Georg John (July 23, 1879 – November 18, 1941) was a German stage and film actor.

Early life[link]

Georg John was born in Schmiegel, Province of Posen, Imperial Germany.

Career[link]

John began his career around 1900 in smaller stages and traveling theatres. In 1904 he was engaged at the Theater of Wilhelmshaven, followed by appearances at Stolp in 1905, Altona, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Bochum and Göttingen. In 1914 John worked as an actor and producer for Vaterländische Schauspiele in Vienna.

In 1917 John first appeared in silent movies, playing a Tibetan monk in Die Fremde (The Foreigner), and Death in Hilde Warren und der Tod (Hilde Warren and Death). These roles were typical of the kinds of parts he would become known for, even if, at first, he was more often seen as a father, husband or dignitary. Beginning in the 1920s, John appeared in the films of notable German filmmakers, where he often played bizarre, gnome-like figures, such as the beggar in Fritz Lang's Der müde Tod (Tired Death, 1921, released in English as Destiny), and the blind balloon seller who recognizes the murderer due to a whistled song in 1931's M. For F. W. Murnau he played a night-watchman in Der Letzte Mann (The Last Man, 1924, released in English as The Last Laugh).^[1]

Being a Jew, John was deported in autumn 1941 to the Łódź Ghetto where he died on 18 November 1941 at the age of 62.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Georg John at the Internet Movie Database
• Georg John at AllRovi
• Georg John at the TCM Movie Database
• Photos

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Bill Payne
Payne with Little Feat at a benefit for Richie Hayward, Burlington, Vermont January 14, 2010
Background information
Birth name	William Payne
Born	(1949-03-12) March 12, 1949 (age 63) Waco, Texas United States
Genres	Rock and roll, blues, Southern rock, Funk
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, record producer. pianist
Instruments	Vocals, Organ, Piano, Keyboards, Synthesizers
Years active	1969–present
Labels	Hot Tomato Records
Associated acts	Little Feat, Phil Lesh and Friends
Website	Bill Payne website

Bill Payne (born March 12, 1949, Waco, Texas, USA) co-founded, with Lowell George, the American rock band Little Feat.^[1] He is considered by many other piano rock musicians, including Elton John,^[2] to be one of the finest American piano rock and blues music artists. In addition to his trademark barrelhouse blues piano, he is noted for his work on other keyboard instruments, particularly the Hammond B3 organ. Payne is also an accomplished songwriter whose credits include co-writing, with Lowell George, the Little Feat classic, "Oh, Atlanta."

Payne has worked and recorded with other musicians including J. J. Cale, Doobie Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Bryan Adams, Pink Floyd, Bob Seger, Toto, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Helen Watson, Stevie Nicks, Shocking Edison, and Stephen Bruton. He was a guest performer on Bonnie Raitt's album Sweet Forgiveness in 1977, and wrote its track, "Takin' My Time."

Paul Barrere and Bill Payne played several live concerts with Phil Lesh and Friends, from 10/21/99 to 10/31/99, on 3/10/00, and from 6/21/00 to 7/30/00.

Following the death of Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward on August 12, 2010, Payne is the only member of the group remaining from the original four-piece line-up.

Other work[link]

Payne was a pioneer in the development of online music communities. In the early 1990s, he contacted his fan base and enlisted the help of friend Jay Herbst to develop the Little Feat Grass-roots Movement. This model went on to be a template for many bands in the creation of their Street Teams, which enlist the help of fans for purposes of music and concert promotion. This method has proven to be an effective vehicle for bringing bands and fans closer together, and forging friendships between them.

Songwriting (selected)[link]

Payne wrote or co-wrote many of the songs in Little Feat's catalogue, including the following:

• "Snakes on Everything"
• "Strawberry Flats"
• "Truck-Stop Girl"
• "Brides of Jesus"
• "Tripe Face Boogie"
• "Got No Shadow"
• "Oh, Atlanta"
• "Time Loves a Hero"
• "Gringo"

Discography[link]

Solo[link]

• Cielo Norte (2005)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bill Payne website
• Bill Payne Discography
• Little Feat website
• Something Wild (1966)
• Certain Fury O.S.T. (1985)
• Shocking Edison Website

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Lowell Thomas George (April 13, 1945 – June 29, 1979) was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, who was the main guitarist and songwriter for the rock band Little Feat.^[1]

Early years[link]

Lowell George was born in Hollywood, California the son of Willard H. George, a furrier who raised chinchillas and supplied furs to the movie studios.

George's first instrument was the harmonica. At the age of 6 he appeared on the Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour performing a duet with his older brother, Hampton. At Hollywood High School Lowell took up the flute in the school marching band and orchestra. He started to play guitar at age 11, continued with the harmonica, and later learned to play the saxophone and sitar. He played guitar with fellow schoolmate, and future bandmate, Paul Barrere.

Performing[link]

Early years[link]

George's first band, The Factory, formed in 1965, and released at least one single on the Uni label, "Smile, Let Your Life Begin" co-authored by George, with the B-side "When I Was An Apple". Members included future Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward (he replaced Dallas Taylor in Sept 1966), and Martin Kibbee (a.k.a. Fred Martin) who would later co-write several Little Feat songs with George, including "Dixie Chicken" and "Rock & Roll Doctor", and Warren Klein on guitar. Frank Zappa produced two tracks for the band, but they weren't released until 1993 on the album Lightning-Rod Man, billed as Lowell George and The Factory.^[2] The band made an appearance on the 1960s sitcom F Troop as "The Bed Bugs". They were also featured in a episode of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., "Lost, the Colonel's Daughter" (season 3 episode 27). Although not visible in the scene inside the A Go-Go club, their music can be heard playing loudly. They received credits at the end of the episode as "'The Factory' Lowell-Warren-Martin-Rich, Courtesy of Universal Records".

Following the disbanding of The Factory, George briefly joined the band The Standells. There followed a few months in late 1968 to early 1969 where George was a member of Zappa's band, the Mothers of Invention, and can be heard on both the album Weasels Ripped My Flesh, and the first disc of You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5, which included a version of "Here Lies Love" with Lowell as lead vocalist. At a 1975 Little Feat show in Rochester, New York, George said he was fired from the Mothers of Invention because he "wrote a song ["Willin'"] about dope." George also joined Peter Tork in his first post-Monkees band "Release".

Little Feat[link]

George performing in Buffalo, New York, May 1, 1977

After leaving the Mothers of Invention, George invited fellow musicians to form a new band, which they named Little Feat. George usually (but not always) played lead guitar and focused on slide guitar. Ry Cooder played the slide on the debut Little Feat album after George badly injured his hand while working on a powered model airplane, although George re-recorded some of his material. Mark Brend wrote that George's "use of compression defined his sound and gave him the means to play his extended melodic lines."^[3]

Outside of his band, George played guitar on John Cale's 1973 album Paris 1919, Harry Nilsson's Son of Schmilsson album (Take 54) and (uncredited but verified by Leo Nocentelli) The Meters' Just Kissed My Baby in 1974.

In the 1970s, Little Feat released a series of studio albums: Little Feat, Sailin' Shoes, Dixie Chicken, Feats Don't Fail Me Now, The Last Record Album, and Time Loves A Hero. The group's 1978 live album Waiting for Columbus became their best-selling album.

In an interview with Bill Flanagan conducted eleven days before his death, George stated that he was keen to re-form Little Feat without Bill Payne and Paul Barrère in order to reassert his full control over the group. Due to tensions within the group, especially between George and Payne and, to a lesser extent, Barrère, regarding musical direction and leadership, Payne and Barrère left the group in 1979.^[4]

George was also a producer, and produced the Grateful Dead's 1978 album Shakedown Street, as well as Little Feat's records, Valerie Carter's 1977 release Just A Stone's Throw Away, and George's 1979 solo album Thanks, I'll Eat it Here.

Death[link]

On June 15, 1979, George began a tour in support of his solo album. On June 29, 1979, the morning after an appearance at Washington, DC's Lisner Auditorium where the bulk of Waiting for Columbus had been recorded, George collapsed and died in his Arlington, Virginia hotel room.

A post mortem report later stated that heart failure was the cause of death. George's body was cremated in Washington, D.C. on August 2. His ashes were flown back to Los Angeles, where they were scattered in the Pacific Ocean from his fishing boat.

Posthumous tributes and cover songs[link]

• A benefit concert for George's family was held shortly after his death at the Forum in Los Angeles on August 4, 1979, featuring Little Feat, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Nicolette Larson and others.^[5]
• The song "Ride Like the Wind" on the 1979 self-titled album by Christopher Cross was dedicated to Lowell George.
• Jackson Browne memorialized George in his 1980 song "Of Missing Persons",^[6] on the Hold Out album released in June 1980. The song was dedicated to George's daughter, Inara George who is in the musical duo The Bird and the Bee.
• In 1983, the British poet Sean O'Brien included a poem "For Lowell George" in his collection, The Indoor Park.
• In 1988, American rock band Van Halen covered "A Apolitical Blues" as the closing track for their album OU812.
• In 1997, the CD Rock-n-Roll Doctor - A Tribute To Lowell George was released featuring various artists performing versions of George's songs, including Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Bonnie Raitt, Eddie Money, Randy Newman, Keisuke Kuwata, and Inara George.
• French recording artist Yann Schubert included tribute song "Lowell George" (words and music by Jean Philippe Kohn) in his 1980s eponymous album ( AZ/2 320 )

Chris & Rich Robinson covered Roll um easy on their album "Brothers of A Feather"

• American jam band Phish played all the songs from Little Feat's double LP Waiting for Columbus during their annual and traditional Halloween "Musical Costume" on 10/31/2010 in Atlantic City, New Jersey

References[link]

External links[link]

• Little Feat website

George John may refer to:

• George John (cricketer) (c. 1883–1944), West Indian fast bowler
• George John (soccer) (born 1987), American soccer player

See also[link]

• Georg John (1879–1941), German stage and film actor
• George Johns
• John George (disambiguation)
• All pages with titles containing "George John"

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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John Adam Belushi ( /bəˈluːʃi/; January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982) was an American comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live and starring alongside Dan Aykroyd in the comedy film The Blues Brothers. He was the older brother of James "Jim" Belushi.

Early life[link]

John Belushi was born in Chicago. He was the son of Agnes (née Samaras), who was of Albanian descent, and Adam Belushi (1918–1996), an Albanian immigrant and restaurant operator who left his native village, Qytezë, in 1934 at the age of sixteen. John was raised in a Chicago suburb, along with his three siblings: younger brothers Billy and Jim and his sister, Marian.^[1][2][3][4] The family's name at the time of immigration was Bellios, or Belliors.^[4] Belushi was raised in the Albanian Orthodox church and grew up outside Chicago in Wheaton. He attended Wheaton Central High School, where he met his future wife, Judy Jacklin.

Career[link]

Belushi's first big break as a comedian occurred in 1971, when he joined The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago. He was cast in National Lampoon's Lemmings, a parody of Woodstock, which played Off-Broadway in 1972 and showcased future Saturday Night Live (SNL) performers Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest.

In 1973, Belushi and Jacklin moved together to New York. From 1973 to 1975, National Lampoon Inc. aired The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program syndicated across the country on approximately 600 stations. Belushi was a regular player on the show. Other players included future SNL regulars Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray and Chevy Chase. Jacklin became an associate producer for the show, and she and Belushi were married on December 31, 1976. A number of comic segments first performed on The Radio Hour were transformed into SNL sketches in the show's early seasons.

1975–1979[link]

Belushi achieved national fame for his work on Saturday Night Live, which he joined as an original cast member in 1975. Between seasons of the show, he made one of his best-known movies, Animal House.

When interviewed for retrospectives on John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd told stories of John often finishing SNL rehearsals, shows or film shoots and John being exhausted, simply walking unannounced into nearby homes of friends or strangers, scrounging around for food and often falling asleep, unable to be located for the following day's work.^[5] This was the impetus for the SNL horror-spoof sketch "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave",^[6] in which Belushi torments a couple (played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray) in their home looking for snacks, newspapers and magazines to read, and taking control of their television. During the opening of the SNL episode that aired on December 17, 1977, Belushi, while in character as himself, quipped, "I plan to be dead by the time I'm 30."^[7] SNL also featured a short film by writer Tom Schiller called "Don't Look Back In Anger",^[8] where Belushi, playing himself as an old man and the last-surviving SNL cast member, visits the graves of his now-former cast members.

Belushi left Saturday Night Live in 1979 to pursue a film career. Belushi made four more movies; three of them, 1941, Neighbors, and most notably The Blues Brothers were made with fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd.

Other movie projects[link]

Dan Aykroyd wrote the roles of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters and Emmett Fitz-Hume in Spies Like Us with Belushi in mind. The roles were eventually played by Belushi's former SNL castmates Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, respectively.

Released in September 1981, the romantic comedy Continental Divide starred Belushi as Chicago home town hero writer Ernie Souchack, who gets put on assignment researching a scientist studying birds of prey in the remote Rocky Mountains.

At the time of his death, Belushi was pursuing several movie projects, including Noble Rot, an adaptation of a script by former Mary Tyler Moore Show writer and producer Jay Sandrich entitled Sweet Deception.

Belushi recruited the band Fear and brought them to Cherokee Studios to record songs for the soundtrack of Neighbors, a film he and Aykroyd were starring in. Cherokee Studios was a regular haunt for the original Blues Brothers back in the early days of the band. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd became fixtures at the recording studio, while fellow Blues Brother and guitar player Steve Cropper called Cherokee his producing home. "John was a crazy guy, but a heavy drinker. At times, he would drink an entire fifth of Jack Daniel's in less than five minutes," Aykroyd commented. Whenever they needed a bass player, they were joined by another Blues Brother, Donald "Duck" Dunn. During this time, Cropper along with producing partner and Cherokee owner Bruce Robb, worked on a number of music projects with the two comedian/musicians, the band Fear and later Aykroyd's movie Dragnet. "What can I say? John was excessively talented, and I guess you could say he sort of lived life 'excessively.' I think what happened to John had a sobering effect on a lot of people, me included," said music producer Bruce Robb.

Death[link]

On March 5, 1982, Bill Wallace found Belushi dead in his room, Bungalow #3 at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California.^[9] The cause of death was a speedball; the combined injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams^[10] and Robert De Niro,^[11] each of whom left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of assorted others, including Catherine Evelyn Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Dr. Ryan Norris among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.

Two months later, Smith admitted in an interview with the National Enquirer that she had been with Belushi the night of his death and had given him the fatal speedball shot. After the appearance of the article "I Killed Belushi" in the Enquirer edition of June 29, 1982, the case was reopened. Smith was extradited from Toronto, arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A plea bargain reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter, and she served 15 months in prison.^[12]

Shortly before Belushi's death, he appeared in a cameo for the comedy series Police Squad! At the suggestion of the show's producer, Robert K. Weiss, Belushi was filmed, face down in a swimming pool, dead. The footage was part of a running gag wherein the episode's "special guest star" would not survive past the opening credits without meeting some gruesome end. The scene was cut after his death and the footage is believed to have been lost.

Belushi and his friend Dan Aykroyd were slated to present the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 54th Academy Awards, an event held less than four weeks after his death.

Belushi was slated to appear on the well-known Canadian comedy show SCTV, which was by then being syndicated to the United States, but according to Dave Thomas, one of whose best-known characters on SCTV was Doug McKenzie in the "Great White North" sketches, they were "planning him into their set, when suddenly, they received a phone call that Belushi had died in his hotel room. We stopped our work and just stared at each other, not being able to believe what had happened. John Candy began to cry, for Belushi as a friend, but also because it, to him, signaled the end of that era of comedy TV, now that one of their greats was dead." The segments he was to be in were scrapped, and the show continued without him. An earlier SCTV sketch had starred Tony Rosato as Belushi.

Belushi's wife arranged for a traditional Orthodox Christian funeral which was conducted by an Albanian Orthodox priest^[13] and he is interred at Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His tombstone, a New England classic slate design, complete with skull and crossbones, reads, "I may be gone but Rock and Roll lives on."^[14] He also is remembered on the Belushi family stone marking his mother's grave at Elmwood Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois. This stone says, "He Gave Us Laughter."^[15]

The manner in which Belushi died has spawned a term in popular culture. For example, in the CSI episode titled "Way to Go (Part 2)" (season 6, episode 141), CSI Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) investigates the death of a Civil War aficionado, whose body was found in a hotel room, and who seemed to have been drugged. Forensic evidence leads Willows to ask a call girl if she had "Belushied" the victim.

Tributes[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

John Belushi's life is detailed in the 1985 biography Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward. Many friends and relatives of Belushi, including his wife Judy, Dan Aykroyd and James Belushi, agreed to be interviewed at length for the book, but later felt the final product was exploitative and not representative of the John Belushi they knew. The book was later adapted into a feature film in which Belushi was played by Michael Chiklis. Belushi's friends and family boycotted the film, the publicity from which helped cause the movie to be a box-office flop.

The Grateful Dead performed the song "West L.A. Fadeaway" beginning in late 1982. The song, penned by long time lyricist Robert Hunter and sung by Jerry Garcia, contains fairly explicit references to Belushi's death, especially the line "Looking for a chateau, 21 rooms but one will do.^[16]

Belushi was portrayed by actors Eric Siegel in Gilda Radner: It's Always Something, Tyler Labine in Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (which also features his friendship with Robin Williams), and Michael Chiklis in Wired.

His widow later remarried and is now Judith Belushi Pisano. Her biography (with co-biographer Tanner Colby) of John, Belushi: A Biography is a collection of first-person interviews and photographs, and was published in 2005.

On April 1, 2004, 22 years after his death, Belushi was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, after a ten-year lobbying effort by James Belushi and Judith Belushi Pisano. Among those present at the ceremony were Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, and Tom Arnold.

In 2006, Biography Channel aired the "John Belushi" episode of Final 24, a documentary following Belushi in the last 24 hours leading to his death. In 2010, Biography aired a full biography documentation of the life of "John Belushi".

The 1987 song "Efilnikufesin (N.F.L)", by the American thrash metal band Anthrax was dedicated to John Belushi.

Several characters in Neil Gaiman's short story "The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories" reference Belushi's death with varying (and incorrect) details.

Belushi's gravestone is also discussed in great length in the Tony Kushner play Reverse Transcription.

Belushi's alma mater, the College of DuPage, has established an annual performing arts scholarship in his honor.

Credits[link]

• National Lampoon's Lemmings (1973) (Stage)
• The National Lampoon Radio Hour (1973–1974) (Radio) (also Creative Director)
• The National Lampoon Show (1975) (Stage)
• The Beach Boys: It's OK (1976) (TV)
• Saturday Night Live (1975–1979) (TV)
• Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle (1975) (voice)
• Goin' South (1978)
• National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
• The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978) (TV)
• Old Boyfriends (1979)
• 1941 (1979)
• The Blues Brothers (1980)
• Continental Divide (1981)
• Neighbors (1981)

[edit] SNL characters and impersonations

Recurring characters

• Samurai Futaba
• Captain Ned, one of Miles Cowperthwaite's cronies
• Jacob Papageorge alias 'Joliet' Jake Blues, from the Blues Brothers
• Jeff Widette, from the Widettes
• Kevin (from The Mall sketches)
• Kuldorth (from The Coneheads)
• Larry Farber (one half of the Farber couple [the wife, Bobbi, was played by Gilda Radner])
• Lowell Brock, from the H&L Brock commercials
• Matt Cooper, from the Land Shark sketches
• Pete, from the Olympia Cafe
• Steve Beshekas (who was in real life a good friend of Belushi's since community college)
• Frank Leary, one of St. Mickey's Knights of Columbus

Celebrity impersonations

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (January 2010)

• John Belushi at the Internet Movie Database
• John Belushi at AllRovi
• John Belushi at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• John Belushi at Find a Grave Grave
• John Belushi at Find a Grave Family marker
• Interview (MP3) with biographer Tanner Colby and Judith Belushi Pisano on the public radio program The Sound of Young America regarding their book, Belushi. Includes clips from Belushi's work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
• Belushi: A Biography, official website for the book
• John Belushi Cult Turns 25 from The Conservative Voice
• Blues Brothers
• Top SNL performer from Maxim
• Noble Rot the "lost" screenplay of Novello and Belushi, from Subterranean Cinema