He was a man with a big heart who took the comedy world by storm in the early 2000s.
Ralphie May was a large man who embraced his size as a part of his stand-up routine.
"You can't say this about that person, or that about this person," joked May. "The last group left is fat people," said the comedian. "We're it, we're the last ones left."
May went from the small town in Arkansas where he grew up to performing in some of the biggest comedy clubs in America, appearing on late-night TV, and starring in his own specials.
"I've lost 270 pounds in the last two years," May stated during another comedy show. As the crowd started to applaud, May jumped in with his punch line.
"Don't clap. It's not a real accomplishment. You lose a whole fat person, but you're still fat."
He was 45 when he died in 2017 from cardiac arrest. Now, his widow has produced Come What May, a new documentary about the comedian, which is being screened in Santa Barbara this week.
Come What May will be shown at the Metropolitan Four Theater at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. May's partner Lahna Turner will be at the screening to talk about the documentary.
"It's not easy to describe him concisely. He did everything big," said Turner, who is also a stand-up comedian. "I say in hindsight, both good and bad things were done big, really big, and fun, and over the top. He was a really sweet person who was hard not to fall in love with."
She met May before he hit it big on the TV show Last Comic Standing. They married in 2005 and had two children.
"Ralphie used to say the only agent he could get was State Farm, and that was barely," said Turner. "He was looked over industry-wise, because of his size."
Work on a documentary started long before he died, but the original concept was much different. It was going to be a look at how he battled his obesity. At some points in his life, he weighed more than 400 pounds.
"Ralphie had wanted to do a documentary about losing weight," said Turner. "We hired a documentarian to follow him around. She was with him for about nine months. He left a very different story, which didn't end the way we wanted it to."
Come What May also includes some very candid observations about his life, including this one by May himself.
"I'm a very flawed and imperfect man," said May.
Turner said the documentary shows the love he had for others and for comedy, but it also shows the demons he was facing, including food and drugs.
"I wish he was here to see it," said Turner. "He always said he wanted to help people. I believe this film has the potential of helping a lot of people. I want to believe he'd be very proud of it, even though it's a vulnerable story that maybe he wouldn't have wanted to share in life."
Turner hopes the documentary will encourage people facing similar issues to think about what they can do to get help.
