According to Jim (Season Premiere Tuesday, December 2, 9:00-9:30 p.m., ET)
JAMES BELUSHI
Jim on the ABC Television Network's "According to Jim"
Jim Belushi has been a favorite of film, television and stage audiences for more than 25 years. He is one of the great leading character actors equally at home in drama and comedy, and is also a gifted performer who can also hold a room as front man of a rhythm and blues band.
Belushi currently stars on the ABC hit comedy, "According to Jim," in which he plays the husband in a marriage that actually works, and the father of five children. He also serves as executive producer and has directed several episodes. The family favorite series will be returning for an eighth season on ABC.
A proud Chicagoan, Belushi graduated from Southern Illinois University with a degree in Speech and Theatre. He then became a resident member of Chicago's famed Second City, from 1976-80. In 1979 he left for Hollywood, when writer-producer Garry Marshall cast him in the Paramount Television series "Who's Watching the Kids," and later in "Working Stiffs" with Michael Keaton.
It was his work in Edward Zwick's "About Last Night," with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, that brought Belushi his first serious attention as a film star. In the 1986 feature, he reprised the role which he had played on stage in David Mamet's Obie Award-winning "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," from which the film was adapted. His feature credits since then show an extraordinary range: He was James Woods' spacey DJ buddy, Dr. Rock, in Oliver Stone's "Salvador"; the mentally handicapped dishwasher befriended by Whoopi Goldberg in the Andrei Konchalovsky film, "Homer and Eddie"; and the defiant high school principal standing up to drug dealers in "The Principal."
In 2000 Belushi co-starred in MGM's "Return to Me," directed by Bonnie Hunt and starring David Duchovny and Minnie Driver, and received rave reviews for his work with Gregory Hines in Showtime's "Who Killed Atlanta's Children?" Other starring roles include "Joe Somebody," the "K-9" franchise for Universal Studios, "Red Heat," "Curly Sue," "Taking Care of Business," "Once Upon a Crime," "Mr. Destiny," "Only the Lonely," Michael Mann's "Thief," "The Man with One Red Shoe," "Real Men," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Jingle All the Way," "Retroactive" and "Gang Related." Belushi was also seen in the Disney live-action feature film version of the cartoon "Underdog." Additionally, he voices the Squirrel in the animated feature "The Wild," and the Woodsman in the animated feature "Hoodwinked." Most recently, he was the voice of Bernie in Disney's "Snow Buddies," released on DVD in February of this year.
Among Belushi's television credits as an actor and writer are "Saturday Night Live," "Parallel Lives," the Oliver Stone/ABC miniseries "Wild Palms," the movie "Sahara" for Showtime and the critically-acclaimed series "Beggars and Choosers."
Belushi has also stayed close to his stage background, starring on Broadway in Herb Gardner's acclaimed "Conversations with My Father" at the Royal Theatre; off-Broadway in "True West" at the Cherry Lane Theatre; in the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of John Guare's "Moon Over Miami;" and for Joseph Papp as the Pirate King in "Pirates of Penzance."
Besides acting, Belushi loves music. His band, The Sacred Hearts, are a rhythm-and-blues band who have been together for 12 years, performing 40 nights a year at clubs, casinos and corporate events all over the country. They are the "Official House Band" for The House of Blues, in which Belushi is a partner, and have entertained President Clinton, Vice President Gore, senators, Gray Davis and other politicians. Big Men Big Music is a project that Belushi started with his friend, Dan Aykroyd. They have played with the Rolling Stones twice. Last September they opened for The Rolling Stones at Soldier Field in Chicago and performed at the SARS benefit in Toronto for over 400,000 people, which the Rolling Stones also headlined. Their CD was number one on the blues chart. Belushi currently has four CDs out: "Blues Brothers Live from Chicago," The Sacred Hearts' "36 x 22 x 36," Big Men Big Music CD, "Have Love Will Travel," and the recently-released "According to Jim" soundtrack.
Belushi has added authorship to his repertoire, as his first book was released in May, entitled Real Men Don't Apologize. He explains how to do just about everything, from picking up women and choosing your friends to sticking up for yourself, and how NOT to apologize.
A dedicated husband and father, Belushi has little time outside career and family, but has made a major commitment as founder and member of the board of the John Belushi Scholarship Fund, which supports college and college-prep students pursuing performance and visual arts education.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
HOMETOWN Chicago, IL
BIRTHDATE June 15
