John Belushi would live to be 75 years old. The comedian died of an overdose in Los Angeles at the age of 33. In five years he revolutionized the industry with his strength and self-confidence. (Grosby group)
His death occurred when he was very young, but does not appear to have been premature.
John Belushi He was a force of nature, an actor with a power rarely seen. Torrential, unpredictable, uncontrolled. The first comedian with a rocker life and attitude (There are his many covers – during his lifetime and posthumously. In Rolling Stone for proof). He was the protagonist of many legendary stories of excess. In just over five years, he made a name for himself on North American television, starred in a handful of successful films and recorded three albums, one of them It reached number one in the rankings.
From infobae.com
Today John Belushi would be 75 years old. He only lived 33. It's hard to imagine him living past his old age. It's as if it's characterized by intensity, by excess. As if he had never thought of quiet or at least peaceful times.
His last years were dominated by alcohol, drugs and the search for the ideal project so that his talent could explode. At his homes in New York and Los Angeles, scripts and cocaine were piled up on the work table.
At the beginning of 1982 he spent several weeks in Los Angeles. He had left Manhattan for a while to get away from the cold and get some company. On the west coast he only found a milder climate. His wife, Judy, whom he met in high school, did not accompany him. She needed some time, everything she had tried to get him back on track had failed.
Belushi also wanted to finish a script he was obsessed with: “Noble Rot,” a romantic comedy about a clever heist in the early vineyards of California. He carried it with him everywhere Some typed pages were stained with traces of wine and cocaine in which I tried to develop the story further.
He arrived in Los Angeles on February 28, 1982. He settled in bungalow number 3 at Chateau Marmont, a legendary hotel used by the artists' colony's stars. He immediately unfolded his papers and got a good amount of cocaine and heroin.
He was very deteriorated. He was constantly gaining weight, his dark circles under his eyes rivaled his famous eyebrows, he was dirty, and his behavior was erratic, vacillating between indolence and aggression. However, suggestions continued to be received. He had already completed his participation in six other films. The producers were not discouraged by his appearance, nor by the stench he exuded, nor by his constant distraction: he could not remain alert or focused for more than five minutes. Neither because of the stories about his problems on the sets in recent years, nor because of the poor box office results of his latest films. John Belushi was still attractive to the industry.
In Los Angeles, he met with his agent Bill Brillstein and studio executives, who told him that his script still needed work. His friends Dan Aykroyd and Robert De Niro asked him to join their next projects. Aykroyd had finished writing “Ghostbusters” and wanted John to star alongside him and Bill Murray – three former “Saturday Night Live” stars. De Niro had negotiated with Sergio Leone to reserve him a spot in the cast of Once Upon a Time in America.
His nights were long. Smokey, a personal assistant given to him by his manager and his wife, no longer accompanied him as he had in New York. whose main job was to keep the cocaine as far away from John Belushi's nose as possible. When a journalist asked him about his use, he replied: “I've always taken drugs the same way. Only now I have more money and I'm more famous.
Friends, dealers and profiteers walked through the Chateau Marmont bungalow knowing they would always have cocaine on the living room table. For these days John was accompanied by Cathy Smith, a woman with hard eyes. She had been an active groupie in the early and mid-seventies, but bands were always looking for girls the same age; and she lived to be years old. She dated Levon Helm of The Band and was partnered with Gordon Lightfoot. Then he had to devote himself to something else. With his charm and appearances in series and films or as a background singer for B-class bands, he tried to survive in his surroundings until he found a new profession: he ran errands for famous people. She was a kind of mediator. Very quickly, these errands turned into something more. Belushi was easy prey for them. Kathy had spent the last few days with John in Bungalow No. 3 at Chateau Marmont. Since he was afraid of injections, She was the one who gave him the injection Speedballthis mixture of heroin and cocaine what they found in the actor's blood during the autopsy.
At this point, in the first days of March 1982, their days no longer differed from each other. Brillstein had to remind him of his obligations and drag him to meetings with powerful men in Hollywood with Bill Wallace, an assistant who doubled as a personal trainer, bodyguard and valet and tried to get him in shape for meetings.
Why was the industry still looking for Belushi? Why was he still betting on him? Because it was obvious that there was no one like him.
John Belushi joined the first cast of Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels' legendary television show. He was selected by Rolling Stone as the best actor in the history of the comedy show. A ranking that also included Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Adam Sandler, Dana Carvey, Chris Farley, Chevy Chase and almost every great American comedian of the last half century. He was the one who best embodied the spirit of the program. “Life”, acting without a network, the risk, the dizziness, the crossing of known boundaries. The one who justified broadcasting it six seconds late in order to censor any overruns. The Bees, the Blues Brothers, a Beethoven who took drugs in front of the camera and turned into Ray Charles (Instead of using flour, he snorted real cocaine)Whether it was the Blues Brothers, the Kissinger impersonation or the Samurai – for whom they never wrote any lyrics, this character was pure improvisation. He was also successful in the cinema and had an album at number one in the charts. And it was the image of the chaos, the excess, the lack of control of an era.
John Belushi was the latest to join the cast of SNL's first seven main cast members. He was already well known in the world of comedy. His appearances at Chicago's Second City and on the National Lampoon radio show had gotten him a spot. But some aspects of his personality and his humor style did not convince Lorne Michaels. On the one hand, Belushi prided himself on not watching TV. “My TV is completely broken at home,” he told the person who suggested taking part in the casting of the future show. On the other hand, his way of understanding comedy was very physical, almost brutal. And this wild, shocking thing may have been too much for NBC. He finally auditioned and was immediately accepted into the cast, which was called “Not Ready for The Prime Time”: it was a mockery of the fellow contestant, Howard Cossell's show.
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