Sad Details About The Life Of Modern Family Star Ty Burrell

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For over a decade, millions of viewers tuned in to see the hilarious and upbeat antics of Phil Dunphy, played by Ty Burrell, on "Modern Family." Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, many sitcom dads were selfish, manipulative, or inattentive to their children's needs. Just look at the self-centered Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) or the criminal George Bluth Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) on "Arrested Development."

Phil was the polar opposite of these dads. Sure, he had his problems, but he was dedicated to doing the right thing for his kids, even if it made him perpetually uncool. He has a surprising amount of emotional intelligence, making him one of the best sitcom dads in TV history. And it's all thanks to Burrell's dedicated performance, which almost didn't happen.

Burrell has faced many setbacks throughout both his personal and professional lives. In fact, he considered throwing in the towel before he got his big break on "Modern Family." Fortunately, he persevered, and Burrell's career is a testament to how you can go through a lot and still manage to be one of the funniest fathers around.

Practically everyone knows someone who has suffered from cancer, and tragically, Ty Burrell is no exception. When Burrell was a student at the University of Oregon, his father, Gary Gerald Burrell, succumbed to pancreatic cancer and died at just 48 years old. Ty was only 21 years old at the time, and in 2020, he would speak with the American Cancer Society in a video uploaded to Facebook about losing his father at such a young age.

"My family has a strong sense for how brutal of a disease it is and how important treatment, and progress in treatment, is," Burrell stated forlornly. He goes on to mention a couple of other people in his life who have had to deal with cancer, as well.

Surely, Burrell's father was an influence on how the actor would eventually portray Phil Dunphy on "Modern Family." In a 2010 interview with People, Burrell brought up one anecdote that showed what a great sense of humor Gary had when watching his son play sports. "My dad considered himself an artist, so in protest he read the arts section at games while my mom was cheering us on. He did it with humor," he said.

Ty Burrell's parents would watch him play sports, so as one might be able to surmise, he didn't always have his sights set on acting. At one point, he wanted to become a professional football player, which is about as lofty a goal as becoming a sitcom star. Burrell wrote about his failed athletic career to Utah Business. He was a great athlete in his small town, but when he got to the University of Oregon, he figured he could just walk onto the field and join the football team.

However, he had a friend, who was an even better athlete than him, try out for the team, too. "I found out, through casual conversation, that he never even made it onto the field for the team because he wasn't good enough," Burrell wrote. "Needless to say, my dream of being a professional athlete died a quiet death and I eventually ended up leaving the University of Oregon to figure out what I truly wanted to do with my life."

He'd eventually discover the joys of acting, but first, he fell into drugs, specifically marijuana. "I drained [Oregon] of weed," he told Men's Journal. "I remember going out to buy weed in my underwear once. Like it was too much work to pull on my pants." Combined with his father's death, Burrell would eventually drop out of college, but he'd soon re-enroll at Southern Oregon University. He'd also follow his father's passion for the arts and focus on acting.

Ty Burrell stuck with Southern Oregon University until he finally graduated in 1993 with a degree in theatre arts. Afterward, he went to grad school at Penn State to continue his education in acting throughout the mid-'90s. He was actually there at the same time as another future funnyman, Keegan-Michael Key. But while Burrell honed his skills during this time, he wasn't exactly living a glamorous Hollywood lifestyle.

Burrell was a self-described "creepy guy in a van" during a period at Penn State. It sounds like his love life suffered the most, as he mentioned having only one prospective girlfriend during this time to Playboy (via USA Today). "Basically, when my date figured out I was living in my van, I didn't hear from her again," the actor explained. "The funniest thing was I was confused about why. I was like. 'What's the problem?' I didn't realize I was the creepy guy in a van."

Luckily, the van didn't last for long, as Burrell ultimately had to graduate from Penn State and finally try to become an actor. He had spent a while avoiding diving headfirst into the world of acting. "I went to graduate school in a tactical move to avoid auditioning," he told The Oregonian in 2009. "If I could've, I would have gotten a Ph.D. in acting research. Eventually, they kicked me out and made me enter the work force." But as any working actor will tell you, landing any kind of steady work is easier said than done.

With grad school behind him, Ty Burrell had to actually start looking for acting work. This entailed a move to New York City, where a friend helped him land a meeting with an agent to hopefully start getting gigs. The only problem was that Burrell was incredibly nervous going into what was supposed to be his passion, but he took the meeting anyway. He'd later write about this experience in The New York Times; everything was going fairly well, and the agent told him to shave his arms and get new headshots to try to get work in the realm of theatre.

But then Burrell revealed what happened immediately following the meeting. "I shook [the agent's] hand, walked out into Times Square and soiled myself. I stood there for a surprisingly long time before I realized what had happened. My ears were ringing from the shock of the meeting." The only solace to take from such a situation was that it didn't happen during the meeting itself. Burrell continued in his op-ed that he ditched the soiled underpants feeling strangely anew. "It was as if I had taken the worst of the business, swallowed it, digested it, discharged it and thrown it away. I walked out of the bathroom, past the huddled masses at the tables, into Times Square and the new world."

And Burrell hurdled toward becoming a legitimate actor. He took to the stage in 2000 for a production of "MacBeth" and eventually landed small roles in films like "Evolution" and "Black Hawk Down."

Breaking into acting is tough, and after going through grad school and dealing with auditions, Ty Burrell almost threw in the towel right before his big break on "Modern Family." In an interview with Glamour, Burrell explained that he was approaching 40 years old and still on a grind that would make plenty of younger actors quit.

"My wife and I were talking seriously about how or if I could do something else," Burrell stated. "Auditioning was just getting the better of me. I had used up all my toughness getting to 40 and auditioning. You go on five or six auditions a week, and most of them are all rejections."

Burrell met his wife, Holly, doing Shakespeare Theatre in Washington D.C. They both tried to continue getting acting work in New York City, but Burrell's wife realized the grind wasn't for her early on. She'd later tell The Salt Lake Tribune (via People) that the auditioning lifestyle wasn't for her. "After a couple years, I decided I probably was not cut out for the business," she said. "You have to really want to do it and I just didn't have the thing you need. I was interested in other things."

Burrell found himself at a similar crossroads right before the pilot season of "Modern Family," but it worked out in the end because he held out just a little bit longer.

Ty Burrell had a solid career throughout the 2000s, appearing in a couple of episodes of "Law & Order" and occasionally in movies like 2004's "Dawn of the Dead." However, the one project that would wind up completely altering the trajectory of Burrell's career was an unassuming film called "In Good Company," starring Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace. He had a small role, but it made an impression on "Modern Family" co-creator Christopher Lloyd.

As chronicled in the book "Modern Family: The Untold Oral History of One of Television's Groundbreaking Sitcoms," Lloyd and Steven Levitan wrote the part of Phil Dunphy specifically for Burrell based on the strength of "In Good Company." One would assume this is the kind of slam dunk any actor waits for, but having a part written for him didn't mean Burrell was automatically cast on "Modern Family." ABC was hesitant to cast Burrell based off of a failed pilot called "Fourplay."

The pilot didn't get picked up, but what's worse is that Burrell's character in it made a bad impression on ABC executives. As Burrell said in the book, "The whole point of the character was he basically had no emotion. He was super dry and immovable in a lot of ways. [ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson's] interpretation of it was I was an incredibly boring actor." As such, they offered the part to "Friends" star Matt LeBlanc, who passed. The likes of David Harbour and Thomas Lennon also passed, which opened the doors for Burrell to screen test for executives and convince them he was the one and only Phil Dunphy.

Phil Dunphy was the role of a lifetime for Ty Burrell, and he instantly became a household name. Phil truly has some of the best moments on "Modern Family" with his sincere and emotional attitude toward any given situation, so it only made sense to cast Fred Willard as Phil's father, Frank. He brings a sincere, earnest attitude to all of his roles that make him a great fit for any sitcom, and Willard appeared regularly throughout all of the show's run. And the series said goodbye to him before the world did.

The saddest episode of "Modern Family" – "Legacy" — aired in January 2020, where Frank passes away off-screen. Seeing as it was the show's final season, it made sense to wrap up certain storylines and have Phil say goodbye to his father. But in May of that year, Willard would pass away for real, devastating the comedy world.

Burrell posted a lengthy tribute to Willard (via Entertainment Weekly) and reflected on his final encounter with the comedy legend. "After filming the episode, I tried my best to explain to him what he meant to me, and how much he had influenced me," he said. "I fumbled over it for a while. He was very quiet and took it all in and just said, 'Thanks.' And that was it. And then he said, 'I'll see you on the next one.'"

Before "Modern Family" ended, Ty Burrell tried to strike while the iron was hot to get another sitcom off the ground. He took charge of his own destiny and co-created a TV show idea with his brother, Duncan Burrell. The untitled pitch revolved around two families from the city that wind up buying the only store in a very small Oregon town, so without as much modern technology, they have to figure out how to make the store work. This news first broke in 2012, and nothing appears to have materialized from the idea.

But Burrell was serious about getting more work behind the scenes. In 2014, Burrell signed a development pact with 20th TV to work on more projects (via The Hollywood Reporter), and he clarified in a statement, "Someday I'd like to grow up to be a writer-producer full-time." This deal later manifested the short-lived web series "Boondoggle," which Burrell wrote and starred in alongside Johnny Meeks, Mel Cowan, and Joel Spence. It only lasted for six episodes, but Burrell did wind up with an Emmy nomination for outstanding actor in a short form comedy or drama series.

And Burrell's autobiographical comedy idea would come to fruition in a different medium. In 2025, he released the Audible original audiobook "The Good Life," which chronicles a family moving to a small Oregon town to run a shop. It features voiceover from Burrell as well as Jennifer Garner, Colton Dunn, and Bobby Moynihan.

"Modern Family" ended in 2020, and Ty Burrell has kept something of a low profile since then. His most noteworthy role post-"Modern Family" is voicing another sitcom father — the animated Jack Harris on "Duncanville." But he could've had another sitcom under his belt by now if it had actually gotten picked up.

Early in 2024, it was announced Burrell was attached to a new pilot at ABC titled "Forgive and Forget." The series would've seen Burrell in the lead role of Hank, who gets an unexpected diagnosis and decides to spend more time reconnecting with his son. Unfortunately, the pilot didn't go far, and in July of 2024, it was announced that ABC wasn't moving forward with more episodes.

But Burrell probably isn't too torn up about the lack of work. In 2020, after "Modern Family" ended, he and his family moved from California to Utah. He doesn't seem to mind getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and after starring in a mega-hit like "Modern Family," it's safe to say Burrell doesn't have to do anything else if he doesn't want to.