Word: belushi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...soon you'll find it hard to be funny.'" Says Patinkin: "He knew it, and he'd agree, but he couldn't stop." Equally concerned was Farley's mentor Dan Aykroyd, who worried about the young comedian's idolization of another self-destructive SNL comic, Aykroyd's friend John Belushi, who died of a cocaine-and-heroin overdose in 1982, also at 33. Aykroyd says, "When I saw him in bad shape, I brought up John and River [Phoenix]." Meeting Farley in Toronto last summer, Aykroyd says, "I laid into him about what kind of pills and powders show...
CHICAGO: Let's not take the easy way, which is this: Chris Farley wanted to be John Belushi, and that's why he's dead. Let's say instead that Chris Farley, the funniest fat guy ever to cross a stage or a movie set in a long, long time, is dead of a heart attack at 33 because he was troubled. Manic. Still the fat little kid that no girl would look at, even once he was rich, famous and still on the rise with a $6 million price tag. Or, Chris Farley is dead at 33 probably because...
...hear him tell it, maybe wisely and sincerely, maybe in a 'we both now I'll never change' Robert Downey Jr. kind of way, Farley was catching on that maybe there was a point at which to stop idolizing Belushi. "Although I love this kind of comedy, sometimes I feel trapped by always having to be the most outrageous guy in the room," Farley said in 1996. "In particular, I'm working on trying not to be that guy in my private life...
...Belushi was that guy. Farley grew up on Belushi, remembers what bar he was in when he heard Belushi died (his first thought, he says, was that he wanted to play him in the movie), walked around the SNL hallways with one eyebrow taped up on his forehead (Belushi's quizzical pirate). On stage, Farley got started doing what were essentially Belushi impressions (until sometime around Matt Foley, motivational speaker, when he finally became Chris Farley, and got into movies...
...other hand, learning's for suckers, and comedy's for kings. 1941 billed itself in 1979 as "A Comedy Spectacular," and it is: big, garrulous, messy, and often (but alas, not always) hilarious. A cast-of-thousands stacked with comedy veterans, from Aykroyd to Belushi to Candy to Slim Pickens to Tim Matheson to . . . to everybody, even Patti LuPone and an uncredited Penny Marshall. Not for the high-falutin, but that scene with the door . . . whooeee...