John Belushi
John Adam Belushi (
January 24,
1949 –
March 5,
1982) was an
American actor and
comedian most notable for his work on
Saturday Night Live,
National Lampoon's Animal House, and
The Blues Brothers.
Belushi was born in the United States to Adam Belushi, an
Albanian immigrant who left his native village,
Qytezë, in
1934 at the age of 15, and to Agnes. He grew up outside of Chicago in
Wheaton, Illinois, where he was a high school football player, and attended the
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the
College of DuPage near Chicago. Belushi's brother
James Belushi is also a successful actor and comedian. He met his future wife, Judy, while a sophmore in high school, and stayed together with her until his death.
Belushi's first big break as a comedian occurred in
1971, when he joined
The Second City comedy troupe in
Chicago,
Illinois. Thanks to his uncanny caricature of singer
Joe Cocker's intense and jerky stage presence, he participated in
National Lampoon's
Lemmings stage show in
1972 (which also featured future
Saturday Night Live performer
Chevy Chase).
From
1973 to
1975 the
National Lampoon aired the Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program syndicated across the country on approximately 600 stations. When original director
Michael O'Donoghue quit in
1974, Belushi took over the reins until the show was canceled. Other players on the show included future
SNL regulars
Gilda Radner,
Bill Murray,
Brian Doyle-Murray, and
Chevy Chase. Belushi married
Judy Jacklin, an associate producer of the Radio Hour. A number of comic segments first performed on the Radio Hour would be translated into
SNL sketches in the show's early seasons.
Belushi achieved national fame for his work on
Saturday Night Live, which he joined as one of the original cast members in
1975. Between seasons of the show, he made one of his best-known movies,
Animal House.
As several Belushi biographies have noted, on John's 30th birthday (in 1979), he had the number one film in the U.S., (
Animal House), the number one album in the U.S.,
The Blues Brothers "Briefcase Full Of Blues", and
Saturday Night Live was the highest-rated late night television program, and one of the most highly-regarded television programs of the day. Being at the top of three different forms of public media (T.V., movies, and music), is considered to be one of Belushi's foremost feats, career-wise, and is one that is often overlooked in the wake of his drug exploits.
He left
Saturday Night Live in
1979 to pursue a film career. Belushi would make four more movies in his career, and three of them,
1941,
Neighbors, and most notably
The Blues Brothers were made with former SNL alumnus
Dan Aykroyd.
At the time of his death, Belushi was pursuing several movie projects, including "Noble Rot," an adaptation of a script by former
The Mary Tyler Moore Show writer/producer Jay Sandrich entitled "Sweet Deception." Belushi was working with former
Saturday Night Live colleague
Don Novello, (known for his character
Father Guido Sarducci), on rewriting the script. In addition, Belushi was also considering the lead roles in "The Joy Of Sex," a comic adaptation of the Dr. Alex Comfort sex manual, as well as a part in a
Louis Malle movie called "Moon Over Miami." These projects were abandoned in the wake of his death.
In addition, the role of Dr. Peter Venkman in
Ghostbusters was written (by Aykroyd) with Belushi in mind. The role wound up being played by Belushi's former SNL castmate
Bill Murray.
Belushi was known to indulge in drinking bouts and
drug abuse, which eventually cost him his life. Belushi was found dead on
March 5,
1982, age 33, in a hotel room at the
Chateau Marmont on
Sunset Boulevard in
Los Angeles, California. The cause of death was a
speedball, an injection of
cocaine and
heroin. The night of his death he was accompanied by friends
Robin Williams &
Robert DeNiro, but they (later) left the premises, and 'Belushi' in the company of 'Cathy Smith.' His death was investigated by
forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was eventually officially ruled a drug-related accident.
The case was reopened two months later, when
Cathy Smith, a former groupie for
The Band, admitted in an interview with the
National Enquirer that she had been with Belushi the night of his death and had given him the fatal speedball shot. She was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A
plea bargain arrangement reduced the charges to
involuntary manslaughter, and she served 18 months in prison.
Belushi's life is detailed in the
1985 biography
Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by
Bob Woodward, which was adapted into a
feature film. Many friends and relatives of Belushi, including his wife,
Dan Aykroyd and
Jim Belushi, boycotted the film, even though they agreed to be interviewed at length for the book.
John Belushi is interred in Abel's Hill Cemetery in
Chilmark,
Massachusetts. His tombstone read "I may be gone, but rock n roll lives on."
The
Grateful Dead song
"West L.A. Fadeaway" is about Belushi's death. Belushi was a good friend to the band, especially
Jerry Garcia. He even performed with them on occasion in the late 1970's.
His widow later remarried and is now Judy Belushi Pisano. Her biography (with co-biographer Tanner Colby) of her late husband,
Belushi, a collection of first-person interviews and photographs, was published in 2005.
Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle (
1975) (voice) (
1979 American dubbed version)
Animal House (
1978)
The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (
1978)
Goin' South (
1978)
Old Boyfriends (
1979)
1941 (
1979)
The Blues Brothers (
1980)
Continental Divide (
1981)
Neighbors (
1981)
*In the toga party scene in the basement of the frat in
Animal House, the uncredited coed dancing with Bluto (Belushi) is his wife.
*Belushi wanted Bluto to go on the road trip with Boon, Otter, Pinto and Flounder but director
John Landis told him that his character was best used sparingly.
*According to the
Where Are They Now? - A Delta Alumni Update mockumentary included on the
Double Secret Probation Edition of
Animal House, Sen. John Blutarsky and his lovely wife, the former Mandy Pepperidge, have ascended to the
White House.
*According to writer/actor
Tim Kazurinsky in the book
Live From New York, Belushi was instrumental in getting fellow Second City alumni Kazurinsky onto
Saturday Night Live. But during his run on the show, Kazurinsky became very stressed out by the show's demands. He later called Belushi and said that he needed a ride to the airport because he was quitting the show and moving back to
Chicago. Belushi and his wife refused to drive him to the airport, at which Belushi told Kazurinsky that the show's atmosphere can get bad at times, but that he still had access to major broadcasting airwaves. Instead, Belushi took the performer to a psychiatrist whom he saw for a year, while staying with the show during his run.
*He was portrayed by actors
Eric Siegel in
Gilda Radner: It's Always Something,
Tyler Labine in
Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (which also features his friendship with
Robin Williams), and
Michael Chiklis in
Wired. The last two films may not have portrayed the comic actor in the best light as they particularly highlight his drug use.
*Posters of Belushi as Bluto from
Animal House in his signature "College" sweater (as well as replicas of the sweaters themselves) remain ubiquitous on college campuses as of 2006.
*The
1981 Halloween episode of
Saturday Night Live aired on
October 31 with host
Donald Pleasence and musical guest
FEAR. By personal favor/request from Fear fan John Belushi the band performed because Belushi promised them a spot after they failed to make the final cut (movie studio refusal) as musical composers in his movie
1941. The band proceeded to play offensive music and bussed in "dancers" (many were in well-known East Coast punk acts). The band used obscene language and the dancers destroyed the set with
slam dancing on the stage. The end result was Fear were banned from playing and their actual performance was cut short; as they played
Let's Have a War the audio and video cut to commercial.
*In an interview with the drummer from Fear
Spit Stix, Stix explained Belushi hadn't been on
SNL for years, but "for the show that we were on, he did make an appearance. In the beginning, he's at the urinal and he turns around to the camera, 'Live! From New York!' That was a favor he did for us because during rehearsal some of our crowd â€" bussed-in slamdancers â€" tripped over a cable or something, and the union people didn't want any dancers. So as a trade-off, he went up to Grant Tinker's office for us and said, 'I'll make an appearance on the show if the dancers stay.' John was such a generous guy." [
1]
*Belushi was good friends with fellow
SNL player
Dan Aykroyd, whom Belushi recruited for
SNL. They met in a Toronto speakeasy called The 505 that Aykroyd frequented, and immediately hit it off. During a discussion they had about Aykroyd possibly joining
SNL, Aykroyd put on a blues record, sparking a fascination Belushi would develop with the blues. Dan educated John on the finer points of blues music, which led to the creation of their popular Blues Brothers characters.
*Belushi started the "
Blues Brothers Bar" as it was known down the street from
The Second City in the 1970s.
*John and his friend
Dan Aykroyd were slated to present the first ever Visual Effects Award at the
Academy Awards in 1982, but John died a few weeks prior to the event. Though devastated by John's death, Aykroyd presented the award alone, commenting on the stage
"My partner would have loved to have been here to present this award, given that he was something of a visual effect himself." *The role of Dr. Peter Venkman in
Ghostbusters (1984) was originally written with John in mind. After he died, the part was rewritten for fellow
Saturday Night Live player
Bill Murray. John's friend
Dan Aykroyd, who wrote the Ghostbusters screenplay, used to joke that the green ghost
Slimer was "the ghost of John Belushi", given that he was played with a similar party animal personality.
*John Belushi had a song written about him by the Polish rock group
Lady Pank. The song appears on the album
Tacy Sami.
*John is mentioned in the song
As John Belushi Said by the British cult band Television Personalities.
*John is mentioned in a song by rapper Copywrite: "Any crew you with is full of shit till the bullets hit when the uzi spit, I write more lines than the late John Belushi sniffed."
*During his run on
SNL, John Belushi starred in a short film called "Don't Look Back In Anger", where he plays himself as an old man visiting the graves of his former castmembers (including Chevy Chase, who had been off the show at the time the film was shown) and reveals that the reason he's still alive is because he's a dancer. Ironically, Belushi was the first SNL castmember to die.
*John Belushi was, with
Lenny Bruce, one of the two protagonists in
Bradley Denton's short story
The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians.
*
Chris Farley was a huge admirer of John Belushi. He also started out in Second City, moved on to Saturday Night Live, appeared only once more, after he left the show, and in the end he died from the same reason, at the same age.
*
Anthrax wrote a song about his life, called Efilnikufesin (N.F.L). Efilnikufesin is "Nise Fukin Life" backward.
* Since the early-mid 1990's, The Blues Brothers band has re-united, and played on. They're sometimes joined by Dan Aykroyd on vocals, other times by various sound alike singers. John's brother Jim Belushi toured with the band for a short time, and even recorded the album "
Blues Brothers & Friends: LIVE! From Chicago's H.O.B" with Dan Aykroyd but unfortunately, he didn't appear in "
Blues Brothers 2000"(1998). It's rumoured he was approached to play not the role of
Mighty Mack (played by
John Goodman) but the role of the local
Sheriff Chamberlain (the part played by
Joe Morton). Jim would later reunite with Aykroyd to record yet another album, not as the
Blues Brothers but as themselves: '
BELUSHI / AYKROYD -"Have Love Will Travel (Big Men-Big Music)".'
* In 2004, the musical "
The Blues Brothers Revival" premiered in Chicago. The story centered around the character of Elwood Blues trying to rescue his brother "Joliet" Jake from an eternity in limbo/purgatory. The musical was written and composed with the approval and permission from both the John Belushi-estate (including his widow
Jackie Belushi Pisano) and
The Blues Brothers' co-creator
Dan Aykroyd.
*
Beethoven*
Samurai Futaba*
Bumblebee man*
'Joliet' Jake Blues*
Joe Cocker*
Dino de Laurentiis*Greek Restaurant Owner
The Godfather*
Elizabeth Taylor*
Captain Kirk*
Fred Silverman*John Belushi
Sources - Hill, Doug and Weingrad, Jeff, "Saturday Night - A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live", Beech Tree Books / William Morrow, New York, 1986, ISBN 0-688-05099-9.
The Best of the National Lampoon Radio Hour, liner notes by McConnachie, Brian and Simmons, Matty, Rhino Records, California, 1996.
Shales, Tom and Miller, James Andrew, "Live From New York - An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, New York, London, 2002, ISBN 0-316-78146-0.
National Lampoon's Animal House - Double Secret Probation Edition DVD release, Universal Studios, California, 2003.
*
The Life and Death of Captain Preemo The true story of John Belushi's Death
*
Interview (MP3) with biographer Tanner Colby and widow Judith Belushi Pisano on the public radio program
The Sound of Young America regarding their book, "Belushi." Includes clips from Belushi's work on
The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
*
Website of the Belushi biography "Belushi," including outtakes from the book, an oral history.
*
John Belushi's Gravesite
