Old Actors Biography
John Belushi was born in Chicago. He was the son of Agnes (née Samaras), who was of Albanian descent, and Adam Belushi (1918–1996), an Albanian immigrant and restaurant operator who left his native village, Qytezë, in 1934 at the age of sixteen. John was raised in a Chicago suburb, along with his three siblings: younger brothers Billy and Jim and his sister, Marian.[1][2][3][4] The family's name at the time of immigration was Bellios, or Belliors.[4] Belushi was raised in the Albanian Orthodox church and grew up outside Chicago in Wheaton. He attended Wheaton Central High School, where he met his future wife, Judy Jacklin.Career
Belushi's first big break as a comedian occurred in 1971, when he joined The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago. He was cast in National Lampoon's Lemmings, a parody of Woodstock, which played Off-Broadway in 1972 and showcased future Saturday Night Live (SNL) performers Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest.
In 1973, Belushi and Jacklin moved together to New York. From 1973 to 1975, National Lampoon Inc. aired The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program syndicated across the country on approximately 600 stations. Belushi was a regular player on the show. Other players included future SNL regulars Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray and Chevy Chase. Jacklin became an associate producer for the show, and she and Belushi were married on December 31, 1976. A number of comic segments first performed on The Radio Hour were transformed into SNL sketches in the show's early seasons.1975–1979
Belushi achieved national fame for his work on Saturday Night Live, which he joined as an original cast member in 1975. Between seasons of the show, he made one of his best-known movies, Animal House.
When interviewed for retrospectives on John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd told stories of John often finishing SNL rehearsals, shows or film shoots and John being exhausted, simply walking unannounced into nearby homes of friends or strangers, scrounging around for food and often falling asleep, unable to be located for the following day's work.[5] This was the impetus for the SNL horror-spoof sketch "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave",[6] in which Belushi torments a couple (played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray) in their home looking for snacks, newspapers and magazines to read, and taking control of their television. During the opening of the SNL episode that aired on December 17, 1977, Belushi, while in character as himself, quipped, "I plan to be dead by the time I'm 30."[7] SNL also featured a short film by writer Tom Schiller called "Don't Look Back In Anger",[8] where Belushi, playing himself as an old man and the last-surviving SNL cast member, visits the graves of his now-former cast members.
Belushi left Saturday Night Live in 1979 to pursue a film career. Belushi made four more movies; three of them, 1941, Neighbors, and most notably The Blues Brothers were made with fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd.Other movie projects
Dan Aykroyd wrote the roles of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters and Emmett Fitz-Hume in Spies Like Us with Belushi in mind. The roles were eventually played by Belushi's former SNL castmates Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, respectively.
Released in September 1981, the romantic comedy Continental Divide starred Belushi as Chicago home town hero writer Ernie Souchack, who gets put on assignment researching a scientist studying birds of prey in the remote Rocky Mountains.
At the time of his death, Belushi was pursuing several movie projects, including Noble Rot, an adaptation of a script by former Mary Tyler Moore Show writer and producer Jay Sandrich entitled Sweet Deception.
Belushi recruited the band Fear and brought them to Cherokee Studios to record songs for the soundtrack of Neighbors, a film he and Aykroyd were starring in. Cherokee Studios was a regular haunt for the original Blues Brothers back in the early days of the band. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd became fixtures at the recording studio, while fellow Blues Brother and guitar player Steve Cropper called Cherokee his producing home. "John was a crazy guy, but a heavy drinker. At times, he would drink an entire fifth of Jack Daniel's in less than five minutes," Aykroyd commented. Whenever they needed a bass player, they were joined by another Blues Brother, Donald "Duck" Dunn. During this time, Cropper along with producing partner and Cherokee owner Bruce Robb, worked on a number of music projects with the two comedian/musicians, the band Fear and later Aykroyd's movie Dragnet. "What can I say? John was excessively talented, and I guess you could say he sort of lived life 'excessively.' I think what happened to John had a sobering effect on a lot of people, me included," said music producer Bruce Robb.Death
On March 5, 1982, Bill Wallace found Belushi dead in his room, Bungalow #3 at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California.[9] The cause of death was a speedball; the combined injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams[10] and Robert De Niro,[11] each of whom left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of assorted others, including Catherine Evelyn Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Dr. Ryan Norris among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.
Two months later, Smith 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. After the appearance of the article "I Killed Belushi" in the Enquirer edition of June 29, 1982, the case was reopened. Smith was extradited from Toronto, arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A plea bargain reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter, and she served 15 months in prison.[12]
Shortly before Belushi's death, he appeared in a cameo for the comedy series Police Squad! At the suggestion of the show's producer, Robert K. Weiss, Belushi was filmed, face down in a swimming pool, dead. The footage was part of a running gag wherein the episode's "special guest star" would not survive past the opening credits without meeting some gruesome end. The scene was cut after his death and the footage is believed to have been lost.
Belushi and his friend Dan Aykroyd were slated to present the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 54th Academy Awards, an event held less than four weeks after his death.
Belushi was slated to appear on the well-known Canadian comedy show SCTV, which was by then being syndicated to the United States, but according to Dave Thomas, one of whose best-known characters on SCTV was Doug McKenzie in the "Great White North" sketches, they were "planning him into their set, when suddenly, they received a phone call that Belushi had died in his hotel room. We stopped our work and just stared at each other, not being able to believe what had happened. John Candy began to cry, for Belushi as a friend, but also because it, to him, signaled the end of that era of comedy TV, now that one of their greats was dead." The segments he was to be in were scrapped, and the show continued without him. An earlier SCTV sketch had starred Tony Rosato as Belushi.
Belushi's wife arranged for a traditional Orthodox Christian funeral which was conducted by an Albanian Orthodox priest[13] and he is interred at Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His tombstone, a New England classic slate design, complete with skull and crossbones, reads, "I may be gone but Rock and Roll lives on."[14] He also is remembered on the Belushi family stone marking his mother's grave at Elmwood Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois. This stone says, "He Gave Us Laughter."[15]
The manner in which Belushi died has spawned a term in popular culture. For example, in the CSI episode titled "Way to Go (Part 2)" (season 6, episode 141), CSI Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) investigates the death of a Civil War aficionado, whose body was found in a hotel room, and who seemed to have been drugged. Forensic evidence leads Willows to ask a call girl if she had "Belushied" the victim.
John Belushi was born in Chicago. He was the son of Agnes (née Samaras), who was of Albanian descent, and Adam Belushi (1918–1996), an Albanian immigrant and restaurant operator who left his native village, Qytezë, in 1934 at the age of sixteen. John was raised in a Chicago suburb, along with his three siblings: younger brothers Billy and Jim and his sister, Marian.[1][2][3][4] The family's name at the time of immigration was Bellios, or Belliors.[4] Belushi was raised in the Albanian Orthodox church and grew up outside Chicago in Wheaton. He attended Wheaton Central High School, where he met his future wife, Judy Jacklin.Career
Belushi's first big break as a comedian occurred in 1971, when he joined The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago. He was cast in National Lampoon's Lemmings, a parody of Woodstock, which played Off-Broadway in 1972 and showcased future Saturday Night Live (SNL) performers Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest.
In 1973, Belushi and Jacklin moved together to New York. From 1973 to 1975, National Lampoon Inc. aired The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program syndicated across the country on approximately 600 stations. Belushi was a regular player on the show. Other players included future SNL regulars Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray and Chevy Chase. Jacklin became an associate producer for the show, and she and Belushi were married on December 31, 1976. A number of comic segments first performed on The Radio Hour were transformed into SNL sketches in the show's early seasons.1975–1979
Belushi achieved national fame for his work on Saturday Night Live, which he joined as an original cast member in 1975. Between seasons of the show, he made one of his best-known movies, Animal House.
When interviewed for retrospectives on John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd told stories of John often finishing SNL rehearsals, shows or film shoots and John being exhausted, simply walking unannounced into nearby homes of friends or strangers, scrounging around for food and often falling asleep, unable to be located for the following day's work.[5] This was the impetus for the SNL horror-spoof sketch "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave",[6] in which Belushi torments a couple (played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray) in their home looking for snacks, newspapers and magazines to read, and taking control of their television. During the opening of the SNL episode that aired on December 17, 1977, Belushi, while in character as himself, quipped, "I plan to be dead by the time I'm 30."[7] SNL also featured a short film by writer Tom Schiller called "Don't Look Back In Anger",[8] where Belushi, playing himself as an old man and the last-surviving SNL cast member, visits the graves of his now-former cast members.
Belushi left Saturday Night Live in 1979 to pursue a film career. Belushi made four more movies; three of them, 1941, Neighbors, and most notably The Blues Brothers were made with fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd.Other movie projects
Dan Aykroyd wrote the roles of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters and Emmett Fitz-Hume in Spies Like Us with Belushi in mind. The roles were eventually played by Belushi's former SNL castmates Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, respectively.
Released in September 1981, the romantic comedy Continental Divide starred Belushi as Chicago home town hero writer Ernie Souchack, who gets put on assignment researching a scientist studying birds of prey in the remote Rocky Mountains.
At the time of his death, Belushi was pursuing several movie projects, including Noble Rot, an adaptation of a script by former Mary Tyler Moore Show writer and producer Jay Sandrich entitled Sweet Deception.
Belushi recruited the band Fear and brought them to Cherokee Studios to record songs for the soundtrack of Neighbors, a film he and Aykroyd were starring in. Cherokee Studios was a regular haunt for the original Blues Brothers back in the early days of the band. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd became fixtures at the recording studio, while fellow Blues Brother and guitar player Steve Cropper called Cherokee his producing home. "John was a crazy guy, but a heavy drinker. At times, he would drink an entire fifth of Jack Daniel's in less than five minutes," Aykroyd commented. Whenever they needed a bass player, they were joined by another Blues Brother, Donald "Duck" Dunn. During this time, Cropper along with producing partner and Cherokee owner Bruce Robb, worked on a number of music projects with the two comedian/musicians, the band Fear and later Aykroyd's movie Dragnet. "What can I say? John was excessively talented, and I guess you could say he sort of lived life 'excessively.' I think what happened to John had a sobering effect on a lot of people, me included," said music producer Bruce Robb.Death
On March 5, 1982, Bill Wallace found Belushi dead in his room, Bungalow #3 at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California.[9] The cause of death was a speedball; the combined injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams[10] and Robert De Niro,[11] each of whom left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of assorted others, including Catherine Evelyn Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Dr. Ryan Norris among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.
Two months later, Smith 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. After the appearance of the article "I Killed Belushi" in the Enquirer edition of June 29, 1982, the case was reopened. Smith was extradited from Toronto, arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A plea bargain reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter, and she served 15 months in prison.[12]
Shortly before Belushi's death, he appeared in a cameo for the comedy series Police Squad! At the suggestion of the show's producer, Robert K. Weiss, Belushi was filmed, face down in a swimming pool, dead. The footage was part of a running gag wherein the episode's "special guest star" would not survive past the opening credits without meeting some gruesome end. The scene was cut after his death and the footage is believed to have been lost.
Belushi and his friend Dan Aykroyd were slated to present the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 54th Academy Awards, an event held less than four weeks after his death.
Belushi was slated to appear on the well-known Canadian comedy show SCTV, which was by then being syndicated to the United States, but according to Dave Thomas, one of whose best-known characters on SCTV was Doug McKenzie in the "Great White North" sketches, they were "planning him into their set, when suddenly, they received a phone call that Belushi had died in his hotel room. We stopped our work and just stared at each other, not being able to believe what had happened. John Candy began to cry, for Belushi as a friend, but also because it, to him, signaled the end of that era of comedy TV, now that one of their greats was dead." The segments he was to be in were scrapped, and the show continued without him. An earlier SCTV sketch had starred Tony Rosato as Belushi.
Belushi's wife arranged for a traditional Orthodox Christian funeral which was conducted by an Albanian Orthodox priest[13] and he is interred at Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His tombstone, a New England classic slate design, complete with skull and crossbones, reads, "I may be gone but Rock and Roll lives on."[14] He also is remembered on the Belushi family stone marking his mother's grave at Elmwood Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois. This stone says, "He Gave Us Laughter."[15]
The manner in which Belushi died has spawned a term in popular culture. For example, in the CSI episode titled "Way to Go (Part 2)" (season 6, episode 141), CSI Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) investigates the death of a Civil War aficionado, whose body was found in a hotel room, and who seemed to have been drugged. Forensic evidence leads Willows to ask a call girl if she had "Belushied" the victim.
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John Belushi
John Belushi SNL Audition
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