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John Adam Belushi ( ; 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.
Belushi was raised in Wheaton along with his three siblings—younger brothers Billy and Jim Belushi 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.
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.
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 Stones 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."
Following the success of the Blues Brothers on Saturday Night Live, Belushi and Aykroyd, with the help of pianist-arranger Paul Shaffer, assembled studio talent forming a proper band. Saturday Night Live saxophonist "Blue" Lou Marini and trombonist-saxophonist Tom Malone, who had previously played in Blood, Sweat & Tears were there. At Shaffer's suggestion, guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, the powerhouse combo from Booker T and the M.G.'s, who played on dozens of hits from Memphis's Stax Records during the 1960s, were signed as well.In his biography of Belushi, , Bob Woodward learned, from the numerous interviews he conducted, that Belushi recruited Cropper and Dunn by "alternating good-natured jokes and hard sell." In 1978 the Blues Brothers released their debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues, with Atlantic Records. The album reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 and went double platinum. Two singles were released: "Rubber Biscuit", which reached number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Soul Man", which reached number 14.
In 1979, Belushi along with Aykroyd left Saturday Night Live. They filmed The Blues Brothers movie, which conflicted with the schedule of Saturday Night Live. Michaels also decided to leave at the end of his contract. NBC's pressure to use recurring characters was also a factor in their decision. Belushi and Aykroyd made two movies together after leaving: Neighbors (directed by John Avildsen), and most notably The Blues Brothers (directed by John Landis). Released in the U.S. on June 20, 1980, The Blues Brothers received generally negative reviews. It earned just under $5million in its opening weekend, and went on to gross $115.2million in theaters worldwide before its release on home video. The Blues Brothers band toured to promote the film, which led to a third album (and second live album), Made in America, recorded at the Universal Amphitheatre in 1980. The track "Who's Making Love" peaked at number 39.
The only film Belushi made without Aykroyd following their departure from Saturday Night Live was the romantic comedy Continental Divide (directed by Michael Apted). Released in September 1981, it starred Belushi as Chicago hometown hero writer Ernie Souchack (loosely based on newspaper columnist and long-time family friend Mike Royko), who gets an assignment researching a scientist (played by Blair Brown) who studies birds of prey in the remote Rocky Mountains.
By 1981, Belushi had become a fan and advocate of the punk rock band Fear after seeing them perform in several after-hours New York City bars and brought them to Cherokee Studios to record songs for the soundtrack of Neighbors. Blues Brothers band member Tom Scott, along with producing partner and Cherokee owner Bruce Robb, initially helped with the session, but later pulled out due to conflicts with Belushi. The session was eventually produced by Cropper. The producers of Neighbors refused to use the song in the movie. As penance for the refusal, Belushi, along with O'Donoghue and Saturday Night Live writer Nelson Lyon, booked Fear to play Saturday Night Lives Halloween broadcast on October 31, 1981 (doing so by agreeing to make a cameo in the episode for free; indeed, he makes a silent cameo in the cold opening of the episode, in what was ultimately his last appearance on the show during his lifetime); the telecast of the performance featured then-novel moshing and stage diving, and was cut short by NBC due to the band's profanity. The New York Post published an account of these and other sensationalistic details of the event the following day.
Up to his death, Belushi was pursuing movie projects, including an ABSCAM-related caper called Moon Over Miami, to be directed by Louis Malle; and a diamond-smuggling caper called Noble Rot with Jay Sandrich, based on a script he adapted and rewrote with former Saturday Night Live writer Don Novello. However, Paramount Studios offered to produce Noble Rot only if Belushi starred in The Joy of Sex, which would have featured him in a diaper. Aykroyd advised him to turn down The Joy of Sex and return to the East Coast, where Aykroyd was writing Ghostbusters. Belushi also talked about producing a film in a High Times tribute article from 1982: "Belushi wanted to give these daring captains courageous of consciousness the credit they deserved, he told me. He wanted to star in a major marijuana movie to be called Kingpin. He wanted to play the title role."
Belushi made a "guest-star appearance" on an episode of the television series Police Squad! (1982). Each opening of the show featured a running gag that featured the guest star dying right away. Belushi died shortly before the episode was to air. The scene was cut and replaced by a segment with William Conrad.
A few months after the filming on Neighbors ended, on the evening of February 28, 1982, he checked in to a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. For several days, he frequented various nightclubs on the Sunset Strip and Santa Monica Boulevard.
On March 4, 1982, Belushi visited the Los Angeles office of his long-time manager Bernie Brillstein and asked him for money. Brillstein declined, suspecting that Belushi wanted more drugs.Brillstein, Bernie (1999) Where Did I Go Right? You're No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead. Little, Brown and Company. Later that day, Belushi returned and again asked for money while Brillstein was in a meeting. Brillstein was reluctant to rebuke Belushi in front of the other person and gave him the money. In the early morning hours of March 5, 1982, Belushi, while in his Chateau Marmont bungalow, was visited separately by friends Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, as well as Cathy Smith.
Around noon on March 5, 1982, Belushi's fitness trainer, Bill Wallace, found Belushi dead at the Chateau Marmont bungalow.
During a preliminary hearing held in September 1985, two pathologists testified that Belushi's cause of death was an overdose from cocaine and heroin.
Cathy Smith was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on March 5, 1982, for possession of narcotics. This arrest was not in relation to Belushi's death. Later in 1982, Rolling Stone described the circumstances of her arrest: "On the afternoon of March 5th, Cathy Evelyn Smith had appeared driving the wrong way into the one-way exit of the Chateau Marmont Hotel on Sunset Strip behind the wheel of John Belushi's rented red Mercedes… At that moment, a hundred feet away, Belushi lay naked and dead on the floor of his $200-a-day bungalow. The police who had cordoned off the area were reflexively insisting it had been 'death from natural causes'." The LAPD released Smith after questioning.
In an interview with the National Enquirer in May 1982, Smith admitted that she had been with Belushi at the Chateau Marmont on the night of his death. After the appearance of the Enquirer article, Smith was extradited from Canada, and charged with second-degree murder. The case was delayed for four years while her lawyers negotiated. Smith pled no contest on June 11, 1986, to involuntary manslaughter and three counts of furnishing and administering controlled substances to Belushi in the hours before he was found dead. She served fifteen months in prison at Chino, California Institution for Women.
Belushi's funeral was conducted by an Albanian Orthodox priest.
After the success of The Blues Brothers, his fame further escalated after his death. Members of his family, along with Chilmark officials, gradually became more concerned over his gravesite becoming a tourist attraction like that of Jim Morrison. Reports increased of excess noise, damaging grass and disturbing the peace of others buried there, along with fans paying bizarre tributes by littering his gravesite with liquor bottles, beer cans, and other paraphernalia. His widow arranged to have him reinterred in an unmarked grave near the original site. The tombstone of Belushi's mother at Elmwood Cemetery (River Grove, Illinois), has Belushi's name inscribed on it and thus serves as a cenotaph.
Belushi was scheduled to present the Best Visual Effects Oscar at the 1982 Academy Awards with Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd presented the award alone, and stated from the lectern: "My partner, he would have loved to have been here tonight to present this award, since he was somewhat of a visual effect himself."
Belushi's life was detailed in 3 books: the 1984 biography by Bob Woodward, the accuracy of which has been questioned by journalists and by people close to Belushi, and the 1990 memoir Samurai Widow by his widow Judith. Woodward's book was adapted into a film of the same name in 1989, which was denounced by Aykroyd and Judith, and was given poor reviews by critics. Belushi's career and death were prominently featured in the 1999 memoir of his manager Bernie Brillstein, who wrote that he was haunted by the comedian's death. He wrote that he learned how to better deal with clients. In 2005 Tanner Colby produced , a collection of first-person interviews and photographs of Belushi's life, written in collaboration with Judith Belushi, his widow.
Eddie Money wrote "Passing by the Graveyard (Song for John B.)", from his 1982 album No Control, in tribute to Belushi. The two became friends after Money was a musical guest on Saturday Night Live during the show's third season. The thrash metal group Anthrax penned a song about Belushi on their 1987 album Among the Living, titled "Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)". Polish rock band Lady Pank recorded a song "John Belushi" for their 1988 album Tacy sami, with references to his Albanian ancestry. In 2025 Angus Stone, also known as Dope Lemon, released a song called "John Belushi" in his honor.
Belushi was portrayed in biographical films by actors Tyler Labine, Michael Chiklis and John Gemberling. Chris Farley, who was heavily influenced by Belushi, died in 1997 at age 33 due to a drug overdose, which has fueled many comparisons between Belushi and Farley.
In 2004, Belushi was posthumously inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a motion pictures star located at 6355 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2006, Biography Channel aired an episode of Final 24, a documentary following Belushi during the last 24 hours leading to his death. Four years later, Biography aired a full documentary of Belushi's life. In 2015, Belushi was ranked by Rolling Stone as the greatest Saturday Night Live cast member of all time.
Belushi's widow later remarried and became Judith Jacklin Belushi Pisano. However, she and her second husband, Victor Pisano, divorced in 2010.
Saturday Night Live castmate Jane Curtin, who appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2011, stated that Belushi was a misogynist who would deliberately sabotage the work of female writers and comics while working on the show: "So you'd go to a table read, and if a woman writer had written a piece for John, he would not read it in his full voice. He felt as though it was his duty to sabotage pieces written by women." Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts suggested that because she was writing a book with his wife at the time, Belushi was frustrated with them spending more time on the book than with him. He complained to Michaels about Beatts and Rosie Shuster. Judith said that Belushi was a "Women's Libber" and did not hate women.
Judith, who worked to keep Belushi's legacy alive and who was credited for her role in assisting Belushi and Dan Aykroyd with The Blues Brothers, died in July 2024.
Filmography
Film
1975 Craig Baker English version; Voice role 1978 Animal House John Blutarsky Goin' South Deputy Hector 1979 Old Boyfriends Eric Katz 1941 Captain Bill "Wild Bill" Kelso 1980 The Blues Brothers Jake "Joliet Jake" Blues 1981 Continental Divide Ernie Souchak Neighbors Earl Keese Final film role
Television
1975–1980 Saturday Night Live Various Roles 79 episodes; also writer 1976 The Beach Boys: It's OK Cop #2 TV movie; also writer 1978 Ron Decline TV movie
Others
1973 National Lampoon Lemmings Stage 1973–1974 The National Lampoon Radio Hour Radio; also Creative Director 1975 The National Lampoon Show Stage
Discography
Comedy albums
See also
External links
Categories: 1949 Births, 1982 Deaths, 20th-century American Comedians, 20th-century American Male Actors, 20th-century American Musicians, 20th-century American Screenwriters, Accidental Deaths In California, American Impressionists, American Male Comedians, American Male Film Actors, American Male Television Actors, American Male Television Writers, American Television Writers, American Manslaughter Victims, American People Of Albanian Descent, American Sketch Comedians, Cocaine-related Deaths In California, College Of Dupage Alumni, Deaths By Heroin Overdose In California, Drug-related Deaths In California, Eastern Orthodox Christians From The United States, Male Actors From Chicago, Male Actors From Wheaton, Illinois, Members Of The Albanian Orthodox Church, Primetime Emmy Award Winners, Screenwriters From Illinois, The Blues Brothers Members, University Of Wisconsin–whitewater Alumni, Comedians From Chicago
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