JOHN A. BELUSHI, 'SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE' CAST MEMBER

Today, The Grandma is still relaxing at home. She has decided to watch some films, and she has chosen The Blues Brothers, a 1980 American musical comedy film directed by John Landis and starred by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.

Belushi was born on a day like today in 1949 and The Grandma wants to pay homage to him talking about his career and his life.

John Adam Belushi (January 24, 1949-March 5, 1982) was an American actor, comedian and singer, and one of the seven original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL).

Throughout his career, Belushi had a close personal and artistic partnership with his fellow SNL star Dan Aykroyd, whom he met while they were both working at Chicago's The Second City comedy club.

Born in Chicago to Albanian American parents, Belushi started his own successful comedy troupe with Tino Insana and Steve Beshekas, called The West Compass Trio. After being discovered by Bernard Sahlins, he performed with The Second City and met Aykroyd, Brian Doyle-Murray and Harold Ramis.

In 1975, Belushi was recommended to SNL creator and showrunner Lorne Michaels by Chevy Chase and Michael O'Donoghue, who accepted Belushi as a new cast member of the show after an audition. He developed a series of characters on the show that reached high success, including his performances as Henry Kissinger and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Belushi's Albanian ancestry lent itself to his classic Olympia Restaurant sketch in which he sold nothing but cheeseburgers, cheeps [potato chips] and Pepsi.

After his breakout film role as John Blutarsky in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), Belushi later appeared in films such as 1941, The Blues Brothers, and Neighbors. He also pursued interests in music, creating with Aykroyd, Lou Marini, Tom Malone, Steve Cropper, Donald Duck Dunn, Paul Shaffer, and The Blues Brothers, from which the film received its name.

In his personal life, Belushi struggled with heavy drug use that threatened his comedy career; he was dismissed and rehired at SNL on several occasions due to his behaviour.

In 1982, Belushi died from combined drug intoxication possibly caused by Cathy Smith, who injected him with a mixture of heroin and cocaine known as a speedball. He was posthumously honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004.

More information: Variety

John Adam Belushi was born to Agnes Demetri Belushi and Adam Anastos Belushi in Humboldt Park, a neighbourhood on the West Side of Chicago.  

Belushi's mother, Agnes Demetri, a pharmacy worker, was born in Ohio to Albanian immigrants; his father, Adam Anastos Belushi, was an Albanian immigrant from Qytezë, who owned the Fair Oaks restaurant, on North Avenue in Chicago, later a restaurant in Wheaton.

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 improvised comedy enterprise, who went to see them performing in 1971 and asked Belushi to join the cast. At Second City, he met and began working with Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty and Brian Doyle-Murray.

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 called NBC's Saturday Night, later Saturday Night Live (SNL). Michaels was initially undecided, as he was not sure if Belushi's physical humour would fit with what he was envisioning, but he changed his mind after giving Belushi an audition.

Over his four-year tenure at SNL, Belushi developed a series of successful characters, including the belligerent Samurai Futaba, 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 his catchphrase, But N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!

More information: The Guardian

With Aykroyd, Belushi created Jake and Elwood, The Blues Brothers. Originally intended to warm up the crowd before the show, 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 of his fellow SNL cast members, Belushi began experimenting heavily with drugs and attended concerts with many of the popular artists of the era including Fleetwood Mac, Meatloaf, KISS, The Dead Boys, Warren Zevon, The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers. On Later with Bob Costas in 1990, Lorne Michaels would remember him as loyal to the writers and a team player, but he was fired and immediately re-hired by Michaels a number of times.

In Rolling Stone's February 2015 appraisal of all 141 SNL cast members to that time, Belushi received the 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 SNL like Belushi.

In 1978, Belushi performed in the films Old Boyfriends, Goin' South, and National Lampoon's Animal House.

In 1979, Belushi left SNL with Aykroyd to film Blues Brothers which conflicted with the shooting schedule of SNL. Lorne Michaels decided to leave at the end of his contract and the network's pressure to use recurring characters were also factors in their decision. They made two films together after leaving, Neighbor, and most notably The Blues Brothers.

Belushi died from combined drug intoxication possibly caused by Cathy Smith, who injected him with a mixture of heroin and cocaine known as a speedball.

More information: New York Post

 Rock n' roll is at a standstill, I think
-and comedy is taking its place as something exciting.

John Belushi