Word: belushi
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...assembled a ghastly array of anecdotes that could keep a number of kids scared out of their wits about drugs for life. The escalating pressures of stardom, and the unceasing demands of fans and industry moguls to be continually funny, indeed funnier than the last time out, made Belushi a sick wreck. And in the toxic environment of the New York-Los Angeles axis, there was little, apparently, that family or friends could do to make this wreck stop from disintegrating...
...approach used to paint this depressing picture is straightforward narrative, an approach apparently out of style these days. Woodward, quite simply, wants to let the facts speak for themselves, and he describes in generally chronological order Belushi's rise from a Wheaton, III high-school wimderkind to ace comic of Chicago's comedy troupe Second City, to blubbering star of NBC's Saturday Night Live, to the mega-star of Animal House and half (with partner Dan Ackroyd) of the Blues Brothers, and finally to his death...
...journalist can be lied to, but Woodward seems to have taken no undue liberties with his sources--there were many, and many of them big time--and it appears that he has doublechecked whenever possible. The complaints of Belushi's widow. Judy, that the author misrepresents her husband, just don't hold any water. It was she who turned Woodward on to the story, and she was subsequently interviewed more than 20 times for the book...
What started as a pleasant diversion when he was a young Chicago comedian turned into a hundreds-of-dollars-a-day habit when he was a big star in the late 1970s. Belushi did "blow" (cocaine) practically daily, and, as Woodward tells it, would go on all-night binges during which he would bounce from party to party be it West or Last Coast on a perpetual high. The high extended to the set of whatever movie he was filming--Animal House, The Blues Brothers, and Continental Divide, to name three--where he was combative, uncooperative, and finally wildly talented...
Woodward is not interested in pronouncing judgment on Belushi for any of this. Instead, he recounts incident after incident, gory detail after party detail slowing up to excruciating exactness as he reaches Belushi's death in 1982. The tackle works, as we are forced into the role played by Beluchi's closes friends--that of agonized onlooker, unable to stop his self-destruction, loathful of his lifestyle yet curious and at times even fascinated...