Jim Belushi is a consummate comedian. He can joke around about anything. His recent comment in the Chicago Sun-Times is just a sampling. He proudly admitted to being a pill-popper. For an entertainer, that is probably not an unusual admonition. Being in his 50s, you’d probably assume that the entertainer had done more than his fair share of pills. Then he went on to explain the comment with his laundry list of medical complaints that required daily medications.

Not funny? That’s what makes Jim Belushi’s special brand of comedy so wonderful. He can take the things that make most of us wince and bring humor to them. He makes us smile at his and our own difficulties and short comings.

Born in 1958, the 58 year old Belushi is a native of the Chicago area. Born and raised in the near suburb of Wheaton, he went to high school there and then went on to the College of DuPage and finally Southern Illinois University at Carbondale graduating with a degree in speech and theater. He cut his comedy teeth at the famous Second City comedy club from 1977 to 1980. Jim wasn’t alone in his quest for success in the entertainment field. Big brother John Belushi paved the way for the young Jim, also starting out as a comedian at Second City and making a huge splash as one of the sunglass wearing Blues Brothers. However, Jim had to find his own path after his big brother met an untimely death at the very young 33 from a hard life of real pills and a variety of other drugs and alcohol. Jim did indeed go on to make his own stamp on the business and find a way to make his goals a reality

For years Mr. Belushi has covered every area of entertainment from movies and sit-coms to his marvelous stand up shows. He’s been a fairly regular on the iconic Saturday Night Live and has been in movies such as Trading Places, K-9 and Curly Sue. Even though he’s numerous movies have made him a formidable force as an actor, he has also enjoyed long standing popularity for his TV series, “According to Jim.” You can check out Jim Belushi’s Chicago great comedy style at a Chicago area performance at the beautiful Rialto Square Theater right here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2013 at 8:00 am and is filed under Comedy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.