Belushi

Okay? Am I ready?

Yeah, we're ready.

Okay. All right.

Are they ready?

Now they're ready.

Okay, I'm gonna do some loosening-up exercises.

Take to the right.

Okay. Take to the left.

A double take to the right and a double take to the left.

Okay, let's work on the eyebrows now.

Ready? Right eyebrow.

Up, down, up, down, up, down, and start.

Okay, left.

Up--up, down, up, down, up, down.

Okay, up, down, up, down.

Hello?

Ms. Shuster, this is Tanner Colby

calling about the John Belushi interview.

Yeah, hi.

Mr. Michaels, how are you?

Good.

Tanner Colby, can I ask you

to call me back in ten minutes?

That is not a problem.

Okay, thanks.

How about some Brando?

You was my brother, Charley.

You should've taken care of me or some'n.

Could've been a somebody. Could've been a contender.

Are you taping or making notes?

Uh, taping. Is that okay?

You should always ask permission

before you tape.

Okay. May I tape?

Yes, you may.

What are you doing?

It's gonna be like an oral history

told in the words of the first-person participants

because no one's ever done a real biography

of John as a performer.

You know, when he showed up,

it radically altered the landscape of comedy.

I just wanted to give more of a full portrait of him

as a human being.

Oh, okay.

No, no, no.

Want to do Steiger quickly?

Terry, Terry, Terry,

what are you talking about?

What are you talkin' about?

Don't talk to me that way!

Give me a light, Johnny.

I'm going nuts, here.

He was one of the most lovable and tragic characters

I've ever met.

He could be completely kind

and thoughtful and generous and wonderful

and, at the flipside of the coin,

be chaotic and tortured, you know?

He also was hilariously funny.

He just had a sort of giant humanity

that hooked into the collective unconsciousness

of people's funny bone.

All right, all right.

John always had appetites

that were completely out of control for everything,

but I didn't start to worry about him

until they were at the Universal Amphitheatre

playing for 7,000 people.

Thank you.

I looked at John on the stage, and I thought,

"He's on the most popular comedy television show

of our generation"...

Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!

But, no!

I logged a lot miles training for that day,

and I downed a lot of doughnuts.

That's why Little Chocolate Donuts

have been at my training table since I was a kid.

He's in the most successful comedy film ever.

This is absolutely gross.

That boy is a P-I-G, pig.

See if you can guess what I am now.

I'm a zit. Get it?

And now he's onstage, fronting an amazing band.

suspenseful music

My first thought was, "How great for him."

And my second thought was,

knowing his appetites,

"I don't think he'll survive this."

The Chips' "Rubber Biscuit"

energetic scatting

I was a sophomore in high school,

and a bunch of the senior guys gave us a ride home.

And that was when I first met him.

Hi.

My first date was homecoming,

and he was homecoming king.

That was a good introduction to my life with John,

because he has to go dance with the queen...

And I have to dance with her boyfriend.

When I first was getting involved with John,

his passion was football,

but he was beginning to do things onstage.

He did the varsity show,

and he came up with lots of little skits,

like a little jug band.

He had a vision of the show

so he just grabbed his friends

and said, "Here's what we're gonna do."

And they did it.

His vehicle was a motorcycle that he was very fond of.

He bought it on his own.

I wasn't supposed to ride on motorcycles,

so he would have to borrow my parents' car to go out,

but I thought it was very cool.

I did write a list of what I wanted from a boyfriend,

'cause, you know, you have to manifest these things.

It was "good at sports, smart,

musical, and funny."

And he was all those things.

And, of course, I thought he was Italian,

as I think most people did.

I didn't know where Albania was

when he said he was Albanian.

"Is that a country?" I was like, "Albania?"

And I think he always felt that immigrant label

pretty strongly...

that his family were foreigners.

When we first moved to Wheaton from Chicago,

John was six years old.

John lived in a world of his own.

He was just like a little man. He just took care of himself.

His father was an Albanian immigrant.

He was embarrassed by the way he spoke,

and he didn't express himself at all.

He wanted to be a cowboy.

He wanted to come to America and be a cowboy.

John's family was a mystery to us.

None of us had ever heard of Albania, God knows.

He was very ashamed of his home,

and we never went inside his house, ever.

We all wanted to be American.

So, if your parents spoke Albanian in the house,

it was kind of embarrassing to you.

Well, you know, he was kind of intense,

you know, around the house

but around the dinner table every once in a while,

he'd really let loose.

He'd do impressions of everything.

Could've been a contender.

He loved to be a performer, you know?

As a three-year-old kid, he used to go the neighbor's,

walk into a room, and do a show.

John just wanted to make everyone laugh.

Of course, my dad didn't, like,

even see the humor in it, you know?

He'd just keep eating.

country music

But the strong influence in our house,

that was my grandmother, who didn't speak English.

She loved John very much.

"Johnny nunnas," she used to say.

She used to go, "Johnny nunnas."

I don't know what it means,

but it sounds really warm, you know?

Well, I'm a king bee

bluesy music

Buzzing around your hive

John's dad was in the restaurant business

and owned a restaurant in Chicago.

He stayed there, like,

five nights a week or something.

Come back on the weekend.

His father was a serious guy.

When he was young, he started drinking.

He was abusing it, and he stopped.

He did not drink.

Really was a hardworking guy

and away from the house a lot.

The idea was to get ahead.

It was all about the American dream.

His mother,

she worked in various restaurants as well.

She wasn't around a lot.

And she herself had aspirations.

She wanted to be an actress

and actually ran away once and did a play.

Like, left home.

No one knew where she was. Showed up,

she's got a little apartment and doing a play.

And then she came home, and that was the end of that.

I just thought that she felt sad...

...that things hadn't gone

how she would've liked.

I don't think John's parents really understood his essence.

They didn't have the exchanges with him to know it.

They didn't share that kind of time.

It was Nana who provided the unconditional love

for the kids.