Live From New York - James H. Miller [131]
Belushi’s death seemed tragic on many different levels. That his death was linked to drug abuse only reinforced the mistaken public perception that Belushi was some childish party animal, undisciplined and wild — much like the slobbish Bluto whom he played in his triumphant movie hit Animal House. But those who knew Belushi even superficially knew him as tender, sensitive, painfully vulnerable, and lovable. The only time Belushi and Bluto really resembled each other was during a scene in which Bluto tries to cheer up a despondent fellow frat boy. He romps, he mugs, he cracks a bottle over his head, and then he pantomimes a big happy grin, propping up the corners of his mouth with his fingers. The gesture recalls the sweet innocence of Harpo Marx.
Saturday Night Live’s resident ensemble had been called the Beat-les of comedy, and now they had their own dead Lennon. They could never go back, never regroup, never be together again. It would never be just like it was.
In Don’t Look Back in Anger, a famous short film made by Tom Schiller for the show in 1977 and set sometime in the distant future, an elderly but dapper Belushi visits the wintry graves of fellow alumni and explains that though some predicted he’d be the first to go, it was in fact he alone who survived the intervening decades. And the reason? “I’m — a dancer!” he exclaims, just before launching into some sort of Greek-Albanian folk stomp. John’s death came well after the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players had disbanded, and yet it seemed to shut down this exclusive club once and for all.
ANNE BEATTS, Writer:
I had a friend who was in Vietnam. We were talking about our experiences — his in the war, mine on the show. And it seemed somewhat equivalent. Then I said, “Well, but nobody died in mine.” And he said, “Yes, they did.” I thought about it for a second. “Oh. You’re right. They did.”
BARBARA GALLAGHER:
I ran into John at a restaurant in Los Angeles, where I’d moved. I didn’t want to go over to his table because I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t seen him in years. But he was really sweet. He came over to me and said, “You know what? I’m clean.” I said, “John, I’m so happy for you.” He said, “I am too. I’m on the right road again. Danny’s been my savior.” And then two months later, he was dead.
LORNE MICHAELS:
I’d lived at the Chateau Marmont for three years, so the irony of John dying there was, well, whatever. About two weeks before he died, I was out in L.A. for a movie meeting, and Buck Henry invited me to go with him to the Playboy Mansion. I had only been there once, and that was to ask Hefner to host the show. Buck said, “He shows his Saturday Night Live show every Saturday night in the screening room.” So I went there with Buck, and John was there. He was a little fucked-up but not crazy-man fucked-up, just a little fucked-up. And we were sitting in the screening room watching an Armand Assante movie. Hefner sat in the front row on the aisle and there was a little table with a bowl of popcorn on it next to his seat. I was sitting in the back with Buck. And John, to make us laugh, crept down the aisle and started taking popcorn out of Hefner’s bowl. So when Hefner would reach over, there would be less and less each time, because he wasn’t looking at it. It was a nice visual.
Later, in the game room, John and I talked. He was enormously effusive about Noble Rot, the script that Don Novello was writing for him, and how hilarious it was. It was very warm between us. Lots of hugs. It was good. It was the last time I saw him.
NEIL LEVY:
Exactly one week before John died, I was trying to get into the Ritz to see Mink DeVille, and I had forgotten my Saturday Night Live ID and the guy at the door would not let me in. And Belushi came by and says to the guy, “Do you know who this is?!” And the guy backed up in horror, because Belushi was really on a rant about his not letting me in. Then John grabbed me and took me in and took me right to the dressing room. I thanked him and then afterwards I wanted to