Product Description
On the day he turned thirty, John starred in America’s number-one movie (Animal House), starred in the number-one late-night show (Saturday Night Live) and had recorded the number-one album (Briefcase Full of Blues). All from a guy who was never supposed to make it out from behind the cash register of his family’s Chicago diner. How did this Albanian immigrant’s son capture a nation’s imagination and come to embody all the glory and tragedy of the American dream? It was one high-price, high-speed, short-lived wild ride.
BELUSHI is a whirlwind of a book, filled with never-before-seen photos and provocative, intensely personal testimonials by just about every major comedic figure of the last half century. Here is the remarkable and raucous story of a larger-than-life figure who danced out at the precipice of American fame.
|
|
 Awesome. ( adisccr28 )
I am a HUGE Belushi fan and was not let down by this book. The blurbs from friends and co workers are funny and offer a closer look at the man that made us all laugh with the lift of an eyebrow.
|
Tanner Colby's Belushi
This book is very well written and beautiful to flip through. I recommend this book for yourself or a gift as well as Tanner Colby's more recent CHRIS FARLEY biography!
|
Thank you Judy! ( anaerosmithchick )
For writing this beautiful book. I've been a fan of Johns work pretty much as far back as i can remember. i was only 9 when John passed on so i never got to see him perform live or really enjoy his work when he was here on this earth. I found this book to be a true showing of what John was like and what a good man he really was and not always this train wreck like the press (and another certain author who shall remain nameless) perceived him to be. you can tell that he was loved by many and that his death had a profound affect on many and that his work will be loved for many more years. If you are a fan of John you need to read this book!
|
A Truly Enlightening Experience
John Belushi, a man of laughs, a man who lived for an audience's
approval and cheers, John Belushi was an entirely respectable man and deserved to be remembered as a man of great worth among friends and colleagues, this book harrowingly displayed him as both, they did not write from a biased point of view, but rather from many perspectives, of friends and family. Every comedian should allow the utmost respect for such a spectacular man, John, may you rest in peace, knowing that all of your fans will remember you forever, we love you.
|
 A rare and vulnerable spark ( benvarkent )
Most if not all of the facts of this book will not be new to John's fans. Especially those who have read the eight-or-so books already written about or by him and his friends and family.
And, title aside, it is not really a biography; it is an oral and pictorial history. But that is its strength. The voices of those friends & family come through, showing their love for the man.
But the interesting thing is, as awesome as some of the stories may be (especially to those who haven't read them before); the pictures do an even more excellent job.
Some of the photos were previously seen in SAMURAI WIDOW and WIRED, but most are never before published. And in them, you can see the buildup from Belushi's boyhood through the first three years of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Then the explosion when that show, ANIMAL HOUSE, and the Blues Brothers record all hit at the same time.
And then the fallout. Visually, I think you can mark the moment when the road turned hard for John; it's in a full-page picture, on page 172, of him in costume for 1941.
It's in his eyes. Look at most of the photos that precede this one, and there is a light in them, something that's growing, some kind of spark.
And though it's probably too simple to say that Hollywood stunted that growth and killed that spark, it's also, probably, accurate.
Because in most of the post-1941 photos, that spark is gone, with only a brief resurgence in the pictures taken during the filming of CONTINENTAL DIVIDE.
This was apparently a happy (if not always fun) time for John, and the pictures reflect that. Unfortunately, more so than the movie, which is enjoyable but instantly forgettable.
The key picture here for me is on page 222. It shows Belushi wrapped in a blanket, sitting on some cabin steps in his stocking feet. He's just sitting, and staring, and thinking of god knows what, but the image has an apparent vulnerability that the photogenic John rarely showed in pictures. He was a man who always seems to have known where the camera was and how to keep its eye on him. Not here.
But CONTINENTAL DIVIDE flopped, and in the photos that follow, he mostly looks wasted. I don't mean that with the drug connotation, I mean that spark was being denied again.
A note at the end proclaims, "This book is not objective," and it isn't, so bully for them for admitting it. It's an attempt to bring a loved one back to life by talking about him.
|
|
View Larger
Add to Cart 
