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The Night John Belushi Died (De Niro and drugs)
Hollywood Reporter ^ | April 25, 2019 | Shawn Levy

Posted on 04/25/2019 9:49:36 AM PDT by yesthatjallen

SNIP

At Chateau Marmont, Belushi was occasionally seen in the company of Robert De Niro, who had come to Los Angeles to look into some new film projects. The pair knew each other from lower Manhattan. De Niro had been a guest at Belushi's home, where a basement rec room was the scene of some wild late-night parties (at one, De Niro cut his hand so deeply that he had to go to the hospital for stitches). Since he had last visited the hotel to make the aborted Bogart Slept Here, De Niro had acquired the habit of keeping more or less on retainer an upper-floor penthouse at the Chateau, preferring to stay in the hotel after having some bad experiences with rental houses during recent trips to Hollywood. His laundry was done by the hotel staff, his car was kept under a dustcover in the hotel garage, and he came and went unnoticed: a New York apartment dweller utterly at home in a place that felt like a Manhattan high-rise.

On this visit, De Niro had been joined for a time by his young son and adolescent daughter. One afternoon, he took them to a party where they encountered Belushi snorting such quantities of cocaine and heroin that he had to excuse himself to go find a place to vomit. That sordid spectacle didn't stop De Niro, who was using cocaine himself in those days, from seeking Belushi's company regularly after the kids went back east. De Niro would occasionally come down from his suite to Belushi's bungalow to hang around, laugh and party, or the two would bump into each other in the VIP rooms of various Sunset Strip restaurants and nightclubs and set off together on some sort of spree.

On Thursday night, March 4, De Niro was bopping around town with actor Harry Dean Stanton, and the two kept phoning Belushi to get him to come out and join them, first at Dan Tana's, an Italian restaurant favored by movie people, and then at On the Rox, the exclusive nightclub on the Sunset Strip where famous folks could get up to just about anything. Failing to raise him, they drove over to the Chateau to see if they could coax him into a bit of play. Instead, they found him — and his bungalow — in an awful state. The living room was a shambles — not sloppy, but actually trashed, as if in a rage. And worse, a flinty, hard-eyed woman named Cathy was lounging amid the discarded pizza boxes and wine bottles and dirty laundry as if she had some claim to the place and to Belushi himself. De Niro didn't like the look of her at all — he called her "trashy" later — and he was happy to leave when Belushi suggested that he and Stanton go back to On the Rox and return to the bungalow after the club closed.

De Niro left, and when he returned to the Chateau a few hours later, it was to his own suite in the company of Stanton and a pair of women they'd met. There, he got a phone call from Robin Williams. The comedian had run into De Niro and Stanton at On the Rox, and they all agreed to meet up at Belushi's after Williams performed an unscheduled set at The Comedy Store, also on the Sunset Strip. On the phone, De Niro told Williams that he was busy and that he should stop by Belushi's on his own. Williams did and, like De Niro, was creeped out by the scene, leaving after a few words and a little coke. After he left, De Niro, too, stopped in at the bungalow, entering through the sliding glass patio door. He had a few words and a few lines and then took some of the cocaine that was piled on the living room table and went back to his suite. It was some time past 3 a.m.

At 8 a.m., a room service waiter delivered wheat toast, jam and a pot of coffee to Belushi's bungalow; Cathy Smith, the woman whom De Niro had shied away from, signed for the order, had her breakfast, cleaned up the room, especially the drug paraphernalia, checked in on Belushi, who was snoring loudly in bed, and left.

SNIP


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: cocaine; deniro; drugs; sex; wod
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De Niro liked to party.
1 posted on 04/25/2019 9:49:36 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
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To: yesthatjallen; Impy; LS; dp0622; BillyBoy; NFHale; GOPsterinMA

John Belushi was loved and should still be with us. DeNiro, conversely, should’ve been devoured completely by his own hate.


2 posted on 04/25/2019 9:53:17 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (BUTTGIGGITY ! It's an anal thing. You wouldn't understand.)
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To: yesthatjallen

Some can handle having money — others cannot.


3 posted on 04/25/2019 9:57:50 AM PDT by EagleUSA
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Belushi was a good guy. DeNiro is a little bitch


4 posted on 04/25/2019 9:59:22 AM PDT by atc23
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To: EagleUSA

Plenty of poor & average folks are destroyed by drugs and alcohol.


5 posted on 04/25/2019 10:00:17 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: yesthatjallen

What could possibly be more boring and squalid than to hang out, party, and set off on some sort of spree with a guy who’s trashed with heroin and cocaine?


6 posted on 04/25/2019 10:08:47 AM PDT by Savage Beast (The Mueller Report: Donald Trump is the most uncorrupted President in US history!)
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To: atc23

They lacked faith. All they had to do is ask God for a Joyous life and it would have been theirs.


7 posted on 04/25/2019 10:09:37 AM PDT by DivineMomentsOfTruth ("There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." -GW)
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To: yesthatjallen

I love how the media tries to paint Cathy Smith groupie to

Gordon Lightfoot

Ron Wood and Keith Richards

The Bands Rick Danko, Levin Helm and Richard Manuel

As the villain

Belishi and his cohorts would have gotten their cocaine and H from someone if not her

Like the stars are somehow above it all

DeNiro and Harry Dean Stanton were serious bad boys back then


8 posted on 04/25/2019 10:12:47 AM PDT by wardaddy (When only the best Santa will do...call Joe Biden)
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To: yesthatjallen

Some would say that when you see a friend in a trashed out state you’d try to intervene on his behalf and not enable him by each doing lines with him at separate parts of the night he overdosed.


9 posted on 04/25/2019 10:16:33 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Denounce DUAC - The Democrats Un-American Activists Committee)
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To: yesthatjallen

Belushi obviously was killing himself. His “friends” seemed fine with that.


10 posted on 04/25/2019 10:17:01 AM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: EEGator

Drug abuse leads to an early death:

John Belushi
Richard Pryor
Elvis Presley
Robin Williams
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Sid Viscous
Jerry Garcia
Keith Moon
Brian Jones
Keith Richards(mostly dead)


11 posted on 04/25/2019 10:17:18 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: woodbutcher1963

Richards will live to a hundred or more.


12 posted on 04/25/2019 10:18:13 AM PDT by morphing libertarian ( Use Comey's Report; Indict Hillary now; build Kate's wall. --- Proud Smelly Walmart Deplorable)
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To: yesthatjallen

How I envy the lifestyles of the rich and famous. /s


13 posted on 04/25/2019 10:26:06 AM PDT by Sans-Culotte (If it weren't for fake hate crimes, there would be no hate crimes at all.)
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To: morphing libertarian

Richards must have super human DNA to survive what he has done to his body.


14 posted on 04/25/2019 10:26:57 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: a fool in paradise; colorado tanker
How is this group of people different from any other drug-addled group other than they have money and inflated egos bolstered by fame?

This was all normal to them. An intervention would only end the party.

15 posted on 04/25/2019 10:27:12 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
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To: yesthatjallen

And this guy has the nerve to say anything about our President?


16 posted on 04/25/2019 10:31:13 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: yesthatjallen

In the end, no one could save John Belushi from himself. They all indulged him instead.


17 posted on 04/25/2019 10:31:14 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: Sans-Culotte

“How I envy the lifestyles of the rich and famous”

It is glamorous isn’t it.


18 posted on 04/25/2019 10:37:21 AM PDT by V_TWIN
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To: woodbutcher1963

Chris Farley
Sam Kinison


19 posted on 04/25/2019 10:38:17 AM PDT by V_TWIN
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To: woodbutcher1963

:: Sid Viscous ::

Did he meet a “watery” death?
Smoked too much centistokes?


20 posted on 04/25/2019 10:49:22 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic, Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym explains the science.)
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