The HORRIBLE Death Of Phil Hartman | JREpodcast Clip

On scores of "Saturday Night Live" sketches and early seasons of "The Simpsons," Phil Hartman excelled at portraying straight-laced dads, stone-faced bosses, washed-up losers, and smarmy, sleazy, or square hucksters. His role on "NewsRadio," a star turn for Hartman after his years on "SNL," was that of a pretentious blowhard. Hartman was well-appreciated by his colleagues. To celebrate what would have been his 75th birthday, "Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade" produced a two-part special full of comedy alums showering praise on Hartman and his chops as a performer.

Those same colleagues, many of them younger than Hartman, remembered him as a paternal if slightly distant figure off-camera (per Mike Thomas's "You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman"). Not the type who lived to work, The Washington Post says Hartman was considered a grounded man free of the torment and self-destruction that haunted some fellow comedians. Interviews collected for a retrospective look by ABC News echoed his reserve and healthy interests away from show business, but they also discussed Hartman's struggles with relationships — particularly those with his third wife, Brynn Omdahl.

On May 28, 1998, a third facet was added to the Phil Hartman story when police responding to a 911 call found him dead of a gunshot wound. Brynn was next to him, dead of the same cause, in one of the most shocking murder-suicides in Hollywood history. And the crime scene was the couple's own home.

He was shot in his bed
John Chapple/Getty Images
Phil Hartman's friend and lawyer, Steve Small, told ABC's "20/20" that he was better at falling into romances than maintaining them. The actor's first two marriages were short-lived, but after he tied the knot with Brynn Omdahl, the two remained married until their death. Still, theirs was a union marked by love and fierce tension. Their temperaments — hers volatile, his reclusive — were a bad match. According to People, Hartman once described their dynamic to Small: "I go into my cave and she throws grenades to get me out." Speaking to Salon, Hartman's biographer, Mike Thomas, said the comedian likely knew the marriage was unhealthy, but he didn't want to hurt his children with Brynn or have a third failed marriage on his hands if they divorced.

By 1998, the family lived in an English cottage-style mansion in Encino (per the New York Daily News). Smalls told People that the night before their deaths, the Hartmans had an argument related to Brynn's ongoing experiences with drug and alcohol abuse. Earlier, she had been out drinking and stopped in at an ex-lover's house to complain about Hartman. In a go-to move after an argument, Hartman went to sleep, expecting things to be fine in the morning. But at some point before 3 a.m., Brynn took a .38 caliber handgun that Hartman kept in a safe, found him in bed, and shot him three times. Two shots hit him in the head, while the third hit his right side.