John Belushi

John Adam Belushi ( bə-LOO-shee; January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982) was an American comedian, actor, singer, and musician. He was one of seven Saturday Night Live cast members of the first season, and was arguably the most popular member of the Saturday Night Live ensemble. Belushi had a partnership with Dan Aykroyd; they had first met while at Chicago's the Second City comedy club, remaining together as cast members on the inaugural season of the Saturday Night Live television series.

Born in Chicago to Albanian-American parents, Belushi started his own comedy troupe with Tino Insana and Steve Beshekas, called "The West Compass Trio". Bernard Sahlins recruited him for The Second City comedy club. Once there he met Aykroyd, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Harold Ramis. In 1975, Chevy Chase and Michael O'Donoghue recommended Belushi to Saturday Night Live creator and showrunner Lorne Michaels, who accepted him as a new cast member of the show after an audition. Belushi developed a series of characters on the show that reached great success, with an imitation of Henry Kissinger and a portrayal of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Belushi appeared in several films such as National Lampoon's Animal House, 1941, The Blues Brothers, and Neighbors. He also pursued interests in music: with Aykroyd, Lou Marini, Tom Malone, Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and Paul Shaffer, he founded The Blues Brothers, which led to the film of the same name.

Belushi was dismissed from Saturday Night Live several times and rehired more than once. He died on March 5, 1982, at the age of 33. Cathy Smith confessed to dosing him with a lethal mixture of heroin and cocaine at the Chateau Marmont. Smith was charged with involuntary manslaughter, was convicted and sentenced to 15 months in prison. Belushi was honored with a posthumous award of the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. He was the older brother of Jim Belushi.

Early life and education

John Adam Belushi was born to Agnes Demetri (née Samaras) Belushi and Adam Anastos Belushi in Humboldt Park, Chicago. Agnes was a pharmacy worker, who was born in Ohio to Albanian immigrants from Korçë, Albania. Adam Anastos Belushi was an Albanian immigrant from Qytezë, Albania, and was the owner of the Fair Oaks restaurant on North Avenue in Chicago.

Belushi was raised in Wheaton along with his three siblings—younger brothers Billy and Jim and sister Marian. He was Eastern Orthodox Christian, attending the Albanian Orthodox Church. He was educated at Wheaton Central High School, where he met his future wife, Judith Jacklin.

In 1965, Belushi formed a band, the Ravens, together with four fellow high-school students (Dick Blasucci, Michael Blasucci, Tony Pavilonis, and Phil Special). They recorded one single, "Listen to Me Now/Jolly Green Giant". Belushi played drums and sang vocals. The record was not successful, and the band broke up when he enrolled at the College of DuPage. He also attended the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater for a year, that time being the inspiration for the Animal House scene of a motorcycle driving up stairs. Belushi then attended The University of Illinois Chicago Circle (UICC) before joining the cast of Saturday Night Live. He acquired the iconic "College" crewneck, worn by his character in Animal House, at a print shop when visiting his brother Jim, who attended Southern Illinois University.

Career

1972–1975: Career beginnings: The Second City and National Lampoon

Belushi started his own comedy troupe in Chicago, the West Compass Trio (named after the improvisational cabaret revue Compass Players active from 1955 to 1958 in Chicago), with Tino Insana and Steve Beshekas. Their success piqued the interest of Bernard Sahlins, the founder of The Second City, who asked Belushi to join the cast. At Second City, Belushi met and began working with Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, and Brian Doyle-Murray.

In 1972, Belushi was offered a role, together with Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest, in National Lampoon Lemmings, a parody of Woodstock, which played off-Broadway in 1972. Belushi and Jacklin moved to New York City. There, Belushi started working as a writer, director, and actor for The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a comedy radio show that was created, produced, and written by staff from National Lampoon magazine. Cast members on the shows produced by Belushi included Ramis, Flaherty, Guest, Brian Doyle Murray, his brother Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and Richard Belzer. In 1974, Belushi and Chevy Chase voice-acted on a Lampoon LP record, the Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Record. During a trip to Toronto in 1974, Belushi met Dan Aykroyd. Jacklin became an associate producer for the show, and she and Belushi were married on December 31, 1976. The National Lampoon Show toured the country in 1974; it was produced by Ivan Reitman. Lampoon owner Matty Simmons was offered a TV show on NBC at this time, but he declined the offer.

1975–1978: Work at Saturday Night Live and breakthrough

In 1975, Chase and writer Michael O'Donoghue recommended Belushi to Lorne Michaels as a potential member for a television show Michaels was about to produce for NBC called NBC's Saturday Night, later Saturday Night Live. Michaels was initially reluctant, as he was not sure if Belushi's physical humor would fit with what he was envisioning, but he changed his mind after giving Belushi an audition. He appeared alongside O'Donoghue in Saturday Night Live's first sketch (subsequently titled "the Wolverines") which aired on October 11, 1975.

Over his four-year tenure at Saturday Night Live Belushi developed a series of successful characters, including the belligerent Saturday Night Live Samurai; Henry Kissinger; Ludwig van Beethoven; the Greek owner (Pete Dionisopoulos) of the Olympia Café; Captain James T. Kirk; and a contributor of furious opinion pieces on Weekend Update, during which he coined a catchphrase, "But N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!" With Aykroyd, Belushi created Jake and Elwood, the Blues Brothers. Originally intended to warm up the studio audience before broadcasts of Saturday Night Live, the Blues Brothers were eventually featured as musical guests. Belushi also reprised his Lemmings imitation of Joe Cocker. Cocker himself joined Belushi in 1976 to sing "Feelin' Alright?" together.

Like many other Saturday Night Live cast members and writers, Belushi was a recreational drug user. He attended concerts including Fleetwood Mac, Meat Loaf, Kiss, The Dead Boys, Warren Zevon, The Grateful Dead, and The Allman Brothers. In 1990, Michaels remembered him as a loyal trouper, to writers, a team player, yet he was fired and rehired at Saturday Night Live.

In Rolling Stone's February 2015 appraisal of all 141 Saturday Night Live cast members, Belushi received their top ranking. "Belushi was the 'live' in Saturday Night Live", they wrote, "the one who made the show happen on the edge … Nobody embodied the highs and lows of Saturday Night Live like Belushi."

1978–1982: Film debut, established actor and musician, and final years

In 1978, Belushi performed in the films Old Boyfriends (directed by Joan Tewkesbury), Goin' South (directed by Jack Nicholson), and National Lampoon's Animal House (directed by John Landis). Upon its initial release, Animal House received generally mixed reviews from critics, but Time magazine and Roger Ebert proclaimed it one of the year's best movies. Filmed at a cost of $2.8 million, it is one of the most profitable movies of all time, garnering an estimated gross of more than $141 million in the form of theatrical rentals and home video, not including merchandising. Animal House was written by Doug Kenney, Harold Ramis, and Chris Miller, and followed in the tradition of the Marx Brothers films that featured subversive and satirical plots that took on traditional institutions. Hollywood studios tried to copy the film's success without the satire, resulting in a string of "nerds vs. jocks" films in the 1980s with cheap sight gags involving nudity and gross-out humor.