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Daniel Edward Aykroyd CM (born July 1, 1952 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, and musician. He was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, an originator of the Blues Brothers (with John Belushi), and has had a long career as a film actor and screenwriter.
Early life
Aykroyd was born on Dominion Day 1952 at the Ottawa General Hospital. He grew up in the Canadian capital where his father, Peter Hugh Samuel Cuthbert Aykroyd, was a policy adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. His mother, Lorraine Gougeon, is Franco-Ontarian. Brother Peter also became a comedy actor.
Aykroyd was born with syndactyly (webbed toes), which was revealed in the movie "Mr. Mike's Mondo Film" and heterochromia (the condition of having two differently-colored eyes).
Aykroyd described himself (in a radio interview with Terry Gross) as having mild Tourette syndrome (TS) that was successfully treated with therapy when he was a preteen, as well as mild Asperger syndrome (AS). The diagnosis of Asperger syndrome did not exist in the 1960s, when Aykroyd was a preteen. The term was coined in 1981, and became a recognized diagnosis in the 1994 DSM. Tics can be caused by other disorders, including autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger's. It is unclear if Aykroyd received the diagnoses of TS or AS from a medical source, whether he was speaking in his role as a comic, or whether the diagnoses were self-made. It was an audio interview, so the audience could not see Aykroyd's facial expressions, but the interviewer indicated uncertainty about whether Aykroyd was kidding.
Aykroyd attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute as well as Roman Catholic high schools at Ottawa, St Pius X and St. Patrick's, where he was briefly expelled from the latter. (He dressed up a pig to look like the pope and brought it to school for show and tell. Predictably, the nuns were not amused.) Aykroyd went on to study criminology and sociology at Carleton University but dropped out before completing.
He worked as a comedian in various Canadian nightclubs. Aykroyd went on to gain experience in The Second City comedy troupe and in the National Lampoon stage shows. While working with Second City, Aykroyd moonlighted as the announcer for Citytv in Toronto.
Saturday Night Live
Aykroyd gained fame on the American late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live, where he was a writer and cast member for its first four seasons, from 1975 to 1979. Aykroyd brought a unique sensibility to the show, combining youth, unusual interests, talent as an impersonator and an almost lunatic intensity. (Eric Idle, of Monty Python, once said that Aykroyd's ability to write and act out characters flawlessly made him the only member of the SNL cast capable of having been a Python.)
He was known for his impersonations of celebrities like Jimmy Carter (where the President talked someone down from a bad acid trip by telling them to listen to some Allman Brothers), Richard Nixon, Julia Child (in an oft-replayed sketch where she cannot stop bleeding after cutting herself while cooking), Tom Snyder, and others. He was also known for his recurring roles, such as Beldar, father in the Coneheads family; with Steve Martin, one of the "Two Wild and Crazy Guys" Czech brothers; sleazy late-night cable TV host E. Buzz Miller and his cousin, corrupt maker of children's toys and costumes Irwin Mainway (who extolled the virtues and defended the safety of the "Bag-o-Glass" toy, perhaps the retail leader of the "Bag-o" series of toys; Fred Garvin – male prostitute; and high-bred but low-brow critic Leonard Pinth-Garnell. He also co-hosted the Weekend Update segment for a season with Jane Curtin, coining the famous catchphrase "Jane, you ignorant slut" during point-counterpoint segments.
Aykroyd's talent was recognized by others in the highly competitive SNL environment: when he first presented his famous "Super Bass-O-Matic '76" sketch, a fake commercial in which a garish, hyper pitchman (modeled after Ron Popeil) touts a food blender that turns an entire bass into liquid pulp, "to [other writers and cast members] the 'Bass-O-Matic' was so exhilaratingly strange that many remember sitting and listening, open-mouthed ... Nobody felt jealous of it because they couldn't imagine writing anything remotely like it." [Hill and Weingrad p. 143]
While Aykroyd was a close friend and partner with fellow cast member John Belushi and shared some of the same sensibilities, Aykroyd was more reserved and less self-destructive.
In 1977 he received an Emmy Award for writing on Saturday Night Live; he later received two more nominations for writing, and one each for acting and Outstanding Comedy-Variety series.
In later decades, Aykroyd made occasional guest appearances and unannounced cameos on Saturday Night Live, often impersonating the humorous but slightly bitter American politician Bob Dole.
The Blues Brothers
Aykroyd was good friends with John Belushi, who recruited him for Saturday Night Live. According to Aykroyd, it was his first meeting with Belushi that helped spark their popular Blues Brothers act. When they met in a speakeasy Aykroyd frequented, Aykroyd put on a blues record to play in the background, and it stimulated a fascination with Blues in Belushi, who was primarily a fan of heavy metal. Aykroyd educated John on the finer points of blues music and, with a little encouragement from then-SNL music director Paul Shaffer, it led to the creation of their Blues Brothers characters.
The Blues Brothers was a legitimate musical act, releasing the hit album Briefcase Full of Blues, in 1978, and performing live gigs.
Aykroyd and Belushi were scheduled to present the first ever Visual Effects Award, but Belushi died only a few weeks prior to the ceremony. Though devastated by his friend's death, Aykroyd presented the award alone, remarking from the stage "My partner would have loved to have been here to present this, given that he was something of a visual effect himself." Not a few years before, when he and John Belushi were making an appearance on the "Today" show, he referred to them as "kindred spirits." In the biography "Belushi", Aykroyd claims that John Belushi was the only man he could ever dance with.
In 1992, Aykroyd, along with many other notable music and Hollywood personalities, founded the House of Blues. Its mission is to promote African-American cultural contributions of blues music and folk art. As of 2004, it was the second-largest live music promoter in the world, with seven venues and 22 amphitheaters in the United States and Canada.
Film career
After leaving Saturday Night Live, Aykroyd starred in a number of mainly comedy films, with uneven results both commercially and artistically. When starting out in the film industry Aykroyd would star with his old friend Belushi in three films, The Blues Brothers, Neighbors and 1941. One of his best-received performances was as a blueblood-turned-wretch in the 1983 comic drama Trading Places; a notable flop was in the earlier 1941 (though director Steven Spielberg received the brunt of the criticism).
Aykroyd originally wrote the role of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters (1984) with John Belushi in mind, but rewrote the part for another famous SNL player, Bill Murray, after Belushi died. Aykroyd used to joke that the green ghoul (who would later come to be known as "Slimer" in the animated series and was credited as such in the second film) was "the ghost of John Belushi", based on the similar party animal personality. Ghostbusters became a huge success for Aykroyd as a co-creator, co-writer, and one of the lead actors.
Aykroyd's acting career reached its peak when he received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for 1989's Driving Miss Daisy.
His directorial debut was 1991's Nothing But Trouble. It starred Demi Moore, Chevy Chase, John Candy and Aykroyd himself, sporting an oddly phallic prosthetic nose. The film was a critical and box office flop. Other efforts in the 1990s, including Exit to Eden, Blues Brothers 2000, and Getting Away with Murder, were also poorly received.
In the 2000s, Aykroyd's film appearances have tended to be small character parts in big-budget productions, such as a signals analyst in Pearl Harbor and a neurologist in 50 First Dates.
Family and honors
For a time, Aykroyd was engaged to Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher (who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode in which Aykroyd and Belushi gave their first polished performance as the Blues Brothers, and had a cameo role in the Blues Brothers film). He has been inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame and maintains his Canadian roots as a longtime resident of Kingston, Ontario. In 1994 Aykroyd received an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Carleton University. In 1998, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
Aykroyd also received a dubious honor in 1997, when the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal "awarded" him the Snuffed Candle award, for "contributing to the public's lack of understanding of the methods of scientific inquiry." CSICOP did this in response to Aykroyd's program Psi Factor.
Aykroyd married actress Donna Dixon in 1983. They have three daughters.
He is Canadian of French and English extraction and can trace his family name back to the Norman Conquest.
Soul Man
In 1997, Aykroyd starred in a short-lived sitcom on ABC called Soul Man, a spinoff of the popular sitcom Home Improvement. The show lasted one season. Aykroyd has said he no longer wanted to do the show and didn't like its schedule.
Wine Maker
As of 2006 Dan Aykroyd has entered a partnership with Niagara Cellars, which owns four wineries in the Niagara region. They will be marketing a series of red and white wines under his name. He is also considering a beer and vodka label with the Coneheads name.
Ghostbusters III
In February 2007 Aykroyd revealed that he would be providing voice-acting for a Ghostbusters III CGI project, although he stated that that would not happen until next year.[8]
[edit] Filmography
* Love at First Sight (1977)
* 1941 (1979)
* The Blues Brothers (1980) (also writer)
* Neighbors (1981)
* It Came from Hollywood (1982) (documentary)
* Doctor Detroit (1983)
* Trading Places (1983)
* Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
* Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) (Cameo)
* Ghostbusters (1984) (also writer)
* Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)
* Into the Night (1985)
* Spies Like Us (1985) (also writer)
* Dragnet (1987) (also writer)
* The Couch Trip (1988)
* She's Having a Baby (1988) (Cameo)
* The Great Outdoors (1988)
* Caddyshack II (1988)
* My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988)
* Ghostbusters II (1989) (also writer)
* Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
* Masters of Menace (1990)
* Loose Cannons (1990)
* Nothing But Trouble (1991) (also director and writer)
* My Girl (1991)
* This is My Life (1992)
* Sneakers (1992)
* Chaplin (1992)
* Coneheads (1993) (also writer)
* A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
* My Girl 2 (1994)
* North (1994)
* Exit to Eden (1994)
* The Nanny (1994) (TV - as guest)
* The Random Factor (1995) (voice only)
* Tommy Boy (1995)
* Casper (1995) (Cameo)
* Canadian Bacon (1995) (Cameo)
* Sgt. Bilko (1996)
* Getting Away with Murder (1996)
* Celtic Pride (1996)
* Rainbow (1996)
* The Arrow (1996)
* Feeling Minnesota (1996)
* Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal (1996 - 2000) (as host)
* My Fellow Americans (1996)
* Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
* Blues Brothers 2000 (1998) (also producer and writer)
* Antz (1998) (voice)
* Susan's Plan (1998)
* Diamonds (1999)
* Stardom (2000)
* Loser (2000)
* The House of Mirth (2000)
* The Devil and Daniel Webster (2001)
* Pearl Harbor (2001)
* Evolution (2001)
* The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
* The Frank Truth (2001) (documentary)
* On the Nose (2001)
* Crossroads (2002)
* Unconditional Love (2002)
* Bright Young Things (2003)
* 50 First Dates (2004)
* Intern Academy (2004)
* Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
* Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs (2005)
* I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007)
* Ghostbusters 3 (voice, also writer)
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