. It was genuine. I don't think there was any acting going on, which is why it was so touching. Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such nature films as Earwigsoo. We love Phil, and we thought that there would be nobody else that could do his characters.

Lionel Hatz, attorney at law. Because it was Phil, and he was so identified with those characters, and he made them his own. To have another actor's voice come out of those characters just felt wrong to us. They were retired after he passed. We never had Troy McClure or Lionel Hudson under the line on the show. I think about his kids all the time. I probably think about his kids once a week and wonder how they're doing. Phil wanted his ashes scattered in Emerald Bay off the Coast of Catalina Island, which was his favorite place on Earth. And that's where he wanted to spend the rest of his days. The word genius gets tossed around a lot in our business. It's way too much. But Phil Hartman was a total comic genius. I think had Phil lived, he could have been a Tom Hanks guy. He had everything it took to be a big star. The Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony was special because I felt like it brought Phil back to life and then to see SNL cast mates. It was good for my soul, and I think it was good for the soul of just about everybody there.

He finally got his just due. Not only are we missing out, but he is. And I know there's never going to be anybody that can fill his shoes. I want Bergen and Sean to know that they were a very happy, loving family, that both, Brin and Phil love them so much, and they both took so much time to make their lives a joy. This film is in Elefantovision. Brin was a sweet, sweet, awesome mother, and she was a beautiful soul. Give dad that kiss. Give dad that kiss, too. Hi, littles. How are you doing? I've been watching some of these old videos. Both the kids were moved by all the love that was shown. As far as raising the children, it was up to my sister, Cathy, and her husband, the guardians, and they chose to raise them in the Midwest. Come close to the camera. So thankfully, they grew up as loved children. The kids now are all grown up. Sean is 31, and Bergen is 27. Happy birthday to you. Bergen's doing great. Bergen is so gigantic. She's married now, and her and her husband have started a business that's doing real well.

Hey, Bergie, what do you want to say to yourself 10 years from now? She's a beautiful gal and has a handsome husband, and she's living a normal happy life. Sean, you want to wish your sister happy birthday on the tape? No. Come on. Happy birthday, Bergen. Sean's doing well. He got a degree in art, and he's pursuing his dream of being an artist and musician. Hi. I believe Brandon Phil would be very proud of how Sean and Bergen have grown up and the people they've turned into. Bergen and Sean like their privacy and want to remain out of the spotlight. But on a Father's Day a couple of years ago, Bergen posted on Instagram and wrote, This Dapper dude will always have my heart. I miss him dearly. This is Deborah Roberts. That does it for this episode of the 2020 True Crime Vault. Tune in on Friday nights at nine o'clock for all new broadcast episodes of 2020 on ABC. Thanks for listening.