The drug-fueled life and times of John Belushi and ‘The Blues Brothers’
nypost.comWhile filming “The Blues Brothers” in 1979, John Belushi was partying so hard that he was often unable to function.One night, after yet another Belushi delay, director John Landis knocked on the door of his trailer, fed up.“Inside, John sat disheveled, eyes vacant.
Atop a desk sat a mound of cocaine,” writes Daniel de Visé in his new book, “The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic,” (Atlantic Monthly Press, March 19).“ ‘John, you’re killing yourself,’ Landis cried. ‘Do not do this to my movie.
Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to [Belushi’s wife] Judy. Don’t do it to yourself.’ ”Landis then picked up “probably a hundred thousand dollars worth” of cocaine and flushed it down the toilet, leading Belushi to charge at him.“They grappled like drunken wrestlers,” writes de Visé. “John burst into tears, and their grapple melted into an embrace.
Landis burst into tears. ‘John, this is insane,’ he moaned.’ ”Belushi, who shot to fame first on “Saturday Night Live” and then as the star of the hit 1978 film “Animal House,” both performed and lived like he had been shot out of a rocket.By the show’s second season, Belushi was “binging day and night on cocaine.” NBC executive Dick Ebersol briefly became Belushi’s minder, flying him to LA every week from Sunday through Wednesday to keep him out of trouble, and leaving messages with “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels that said, “I have the Albanian.
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