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Lorne Michaels on John Belushi

Sunday, November 30th, 2003

From the wonderful book, Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests, which I just bought in paperback:

One night we had a barbecue. Chevy [Chase], who came with his girlfriend, cooked. I remember it was a very beautiful night, and we were all sort of grateful for each other and just beginning to soak up whaterver that first season was. This was late June or early July, and we were just beginning to understand what being on a hit show was like, the full throttle of that.

We drank a lot and stayed up really late. Then at about five o’clock in the morning, the sun was way too bright and woke me up. There was some sort of noise outside, so I staggered to the door. When I opened it, I saw Danny [Dan Akroyd] in the archway just a few feet away, and he’s in the same shape I’m in, and we look out and there’s John [Belushi] on the diving board, doing these cannonballs. He goes straight up, hits the board, comes down, then flips over into the pool. This was just for our benefit, Danny’s and mine, because there was nobody else awake or watching it. And we’re like completely wrecked, the two of us, and just barely conscious, and Danny looked at me and he said, “Albanian Oak.”

And that’s what we believed. We believed this guy was absolutely indestructable. He was like an animal. You couldn’t have been through the night we’d just been through and be up at five o’clock in the morning doing cannonballs — neither of us could live that hard — but there was John.

I’ll share a little passage about Milton Berle with you later.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 30th, 2003 at 5:17 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “Lorne Michaels on John Belushi”

  1. #1 |  Peter |  December 1st, 2003 at 10:16 am

    Radley–

    You left out the name of the source of this quote. Who is the “I”?

  2. #2 |  David |  December 1st, 2003 at 10:41 am

    I’m going to make a wild guess on this one, but judging by the title of this post, “Lorne Michaels on John Belushi,” I’m figurin’ it’s Lorne Michaels.

    But I could be wrong.

  3. #3 |  Peter |  December 1st, 2003 at 10:48 am

    Sorry. I did not read the headline, or I forgot it as soon as I read it.

  4. #4 |  Peter |  December 1st, 2003 at 10:48 am

    Sorry. I did not read the headline, or I forgot it as soon as I read it.

  5. #5 |  Ed Batista |  December 1st, 2003 at 2:31 pm

    That book was a GREAT read. I missed most of the first season of SNL, but caught a few episodes and then really got into it in the second and third seasons. It’s very funny to think back on it now–I was 9 and was sneaking downstairs after my parents had turned in so I could watch the show. The “Live From New York” writers do a nice job of getting out of the way and letting the principals tell the stories in their own words (a la Radley’s excerpt–the whole book’s just like that.)

    I haven’t watched SNL with any regularity for years, but still have a soft spot for it, and I’m glad to see they’ve made a comeback of sorts, with the brilliant Tina Fey leading the way. If you’ve ever cared about SNL, you’ll enjoy the book.

  6. #6 |  Martha |  February 21st, 2004 at 12:17 am

    You have a pretty nice blog. English is not my native language but it was please to read your site. From Russia with love :)Sincerely yours..

  7. #7 |  jonny |  September 22nd, 2006 at 12:26 am

    jonny