John Belushi’s Last Night in West Hollywood

Legendary comic actor John Belushi did not actually die within the city of West Hollywood since his final hours were spent in bungalow 3 at the Chateau Marmont, which is located just outside the city limits but much of his last evening was spent on the Sunset Strip. Belushi was supposed to be in L.A. taking meetings about upcoming projects but he spent most of his time hanging out with friends and local drug dealers.

John Belushi skyrocketed to fame as one of the original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” on Saturday Night Live. He and castmate Dan Ackroyd parlayed their SNL characters The Blues Brothers into an album, a tour, and a hit movie. The success of “The Blues Brothers” and “Animal House” made Belushi one of the most bankable stars of the late 70s and early 80s but also accelerated his use of drugs like cocaine. In March of 1982, the SNL alum was badly in need of a hit film. His last two movies had bombed and his biggest hit, “Animal House” had been released four years earlier. 

Belushi made a trip to L.A. to work on the script for a film called “Noble Rot” and take meetings with Hollywood bigwigs but after checking into the Chateau Marmont on the evening of February 28, 1982, he was quickly distracted by the Sunset Strip nightlife. One of Belushi’s favorite LA hangouts was On the Rox, the private club upstairs from the Roxy nightclub. This was the perfect place to meet famous pals and a good place to do large quantities of drugs including cocaine.

Instead of working on his flagging career, Belushi spent most of his time wandering from the Roxy to the Rainbow to Dan Tanas on Santa Monica Blvd. After a long night of partying on the Strip, Belushi would invite friends back to his Chateau Marmont bungalow, which soon became a messy crash pad.

A frequent visitor – and the source of the drugs that caused Belushi’s death – was Cathy Evelyn Smith, the onetime muse of singer Gordon Lightfoot who had fallen to being a drug dealer to the stars. It was Smith who left the Chateau Marmont and walked down Harper Avenue to an apartment where she bought the “speedball” that she would inject into John Belushi.

The comic’s last night alive was spent hanging out and snorting cocaine. After several druggy hours at On the Rox, Belushi headed next door to the Rainbow, a restaurant popular with several generations of rockers. Owner Mario Maglieri could see that the SNL alum was in bad shape and tried to tempt him with a variety of the eatery’s tastiest dishes but Belushi ate only a few spoons of the house’s special lentil soup. An autopsy found that Scarlet Maglieri’s homemade soup was the only food in Belushi’s stomach when he died. 

On the evening of March 4, actors Robert De Niro and Harry Dean Stanton dropped by Belushi’s bungalow to invite him to dine with them at Dan Tana’s before hitting On the Rox. Belushi declined in favor of getting high with Smith so the pair left. Later at On the Rox, they ran into Robin Williams who later performed an impromptu set at the Comedy Store. After the bars closed, both Williams and De Niro stopped by to visit Belushi but soon left. This would be the last time they saw the comedy star alive. 

Sometime after 3 a.m., Smith scored a “speedball,” a potent mix of cocaine and heroin. Around noon the next day, Belushi’s trainer let himself into the bungalow and found him not breathing. Soon the Chateau Marmont was surrounded by LAPD, EMTs, the coroner, and the idly curious. 

For the next couple of years, every out-of-town visitor I hosted wanted to see “the place where Belushi died.” This is not the sort of notoriety any business wants but the Chateau Marmont will be stuck with this label for a long, long time.