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
John Belushi: Yeah.. they all thought I’d be the first one to go. I was one of those “Live Fast, Die Young, Leave A Good-Looking Corpse” types, you know? But I guess they were wrong. [ points his cane to the tombstone ] There they are – all my friends. This is the Not Ready For Prime Time Cemetary. Come on up.
[ John struggles up the snow-covered hill ]
Well.. here’s Gilda Radner. Ah.. she had her own show on Canadian television for years and years. “The Gilda Radner Show”. [ moment of silence ] Well, at least now I can see her on reruns. She was cute as a button, God bless her.
Here’s where Laraine is. They say she murdered her D.J. husband.. then moved to the valley in California and had a pecan farm. [ holds his fingers two inches apart ] She was this big when she died.
Jane Curtin. She married a stockbroker, had two children, moved to upstate New York. She died.. from complications during cosmetic surgery.
This is Garrett Morris. Now, Garrett.. Garrett left the show, and thenworked in the Black Theater for years. Then he died of an overdose ofheroin.
Here’s Bill Murray. He lived the longest – 38 years. Ah.. he was happy when he died, though – he’d just grown his moustache back. It’s probably still growing.
Over here is Chevy Chase. He died right after his first movie with Goldie Hawn.
Over here is Danny Aykroyd. I guess he loved his Harley too much. They clocked him at 175 miles an hour before the crash. It was a blur. I had to be called in to identify his body. I recognized him by his webbed toes.
[ drops flowers on Aykroyd’s grave ]
The “Saturday Night” show was the best experience of my life. And now,they’re all gone. And I miss every one of them. Why me? Why did I live so long? They’re all dead. [ reflective ] I’ll tell you why.. Because I’m a dancer!
Robin Williams killed himself because of dementia.
I thought Jane Curtain had passed also!!!
I’ve partied with both of his brothers, Johnnie and Rick. Rick’s dead too — drank himself to death. Johnnie’s still around in the Twin Cities.
I always liked “Teaser” better, but they were all good.
Nope, and she works pretty steadily, too. She turned up in Can You Ever Forgive Me last year.
My understanding is that Keith Richards feels very fortunate that he's the guy who gets to be Keith Richards.
“Keith Richards says, you shouldn’t do drugs. Keith, we can do any drugs, because you already did them all - there’s none left. We have to wait until you die so we can smoke your ashes.” - Dennis Leary
I am sure 20+ years of cocaine intake had nothing to do with his eventual mental state.
I might also add that Belushi was educated; DeNiro was a dropout.
Compared to Ginger Baker, Keith Richards is a choirboy.
Keith Richards gave up hard drugs 30 years ago and has tapered off most other drugs ever since, and recently gave up alcohol as well. Since he tidied up he has quietly been the clean and sober guy clucking behind the band’s crew to keep them from going down the drug drain. He is now 75, an age when even many healthy-living men die, and has sustained his marriage to a younger woman since 1983, so despite appearances, your characterization of Keith is unfair and inaccurate.
yes very poignant
Verne Troyer (Austin Powers Mini-me)
Tom Petty
Prince
Cory Monteith (Glee)
Peaches Geldof
Billy Mays (pitchman for Kaboom! etc)
Anna Nicole Smith
Dee Dee Ramone
John Entwistle (The Who)
John Bonham (Led Zeppelin)
Abbie Hoffman (60s anarchist)
Steve Clark (Def Leppard)
Sid Vicious
Ike Turner (Tina’s ex)
Lisa Robin Kelly (That 70s Show)
Margaux Hemingway (actress; Ernest’s granddaughter)
Bruce Lee
Judy Garland
Brian Epstein (Beatles manager)
Marilyn Monroe
Sigmund Freud
Tim Hardin.
Pigpen.
Yes I am aware of that. See my post #32. Sadly I fear that if it would not have been an auto accident I suspect Kinison would have left us the way so many others listed on this thread did. It has been my studied opinion and observation that many times, living a hard life can mean dying a hard death.
Dude, lighten up!
I was joking.
Ginger Baker, I have seen the documentary. Holy Cr#p
I think it was called beware of Mr Baker.
[That sordid spectacle didn’t stop De Niro, who was using cocaine himself in those days,]
Now it all makes sense. De Niro was a cokehead. Like Jeb Bush.
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