Belushi’s influence survives after death

When a force of nature like John Belushi is lost, 25 years isn’t time enough to ease the grief or erase the laughter.

Actor-comedian Richard Belzer still dreams about him from time to time, the unselfish friend and “impish genius” who devoured life.

John Landis, who directed Belushi in “Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers,” is still angry at him for dying foolishly and young.

“Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels feels an obligation to “restate the obvious” – that Belushi was profoundly talented and part of the show’s creative DNA.

By most measures, the round comic with the sharp edges left a small body of work when a drug overdose killed him at age 33 in March 1982.

But his TV, movie and music performances hit the baby-boomer sweet spot and have survived despite pop culture’s truncated attention span.

Endlessly versatile, he inhabited the samurai deli guy, Joe Cocker, Captain Kirk and more on “Saturday Night Live.” He gave us Bluto (“Food fight!”) and Jake Blues, on a mission from God to save music.

In 1978, on the eve of his 30th birthday, Belushi had the No. 1 movie with “Animal House”; the No. 1 record (with partner Dan Aykroyd), “Briefcase Full of Blues”; and was the heart of television’s hottest show.

He always shared his good fortune and clout with friends, says Belzer. When Belushi found out that Belzer was getting paid less than Belushi and others on a TV show, he threatened to walk unless there was parity.

Belushi also regularly lived up to his reputation for excess. At New York’s Drake Hotel in 1977, Landis met him for the first time to discuss doing “Animal House.”

“He came into my room like a tornado, this burst of energy,” the director recalls. “He immediately called room service, ordering bottles of champagne and Courvoisier and beer and shrimp cocktails for 20, vast amounts of food.”

He was found dead on March 5, 1982, in a hotel bungalow at the Chateau Marmont hotel on the fabled Sunset Strip. Cathy Evelyn Smith, a drug dealer who was convicted of injecting Belushi with a fatal dose of heroin and cocaine, served 18 months in prison.

Belushi didn’t consider himself an addict despite increasingly prodigious drug use, says Tanner Colby, co-author of the 2005 biography “Belushi” (written with Belushi’s widow, Judith Belushi Pisano).

“John Belushi, deep down, was a stable guy who knew who he was, had a lot of confidence, wasn’t superficial but with no great internal trouble,” Colby says. “I think that what happened to him was largely due to fame. For a year and a half, he was as big as Elvis.”

Some close to Belushi said they tried to stop him. But he faced a difficult fight, Belzer says.

“On some level he was gallantly struggling to straighten himself out, but the nature of the business, the nature of his personality and some of the people around him just made it harder,” says Belzer.

Landis saw the dire results. In 1978’s “Animal House,” Belushi was a disciplined and collaborative actor who took the “crazed, wild character” of frat boy Bluto and made him lovable, the director says.

But “by the time of ‘The Blues Brothers’ (in 1980), he had a very bad drug problem,” Landis says.

His last project was 1981’s “Neighbors,” with Aykroyd; he was set to make “Ghostbusters,” which filmed after his death with Bill Murray replacing him.

Had he gotten clean, says Michaels, “I think John had a depth to his talent that would have allowed him to reinvent himself.”

Landis agrees: “He could have done anything.”