John Belushi

John Belushi (January 24, 1949 - March 5, 1982) was an American actor in movies and television shows.

Belushi was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother was the daughter of Albanian immigrants; his father was an immigrant from Albania. His brother is James Belushi, who is also an actor.

John was co-captain of the football team in high school as well as homecoming king in his senior year. In school he was already active in acting, but wanted to become a baseball-coach. His drama-teacher persuaded him to pursue becoming a professional actor.

He appeared mainly in TV shows, and was one of the founders of Saturday Night Live. His Blues Brothers act with Dan Aykroyd was famous, long before The Blues Brothers movie (1980).

Unfortunately Belushi became a drug addict. He used both heroin and cocaine, and a lot of both. When The Blues Brothers was made, he spent about US$40,000 to $75,000 a month on drugs.

John Belushi died in 1982 from a drug overdose injected by Cathy Smith. She was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Credits

 * National Lampoon's Lemmings (1973) (Stage)
 * The National Lampoon Radio Hour (1973–1974) (Radio) (also Creative Director)
 * The National Lampoon Show (1975) (Stage)
 * The Beach Boys: It's OK (1976) (TV)
 * Saturday Night Live (1975–1979) (TV)
 * Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle (1975) (voice)
 * Goin' South (1978)
 * National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
 * The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978) (TV)
 * Old Boyfriends (1979)
 * 1941 (1979)
 * The Blues Brothers (1980)
 * Continental Divide (1981)
 * Neighbors (1981)

SNL characters and impersonations

 * Recurring characters
 * Samurai Futaba
 * Captain Ned, one of Miles Cowperthwaite's cronies
 * Jacob Papageorge alias 'Joliet' Jake Blues, from the Blues Brothers
 * Jeff Widette, from the Widettes
 * Kevin (from The Mall sketches)
 * Kuldorth (from The Coneheads)
 * Larry Farber (one half of the Farber couple [the wife, Bobbi, was played by Gilda Radner])
 * Lowell Brock, from the H&L Brock commercials
 * Matt Cooper, from the Land Shark sketches
 * Pete, from the Olympia Cafe
 * Steve Beshekas (who was in real life a good friend of Belushi's since community college)
 * Frank Leary, one of St. Mickey's Knights of Columbus


 * Celebrity impersonations


 * Al Hirt
 * Babe Ruth
 * Bert Lance
 * Cesar Romero
 * Dino De Laurentiis
 * Ed Ames
 * Edward Asner
 * Elizabeth Taylor
 * Elvis Presley
 * Franklin D. Roosevelt
 * Fred Silverman
 * George Wallace
 * Grigori Rasputin
 * Henry Kissinger
 * Hermann Göring
 * Jack Kerouac
 * Jawaharlal Nehru
 * Jerry Mathers (as The Beaver from Leave It To Beaver)
 * Jimmy Hoffa
 * Joe Cocker
 * John Lennon
 * Julia Child
 * Leonid Brezhnev
 * Ludwig van Beethoven
 * Marlon Brando
 * Menachim Begin
 * Richard Daley
 * Robert Blake
 * Roy Orbison
 * Sam Peckinpah
 * Sanjay Gandhi
 * Steve Rubell
 * Sun Myung Moon
 * Tip O'Neill
 * Truman Capote
 * Vasiliy Alekseyev
 * William Shatner
 * Woody Hayes
 * Yasser Arafat