John Belushi was born on January 24, 1949, in Chicago, Illinois, to Agnes Demetri (Samaras) and Adam Anastos Belushi, a restaurant owner of Albanian descent. He grew up in Wheaton, where his family moved when he was six. John's early life was marked by a rebellious streak, but he later became the perfect all-American boy during his high school years, where he was co-captain of the football team and elected homecoming king.
After graduating in 1967, John performed in summer stock in rural Indiana, and then attended the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, where he changed his image into a bad-boy appearance and began to have problems with discipline and structure. Dropping out of Wisconsin, John spent the next two years at the College of DuPage, where he helped found the "West Compass Players," an improv comedy troupe.
In 1971, John joined the famous "Second City" ensemble, where he performed in various on-stage comic performances with others, including Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty. A year later, John and his girlfriend, Judith Belushi-Pisano, moved to New York, where John joined the cast of National Lampoon's Lemmings, an off-Broadway rock musical revue.
John's big break came in 1973 when he joined the ground-breaking TV variety series Saturday Night Live (1975),which made him a star. The unpredictable, aggressively physical style of humor that he began on "Second City" flowered on SNL. In 1978, John appeared in the movie Goin' South (1978),which starred and was directed by Jack Nicholson, and was noticed by director John Landis, who decided to cast him in his movie National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).
John's minor role as the notorious, beer-swilling "Bluto" made it a box-office smash and the year's top grossing comedy. Despite appearing in only a dozen scenes, John's performance stole the movie, which portrays college fraternity shenanigans at a small college set in the year 1962. In 1979, John along with fellow SNL regular Dan Aykroyd quit the series to pursue movie projects.
John's drug use began escalating around this time, and he became addicted to cocaine. His frequent cocaine sniffing binges became a source of friction between him and Judy, whom he married in 1976. John's love for blues and soul music inspired the "Blues Brothers," and he and Aykroyd first appeared as Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues as a warm-up act before the telecasts of Saturday Night Live (1975).
In 1980, John starred in the movie The Blues Brothers (1980),which gave him a chance to act with his favorite musical heroes, including Ray Charles, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin. Although John's reputation for being an off-screen party animal is legendary, his generous side is less well known. He used some of his money to buy his father a ranch outside San Diego and helped set up some of his Chicago friends with their own businesses.
In 1981, John appeared in the movie Continental Divide (1981) and Neighbors (1981),which gave him a chance to reverse roles with Dan Aykroyd. In January 1982, John began work on the screenplay for another movie, "Noble Rot." He also checked into a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, a popular celebrity hotel in Los Angeles, where his drug use continued to escalate. On March 5, 1982, John Belushi was found dead in his hotel room at the age of 33, due to a lethal injection of cocaine and heroin.
