John Belushi

John Belushi (24 January 1949 Chicago, Illinois – 5 March 1982 Hollywood, California) was a comic actor who achieved great success in television, motion pictures, and the music industry in a relatively short space of time. Between the years 1975 to 1982 Belushi became a cultural phenomenon in America, graced the covers of Rolling Stone and Newsweek, and was finally so famous that he was able to gain access to a private function at the White House without carrying any identification on his person. “All of the doors of the continent were open to him,” recalled his best friend Dan Aykroyd. “He was America’s guest.” January 1979 was Belushi’s miracle month, when he simultaneously held a number one spot in film (highest grossing comedy up to that time, National Lampoon's Animal House), television (highest rated late-night show, Saturday Night Live), and music (top album on the Billboard chart, Briefcase Full of Blues), a triple feat that has never been emulated. But his passionate, non-stop, over-the-top, wild and crazy lifestyle led to his untimely death from a drug overdose at the age of 33.

1949 - 1970 Growing Up

Belushi’s parents were immigrants from Albania who settled in Humboldt Park, a working-class, immigrant neighborhood of Wheaton, Illinois, where Belushi’s father opened up two restaurants. Growing up, Belushi tried to hide his Albanian origins (in part because it was a Communist country), and told people that he was Greek.

Early on Belushi exhibited a gift for comedy and mimicry, and could reduce his mother to fits of hysterical laughter. As a teenager he listened incessantly to record albums by comedians Jonathan Winters and Bob Newhart and acted them out, honing his sense of timing and style. His schoolmates would remember him as class-clownish but not buffoonish.

A thick-set, stubbly, motorcycle-riding Belushi was an engaging presence at Wheaton Central High School, where he was co-captain of the football team, homecoming king, and a popular actor in the theater productions, where his versatility so impressed his drama teacher, Dan Payne, that Payne helped get John a job in a summer-stock theater in 1967, when Belushi was eighteen. After one high school stage production, the school’s principal told Belushi’s parents, “John’s one in a million.”

After high school graduation, Belushi enrolled first at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater in the fall of 1967, where he studied drama; then, one year later, he entered the College of DuPage, where he eventually received a degree in general studies in June 1970. In order to evade the Vietnam War draft, Belushi then enrolled in the University of Illinois, Circle Campus, in Chicago, in the fall of 1970. He let his hair grow to his shoulders and became an anti-Vietnam War protestor.

During his years at DuPage Belushi co-formed a comedy group with two friends called the West Compass Players, which performed skits in coffee houses and on the DuPage campus. Later, in Chicago, the West Compass Players rented a basement of the Universal Life Church and regularly performed comedic productions (called “blackouts”) for up for 48 people at $1 a ticket.

1971 - 1974 Early Career

Second City 1971 – 1972

In February 1971, John, at age 22, quit the College of DuPage when he won a spot in Second City, a well-respected comedy troupe based in Chicago. Earning him $150 a week, it was Belushi’s first adult job. The producer of Second City, Bernard Sahlins, later recalled, “He had that something that you can’t learn in school. Call it charisma, call it magnetism, he had it.”

Fellow cast members described the Belushi of this time as having “wild hair”, as “kind of strange looking”, and more often than not dressed in torn jeans and old shirts. Cast member Harold Ramis recalled, “John brought a street element . . . [that] cut through the intellectual pretence of the theater. He brought rock and roll to the show.” The irreverent Belushi was perfect for such parts as “The World’s Most Obnoxious Houseguest.”

Belushi had a riveting stage presence and fluency with improvisation which often upstaged the other actors. “Literally the second John walked onstage he grabbed everyone’s attention,” recalled one cast member. The drama critic of the Chicago Daily News wrote, “We all have our personal favorites and mine was John Belushi, who has only to step out on the stage to start me tittering like a schoolboy.” John kept the review in his wallet. Another cast member marvelled at Belushi’s ability to “come on, give one line and go off – and take the whole scene.” Ramis said, “John could steal a scene just by raising an eyebrow.”

National Lampoon 1973-1974

Belushi and his high school sweetheart, Judy Jacklin, moved to New York City late in 1972 when a new and greater job opportunity presented itself. National Lampoon magazine, a satirical monthly, was producing a comic stage play for off-Broadway entitled Lemmings, and Belushi won a prominent place in the cast, alongside a young Chevy Chase. The director of Lemmings, Tony Hendra, marvelled as Belushi’s “intense, chaotic presence . . . [he was] a ferocious package. . . . his talent was just staggering” Soon after opening on January 25, 1973, Lemmings brought Belushi to national prominence. New Yorker magazine’s review of the play commented, “Funniest of all is Mr. Belushi . . . a real discovery.” Time magazine described Belushi as “endearing”. Lemmings became a hit show, playing for months to sell-out audiences.

The success of Lemmings led to Belushi playing a major role in the new National Lampoon Radio Hour, which billed itself as sixty minutes of “mirth, merriment, and racial slurs”. It debuted on November 17, 1973. Next came the National Lampoon Show, another stage show of comic skits which played New York City and also went on the road; playing alongside Belushi was a young Bill Murray.

It was in this theater stage-based period of Belushi’s life, both in Chicago and New York, where Belushi’s incipient drug problem began in earnest. He was smoking marijuana, experimenting with LSD and magic mushrooms, snorting cocaine, and taking Quaaludes. Christopher Guest, a member of the Lemmings cast, later remarked, “Drugs were rampant at that time. And he wasn’t the only one who was stoned.” Tony Hendra later analyzed it this way: “I do believe that there was something very sad at John’s core. There was some deep dissatisfaction that poisoned him, and that he just had no way of filling.” Janis Hirsch, an employee of National Lampoon, explained, “He just didn’t have limits, with anything. If you gave him a loaf of bread, he’d eat the whole loaf of bread. If you gave him a bag of drugs, he’d do the whole bag of drugs.”

Hirsch went on to say, “John could eat a chef’s salad with his hands, but he also had a sweetness to him that most people can’t imagine.”

1975 - 1977 Television

Saturday Night Live

In 1975 Belushi auditioned for and won a spot as one of the original seven “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” of Saturday Night Live, a television show that would be widely hailed by media critics as one of the most groundbreaking and influential shows in American history. In the words of respected Washington Post television critic Tom Shales, “Saturday Night Live is more than just a television show. . . . There’d never been anything like it in TV.”

Saturday Night Live was a comedy program consisting of skits and musical interludes, and occupied NBC’s 11:30 pm to 1:00 am time slot. Its format was one-of-a-kind, unlike anything else on the air at the time. When it debuted on national television on October 11, 1975, Belushi was the star of the opening skit, which was staged prior to the titles.

SNL quickly became a hit, a phenomenon. Within a month of SNL’s debut, an NBC executive reported in a memo, “Saturday Night is getting the most attractive audience on television today.” Another NBC executive enthused, “The best demographics in the history of commercial TV.”

The most famous characters Belushi created for himself on the first season of SNL were the Japanese Samurai, who communicated in unintelligible grunts, and a parody of Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek. Co-starring with Belushi on SNL included Dan Aykroyd, who would become Belushi’s closest friend and business associate; and Chevy Chase, with whom Belushi had a strained relationship, as Chase fast became the most popular actor on the program. SNL’s success was confirmed when the show won four Emmy Awards on May 17, 1976: best comedy-variety series; best comedy writing; best comedy directing; and best supporting actor for a variety show (Chase).

But starring in the hottest show in television was hard work; making SNL meant a six-day work week toiling long hours on floor 17 of NBC’s headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan; and Belushi resorted to cocaine more and more. “There were drugs [at SNL]”, admitted one NBC executive. “Open an office door in the SNL suite,” Tom Shales wrote, “and you might well be enswirled in marijuana smoke.” Drug use was so rampant during the first couple of years of SNL that one history of the television show devotes an entire chapter to the subject. In morbid celebration of his excessive lifestyle, Belushi's birthday cake in January 1976 was a facsimile of a Quaalude. By the start of SNL’s season 2 in the fall of 1976, Belushi was earning $100,000 a year, and spending $500 of that a week on drugs. Cocaine was his daily habit, as he admitted to his physician on November 29, 1976, and he also admitted to taking mescaline regularly, also marijuana, four different kinds of amphetamines, Quaaludes, and he smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.

The self-medicated Belushi became infamous for his irreverent behavior; more than once he’d fall asleep with a lit cigarette, setting his mattress aflame. He was always disappearing for hours or days, leaving his friends to wonder if he were alive or dead. He would party all night, using limousines to flit from one nightclub to the next. One SNL writer recalled that Belushi’s punishing lifestyle sometimes left him too “narcotized” to perform on the show. Another SNL writer described the Belushi of this time as “zonko, out of his skull.”

Judy Jacklin, whom Belushi would marry on December 31, 1976, described this turbulent time in her biography of her husband: “It was rough. He was spending too much time at the show, too many nights on the town and too much money on coke.” SNL writer Marilyn Miller described Belushi as “a tornado that would spin itself round and round and then be exhausted.” But at times Belushi tried to come to grips with his addictions, and began to see a psychiatrist in April 1977, but he soon quit. And yet, through all of his excesses, there was a sense of fun about Belushi that remained inextinguishable and winsome, as his wife recalled: “Sometimes we laughed so long we couldn’t remember why we were laughing.”

Chevy Chase had left SNL after the first season, and Belushi quickly became the audience favorite in the second season. SNL and Belushi alike were getting more and more popular. Tom Hanks, who would host the show many times over the years, recalled, “It was the cultural phenomenon of the age. It was truly as big as the Beatles.” In June 1977 Crawdaddy magazine did a cover story on Belushi with the headline: “The Most Dangerous Man on TV: Saturday Night’s John Belushi”. Belushi told the interviewer, with reference to his wild and crazy lifestyle: “When in doubt, I floor it.”

1978 - 1980 Film and Music

Ominous Foreshadowing

During the first half of 1977 Belushi required surgery for torn cartilage in his knee; the accident occurred during one of his wild and crazy moments – he leapt from a stage while giving a college lecture. A secret that he kept from his wife for the next five years was this: for two months following the surgery, Belushi took heroin to dull the pain. “It was a terrible couple of months,” Judy recalled. “I’d thought that John was mixing coke and Quaaludes.” The specter of heroin, its dangerous and addictive and life-threatening qualities, would stalk Belushi for the rest of his life. “Believe me,” he would tell his wife more than once, “I want to stay away from that stuff.”

Goin’ South

In August 1977, during the summer break from SNL, Belushi flew to Durango, Mexico to play a small role in the Hollywood film Goin’ South, a western starring and directed by Jack Nicholson. Although the role was a bit part, Belushi explained his motives to his agent thus: “My father always wanted to see me on a horse.” Moreover, Belushi didn’t want to pass up the chance to work with Nicholson, who was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. But it was a tense set for Belushi, who didn’t feel comfortable in Mexico among Nicholson’s producion executives, whom he did not know or warm to, and he and Judy both were grateful when the experience was over. However, Belushi and Nicholson remained friends for the rest of Belushi’s life.

SNL Season Three

Belushi returned to Manhattan in late September 1977 for the start of the third season of Saturday Night Live, whose Nielsen ratings would continue to rise. His popular characters included the manager of a Greek restaurant who urged cheeseburgers on all of his customers, and the editorialist during the Weekend Update (a mock newscast) who always became increasingly heated during his rant to the point of passing out, his catchphrase being: “but nooooo!”

In Late October 1977, Belushi flew to the University of Oregon at Eugene to start the filming of what would be a crucial moment in his career: the film National Lampoon’s Animal House. He would have to commute back and forth between Oregon and Manhattan until the end of November 1977, when shooting was completed. A co-star of the film described the Belushi of this time as “tired”.

During the SNL season of late 1977, Belushi and Aykroyd opened the “Blues Bar”, a grungy place for after-show parties, located in Lower Manhattan. Although it resembled nothing so much as a flophouse or dive, cultural icons such as David Bowie, Keith Richards, Francis Ford Coppola, and the Grateful Dead were regular visitors. There was a tiny stage where Belushi could sing, and the jukebox was full of classic R'n'B tunes. This humble spot was the seed of the idea for the “House of Blues”, which would eventually grow into a multinational business empire co-founded by Aykroyd.

Movie offers kept coming in to Belushi, even though neither Goin’ South nor Animal House was yet released, and Belushi had yet to prove himself on the silver screen. In the spring of 1978, Belushi was paid $20,000 for six days of filming to co-star in Old Boyfriends, a film directed by Joan Tewkesbury, a former screenwriter to Robert Altman.

Enter the Blues Brothers

The night of April 22, 1978 was arguably Belushi’s and Aykroyd’s most important appearance on Saturday Night Live. It was the night they showcased themselves for the first time as the Blues Brothers. Dressed in black suits, porkpie hats and Ray-Bans, and looking more like insurance salesmen than performers, they created the personas Jake and Elwood Blues, with Belushi (Jake) singing the blues in a growling voice, and Aykroyd playing harmonica. It was no game, however; their backing band was composed of famed musicians. Belushi danced around the stage with vigorous, humorous athleticism, and the crowd applauded them wildly. Comedian Steve Martin, who was hosting SNL that night, promptly invited the Blues Brothers to open for his series of comedy shows at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles. Soon, the Blues Brothers would reappear on SNL to even greater acclaim, which would lead to both a record album and film deal for the pair.

Animal House

Animal House premiered on July 28, 1978 and quickly became one of the films of the decade. Even the establishment embraced it; the New York Times called it “very funny” (and also "cheerfully sleazy"). It was the story of a bunch of party-loving college students of the fictional Faber College’s most infamous fraternity, the Delta House. Belushi, who was paid only $35,000 for the role, played the character of Bluto, an endearingly dim college student with a grade point average of 0.0. Directed by John Landis on a modest $2.7 million budget, the film quickly grossed over $60 million over the next three months.

Animal House played for the rest of year, eventually grossing $141,600,000 in America alone (and $200 million worldwide), becoming the highest grossing film comedy of all time (up to that time). As of October 2007, it is number 173 on America’s all time box office list.

In terms of running time, Belushi appeared in only in a quarter of the film, but he dominated the entire film because his screen presence was so vivid. “He had extraordinary physical and facial expressions,” Landis explained. “What I think is so successful is that John’s inner sweetness comes through. A lot of Bluto’s best moments weren’t scripted – it’s just John. He had tremendous warmth.”

Goin South opened in the first week of October and did little business, but no matter, Animal House had made Belushi one of the most recognized entertainers in America. On the basis of the film’s success, Belushi graced the cover of Newsweek on October 23, 1978.

Animal House was a phenomenon. College students across America emulated the most celebrated scenes in the film: the food fight and the toga party. The scene when Belushi travels down the cafeteria line, sampling food, putting hamburgers in his pocket, taking bites out of sandwiches then putting them back, is arguably the funniest film moment in Belushi’s career.

The way his wife Judy saw it, Belushi’s rambunctious, anti-establishment character (both his own and Bluto’s) reflected the late 1960s counterculture; he was a sixties radical in attitude and lifestyle, and this was responded to not only by 1970s audiences nostalgic for that past era, but also by the young, who identified with his rebellious streak. Bluto, who was Belushi, was as lovable as a panda bear, but with a subversive edge; and audiences responded to this humorous, dangerous mix of sensitivity and chaos.

“After Animal House, it became difficult for him to go anywhere without drawing attention and being approached,” Judy recalled. “People reacted to John. Heads turned, people pointed, smiled, yelled hello, came up to him. He was a larger-than-life kind of personality, yet one felt he was approachable.” People would scream his name, on the streets, in the audience of SNL: “BA-LOOSH-IE!” “I think John typified the American Dream to people,” Judy explained. “The son of an immigrant risen to fame and fortune on guts, talent, and hard work.”

Fans sometimes reacted to Belushi’s presence in strange ways. He was in a restaurant one time and a stranger pressed a hamburger into his face, perhaps thinking it was funny. But Belushi could be idiosyncratic with strangers as well. According to Aykroyd: “He would walk into the homes of complete strangers – I watched it happen – go into the kitchen, open the refrigerator, have a sandwich, turn on the TV and go to sleep on the couch while the lucky home-dwellers watched in amazement and delight.”

Filmography

• National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
• Goin’ South (1978)
• Old Boyfriends (1978)
• 1941 (1979)
• The Blues Brothers (1980)
• Continental Divide (1981)
• Neighbors (1981)

Bibliography

• Belushi, Judy Jacklin. Samurai Widow (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1990).
• Hill, Doug and Jeff Weingrad. Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live (New York: Vintage Books, 1987).
• Pisano, Judith Belushi and Tanner Colby. Belushi (New York: Rugged Land, 2005).
• Shales, Tom and James Andrew Miller. Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002).
• Woodward, Bob. Wired (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).

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