John Belushi Was Just Getting Started

When a great talent dies young, the world is diminished. You find yourself thinking not only of what that person created but of what that person could have created if he’d had time. Everyone can make their list. For me, there is no purer case of the-acorn-that-would-have-become-the-oak-had-it-not-been-pancaked-by-the truck than John Belushi, who, had he not died at age 33 in 1982, would turn 75 this month.

In a world full of followers, Belushi seemed like the last free man. Even if you hated physical comedy, you could not stop watching him. He lived the showbiz maxim: to do anything original, you must be willing to make a fool of yourself. And he did. Again and again. The audience did not know what he was going to do because half the time neither did he. It made him a star—first at National Lampoon, then on “Saturday Night Live.” A handful of Belushi’s SNL sketches are remembered, but it’s less the characters that linger than the energy.