Italian postcard by Emilio Modric Editore, Ancona, no MX 018. Photo: Antony Baker. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. C.P.C.S., 33150. Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in Trading Places (John Landis, 1983).
French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 817. Photo: Tri-Star Pictures. Publicity still for Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992) with Dan Aykroyd as Mack Sennett and Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin between Sennett's Bathing Beauties.
The Blues Brothers
Daniel Edward Aykroyd was born in 1952 at The Ottawa Hospital in Ottawa, Ontario. He grew up in Ottawa, Canada's capital, where his father, Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd, a civil engineer, worked as a policy adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. His mother, Lorraine Hélène Marie (née Gougeon) was a secretary. His brother, Peter, was also an actor and is now a psychic researcher.
Dan attended St. Pius X and St. Patrick's high schools, and studied criminology and sociology at Carleton University, but dropped out before completing his degree. He worked as a comedian in various Canadian nightclubs and ran an after-hours speakeasy, Club 505, in Toronto for several years. At 17, Aykroyd was a member of the cast of the short-lived Canadian sketch comedy series The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour with Lorne Michaels. In 1973, he was a member of the Second City comedy troupe in both Toronto and Chicago.
Aykroyd gained fame on the American late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). He was originally hired as a writer for the show but became a part of the cast before the series premiered. He appeared on the show for its first four seasons, from 1975 to 1979 and brought a unique sensibility to the show, combining youth, unusual interests, talent as an impersonator, and an almost lunatic intensity. He was known for his impersonations of celebrities such as Jimmy Carter, Vincent Price, Richard Nixon, and others.
His recurring roles included Beldar, father of the Coneheads family; Fred Garvin – male prostitute; and high-bred but low-brow critic Leonard Pinth-Garnell. 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. According to Aykroyd, their first meeting helped spark the Blues Brothers act. When they met in a club that Aykroyd frequented, he played a blues record in the background, and it stimulated a fascination with blues in Belushi.
It led to the creation of their Blues Brothers characters. Backed by such experienced professional R&B sidemen as lead guitarist Steve Cropper, saxman Lou Marini, trumpeter Alan Rubin, and bass guitarist Donald "Duck" Dunn, the Blues Brothers proved more than an SNL novelty. Taking off with the public as a legitimate musical act, they performed live gigs and in 1978 released the hit album 'Briefcase Full of Blues which eventually sold 3.5 million copies, and is one of the highest-selling blues albums of all time. The band was much further popularised in the film The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980) which Aykroyd co-wrote. A sequel, titled Blues Brothers 2000 (John Landis, 1998), featured John Goodman as Belushi's replacement.
British postcard by Box Office, no. BO 1115. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980). Caption: It's alright - We are on a mission from God.
English postcard, no. REF 1009. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980).
Vintage postcard by World Postcards Inc., no. X 170, 1989. Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd in Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984).
Ghostbusters
After leaving SNL, Dan Aykroyd starred in a number of films, mostly comedies, with uneven results both commercially and artistically. His first three American feature films all co-starred John Belushi. The first, 1941 (1979), directed by Steven Spielberg, was a box-office disappointment. The second, The Blues Brothers (1980), which he co-wrote with director John Landis, was a massive hit. The third, Neighbors (John G. Avildsen, 1981) had mixed critical reactions but was another box-office hit.
One of his best-received performances was as a blueblood-turned-wretch in the comedy Trading Places (John Landis, 1983), in which he co-starred with fellow SNL alumnus Eddie Murphy and Jamie Lee Curtis. Aykroyd played the snobbish investor Louis Winthorpe III and Murphy the wily street con artist Billy Ray Valentine find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires, played by Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy.
In the early 1980s, Aykroyd began work on a script for the film that eventually became Ghostbusters, inspired by his fascination with parapsychology and his belief in ghosts and their busting. The script initially included a much greater fantasy element, including time travel, but this was toned down substantially through work on the script with co-writer Harold Ramis and director Ivan Reitman. Aykroyd originally wrote the role of Dr. Peter Venkman with Belushi in mind but rewrote it for Bill Murray after Belushi's death. Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984) became a huge success for Aykroyd, who also appeared as one of the lead actors. The film earned nearly US$300 million on a US$30 million budget.
Aykroyd's next major film role was in the spy comedy film Spies Like Us (John Landis, 1985, which was co-conceived and co-written by Aykroyd. The other lead was again intended for Belushi but was instead given to SNL alumnus Chevy Chase. Dragnet (Tom Mankiewicz, 1987), in which Aykroyd co-starred with Tom Hanks and which he co-wrote, was both a homage and a satire of the classic TV series Dragnet (1951-1959) starring Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday. Aykroyd played Sgt. Joe Friday as a police officer whose law-and-order attitude is in 1987 at odds with modern sensibilities.
Aykroyd appeared in five films released in 1988, all of them critical and commercial failures. The next year, a sequel to Ghostbusters was released, Ghostbusters II (Ivan Reitman, 1989). Initially, Aykroyd and the other co-creators were reluctant to make another Ghostbusters film but succumbed to pressure from the film's studio, Columbia Pictures. The film, while considered inferior to the original, was another big hit, earning US$215 million. Aykroyd was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Driving Miss Daisy (Bruce Beresford, 1989), starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy.
Vintage postcard. Dan Aykroyd in Dragnet (Tom Mankiewicz, 1987) with Tom Hanks. Caption: When? When... will Sergeant Friday discover the approximate height and weight of the average Madagascar Tree Bat? Find out in the action comedy film 'Dragnet' coming to your town soon.
Vintage postcard. Dan Aykroyd and Alexandra Paul in Dragnet (Tom Mankiewicz, 1987) with Tom Hanks. Caption: Where... on earth would Dan Aykroyd leave his Swiss penknife and will the pristine virgin Connie Swail ever find it for him? Find out in the action comedy film 'Dragnet' coming to your town soon.
Vintage postcard. Dan Aykroyd and Alexandra Paul in Dragnet (Tom Mankiewicz, 1987) with Tom Hanks. Caption: Who? Who... dares to wrestle with a central Bolivian giant anaconda to win the love of the pristine virgin Connie Swail!!? Find out in the action comedy film 'Dragnet' coming to your town soon.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Dan Aykroyd's directorial debut was Nothing but Trouble (Dan Aykroyd, 1991) starring Demi Moore, Chevy Chase, John Candy, and Aykroyd, sporting a bulbous prosthetic nose. The film was a critical and box-office flop. Aykroyd's other films in the 1990s were mostly similarly poorly received, including Coneheads(Steve Barron, 1993) which was also based on an SNL skit, Exit to Eden (Garry Marshall, 1994), Blues Brothers 2000 (John Landis, 1998), and Getting Away with Murder (Harvey Miller, 1996).
Three exceptions were My Girl (Howard Zieff, 1991), which starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Macaulay Culkin, Tommy Boy (Peter Segal, 1995), and Grosse Pointe Blank (George Armitage, 1997), in which Aykroyd had a well-received role as a rival hitman. In 2001, he starred in the Woody Allen film The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.
Most of his film roles since then have tended to be small character parts in big-budget productions, such as a signals analyst in Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001) and a neurologist in 50 First Dates (Peter Segal, 2004). In 2009, Aykroyd and Ramis wrote and appeared in Ghostbusters: The Video Game (David Wheeler, Blade Zavier, 2009), which also featured Bill Murray. In 2010, he played the voice of the title character in the live-action/CGI-animated film Yogi Bear (Eric Brevig, 2010). That same year, Aykroyd and Chevy Chase guest-starred in the Family Guy episode 'Spies Reminiscent of Us', a homage to Spies Like Us.
Aykroyd was one of the executive producers of Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016), a long-discussed reboot of the Ghostbusters franchise. Aykroyd also had a cameo appearance in the film. In 2021 he reprised his role of Dr. Ray Stantz in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Jason Reitman, 2021). Though Sony has not confirmed any further sequels to Afterlife, Aykroyd expressed interest in having the surviving three actors of the original Ghostbusters team continue to reprise their roles for as many sequels as possible while they were alive.
Dan Aykroyd was briefly engaged to actress Carrie Fisher, proposing to her on the set of The Blues Brothers. In the film, she appeared as the jilted girlfriend of John Belushi's character Jake Blues. Their engagement ended when she reconciled with her former boyfriend, musician Paul Simon. In 1983, Ackroyd married actress Donna Dixon. The couple met on the set of Doctor Detroit (Michael Pressman, 1983) and appeared together in four additional films: Twilight Zone: The Movie (John Landis, a.o., 1983); Spies Like Us (John Landis, 1985); The Couch Trip (Michael Ritchie, 1988); and Exit to Eden (Garry Marshall, 1994). Together, they have three daughters, Belle, Stella and Danielle Aykroyd, who is known by her stage name, Vera Sola. The couple announced in 2022 that they were separating after 39 years of marriage, but would remain legally married. Dan received an honorary Doctorate from Carleton University in 1994 and was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998.
British postcard by Heroes, London, no. SPC 2172. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980).
British postcard by Palm Pictures, no. C 26. Photo: Universal. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980). Caption: Blues Brothers "Saint Helen".
American postcard by Universal City Studio Productions, Inc., 1997. Sponsored by Ray-Ban. Photo: United International Pictures (UIP) / Universal. John Goodman, J. Evan Bonifant, Dan Aykroyd and Joe Morton in Blues Brothers 2000 (John Landis, 1998).
Sources: Gustaf Molin (IMDb), Wikipedia (English, German and Dutch), and IMDb.
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