NAME: John Belushi
BORN: 24/01/1949
BIRTH PLACE: Chicago, USA
DIED: 05/03/1982
BIOGRAPHY
John Adam Belushi was born in 1949 to immigrant Albanian restaurant owners, Adam and Agnes Belushi.
Belushi first excelled at school football and playing the drums, but it was not long before his exceptional comic acting talent became his main focus.
He succesfully auditioned for Chicago’s ‘Second City’ comedy troupe and became the festival’s youngest-ever main stage performer.
Developing throughout the early 1970s, he was chosen for National Lampoon’s off-broadway production ‘Lemmings’, and became a regular fixture of the comic collective’s act.
In 1975, Saturday Night Live began, a new satirical review program on NBC, with Belushi and other ‘Second City’ colleagues starring. Initially the focus was on Chevy Chase but, in the second season in 1976, Chase left, and Belushi blossomed.
His characters and sketches included Samurai warriors, short-order cooks and, with Dan Ackroyd, the ‘Blues Brothers’, later to be made into a hit film.