Opinion | Bob Saget’s true Hollywood legacy was that he never put himself first

The greatest character Bob Saget played was the man he was in real life.

It’s been painful to watch those who loved him — and that includes everyone he ever met — try to grapple with their grief this week. On Sunday, the actor and comedian was declared dead in his Ritz-Carlton suite in Florida while on tour. He was just 65.

On Monday, before the studio audience was seated, Jimmy Kimmel opened his show with an emotional tribute to his friend. Choking back tears, Kimmel noted a word that kept popping up from shell-shocked mourners: “Sweetest.”

“Bob was the sweetest,” said Kimmel, struggling to keep it together. “He was the sweetest man. And the reason people wrote that is because it’s true. It’s the best word. If you had to pick one word to describe him, that was it: the sweetest.”

Tributes from others, including his castmates on ABC’s “Full House,” which turned Saget into a household name starting in 1987, also included that adjective. In a joint statement, the cast wrote: “Thirty-five years ago, we came together as a TV family, but we became a real family. And now we grieve as a family. Bob made us laugh until we cried. Now our tears flow in sadness, but also with gratitude for all the beautiful memories of our sweet, kind, hilarious, cherished Bob.”

We should all be so lucky to have a Bob Saget in our lives.

The man’s DNA was made up of goodness. He seemed to have a magical superpower that warped the space-time continuum, giving him extra hours in a day for all his friends, especially those in need. When Kimmel’s baby son was in the hospital with a serious heart issue, Saget called the late-night host more than a rogue telemarketer. He was keen to help and comfort.

It’s as if Kimmel’s son was his son and they were battling the universe together.

Pete Davidson, the “Saturday Night Live” star, shared a similar story this week. As he wrote: “Bob Saget was one of the nicest men on the planet. When I was younger and several times throughout our friendship he helped me get through some rough mental health stuff. He stayed on the phone with my mom for hours trying to help in anyway he can … He would check in on me and make sure I was okay.”

In Hollywood, selflessness is as common as Burberry in a Dollarama. But for decades, Saget put his loved ones and friends first. It was almost as if his own career — “Full House,” “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” “How I Met Your Mother,” standup comedy — was the opening act to his real calling and ambition, which was to be a rock for others in the chop.

And over the years, what emerged was a split personality in the cultural clearing. You had Saget’s wholesome TV persona of Danny Tanner, the widowed dad from “Full House.” And then you had the decidedly NSFW comedic stylings of the real Saget, a standup prone to arrested development who revelled in ribald and scatological musings, and whose unleaded gas was often shock (see his rendition of the world’s filthiest joke in the 2005 documentary “The Aristocrats.”).

As his old friend, comedian George Wallace, told “Entertainment Tonight” this week: “He had the filthiest mouth in the world. Nobody bluer, nobody nastier, I can’t even tell you some of the things he talked to us about. Just crazy! But a lot of fun and we loved him.”

What Saget managed to do in a life cut way too short was to navigate his impulses of dark comedy with a far more powerful floodlight he shined on those he loved. Yes, he could tell dirty jokes. Yes, he could let his devious mind wander onstage to places that, if more people were listening, might prove problematic in this age of reflexive outrage.

But first and foremost, he was just the sweetest man.

There is a lesson there for all of us. Robert Lane Saget, born in Philadelphia on May 17, 1956, somehow ascended the cutthroat business of showbiz while never causing harm. The celebrity feuds that currently animate Hollywood were just not in his DNA. He never got bogged down in dirt because he was too busy pulling people up. Over the last quarter-century, I’ve heard a lot of rotten things about countless celebrities. I never heard one bad word about Bob Saget. Not one.

In many ways, he consciously flew under the celebrity radar while serving as air traffic control for those he loved. Whether it was protecting the Olsen twins or bravely defending Lori Loughlin or forging a true brotherhood with John Stamos, who on Tuesday poignantly wrote on Instagram that he’s “not ready to say goodbye yet,” Saget consistently put others first. If you were his friend, and you desperately needed bananas, he would have not hesitated to buy Chiquita.

As the “Full House” castmates noted in their statement: “He was a brother to us guys, a father to us girls and a friend to all of us. Bob, we love you dearly. We ask in Bob’s honour, hug the people you love. No one gave better hugs than Bob.”

Or as Kimmel said on Monday: “He would write sometimes just to tell me he loved me.”

Hugs and a random, “I love you.” This is his true legacy. And it is inspiring.

We should all be so lucky to have a Bob Saget in our lives.