Dan Aykroyd

Nationalities

Canadian

Daniel Edward Aykroyd, born July 1, 1952, in Ottawa, Ontario, is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, and musician who trained at Second City Toronto before becoming an original cast member of Saturday Night Live (1975-1979). He co-created The Blues Brothers with John Belushi, co-wrote Ghostbusters (1984), and received an Academy Award nomination for Driving Miss Daisy (1989). His career arc from Second City Toronto's inaugural cast through SNL to Hollywood franchise creation is one of the most consequential trajectories produced by the Second City training tradition, and his commercial successes, including Ghostbusters and The Blues Brothers, established templates for improv-trained performers generating original film properties rather than adapting existing material.

Career

Daniel Edward Aykroyd was born on July 1, 1952, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the son of Peter H. Aykroyd, a civil engineer and policy advisor to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and Lorraine Gougeon. His family maintained a long interest in the paranormal; his great-grandfather Samuel Aykroyd had conducted seances in the 1920s, an interest that would later directly inform the Ghostbusters project. Aykroyd began participating in school plays by age eight and attended St. Pius X and St. Patrick's High Schools in Ottawa. He was diagnosed with mild Tourette's syndrome at age twelve and later, in his thirties, received an Asperger's syndrome diagnosis; he has cited both conditions as contributing to his creative output. At age twelve he enrolled in improv classes at the Ottawa Little Theatre under instructor Brian Gordon, receiving his first formal comedic training.

Aykroyd enrolled at Carleton University in Ottawa to study criminology and sociology, participating actively in the university's theatre company, but departed without completing his degree after approximately two years to pursue comedy and blues music. He performed comedy in Ottawa clubs and appeared on the Canadian sketch series The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour, where his work was noticed by Lorne Michaels.

In 1973, Aykroyd joined the inaugural cast of Second City Toronto, the newly formed Toronto branch of the Chicago company. His cohort at Second City Toronto included Gilda Radner, John Candy, Valri Bromfield, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Jayne Eastwood. During this period he developed blues performance skills alongside Second City's musical improv formats and met John Belushi during a Toronto-Chicago exchange. In 1974 he moved to Second City Chicago as part of an exchange, developing impression characters including a Richard Nixon-as-car-salesman routine and working under Brian Doyle-Murray and Joe Flaherty.

In 1975, Lorne Michaels recruited Aykroyd to join NBC's Saturday Night, later renamed Saturday Night Live, initially as a writer before rapid elevation to full cast member. He was part of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players alongside Belushi, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, and Laraine Newman. His recurring characters included Beldar Conehead (Coneheads), Elwood Blues (The Blues Brothers), a Bass-O-Matic infomercial host, and a Julia Child parody. He received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program in 1977, with additional nominations in 1978 and 1979. His Point/Counterpoint political satire segments with Jane Curtin became a cultural touchstone of the period.

In 1978, Aykroyd co-created The Blues Brothers musical act with Belushi as an SNL sketch vehicle. The duo recorded the album Briefcase Full of Blues, which received three Grammy nominations. In 1980, The Blues Brothers feature film, directed by John Landis from a screenplay Aykroyd co-wrote with Landis, grossed over $115 million against a $30 million production budget. He left SNL in 1979.

Following John Belushi's death from an acute drug intoxication in 1982, Aykroyd became an advocate for Belushi's legacy and championed awareness around addiction. His subsequent film work included Trading Places (1983), the police comedy Dragnet (1987), and the horror comedy My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988).

In 1984, Ghostbusters was released, co-written by Aykroyd and Harold Ramis from a concept Aykroyd developed drawing on his family's paranormal history. The film grossed $295 million worldwide on a production budget of approximately $30 million, making it one of the most commercially successful comedies in cinema history to that point. Ghostbusters II followed in 1989, the same year Aykroyd received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Driving Miss Daisy.

In 1991 he wrote and directed Nothing But Trouble. In 1992 he co-founded House of Blues, a music venue chain, with Judith Belushi Pisano; the chain was acquired by Live Nation in 2006 for $354 million. The Hollywood Walk of Fame honored him with a star in 1993. Carleton University awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Literature in 1994. In 1998 he appeared in Blues Brothers 2000 and received the Order of Canada. He was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame in 2002.

In 2008, Aykroyd co-founded Crystal Head Vodka, a premium vodka brand packaged in a skull-shaped bottle and produced in Newfoundland, which became a commercially successful spirits enterprise. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2017 as an original SNL cast member and received the Order of Ontario in 2018.

Historical Context

Daniel Aykroyd's career illustrates the path from the Second City Toronto founding cohort through SNL to Hollywood franchise authorship more completely than any of his contemporaries except Bill Murray. His presence at the inaugural Second City Toronto in 1973 placed him among a small group of performers who established the Toronto branch of the institution that would subsequently train more working comedians than any other organization in North America. His subsequent move to Second City Chicago during the exchange of 1974 gave him direct experience of the parent institution during one of its most generative periods before the SNL emigration.

At SNL, Aykroyd arrived with a specific creative portfolio shaped by Second City's ensemble and character-building traditions. His contributions to the early SNL format, particularly his Blues Brothers character, his Coneheads family, and his Point/Counterpoint segments with Jane Curtin, demonstrated the range of performance modes the Second City tradition made available: musical character creation, absurdist domestic ensemble, and political satire. The Emmy he received in 1977 recognized the writing capacity that his sketch comedy background had developed.

The Ghostbusters project was a direct product of improv-tradition creative habits applied to commercial film development. Aykroyd generated the initial concept from his family's paranormal interests, developed it through collaborative writing with Harold Ramis, and carried both a performing role and a writing credit in the resulting film. The commercial performance of Ghostbusters established a model for improv-trained performers moving from ensemble comedy to franchise creation that influenced how the entertainment industry understood the commercial value of improv backgrounds in writers and performers.

His advocacy for Belushi's legacy and his co-founding of House of Blues in memory of their shared musical interests placed him within a tradition of Chicago-trained performers who used their post-SNL careers to honor and extend the cultural interests of the community they came from. The Blues Brothers' survival as a performing entity after Belushi's death, with Aykroyd maintaining the project through recordings and live performance, is an unusual case of a collaborative creative act continuing through one founding member's sustained commitment.

Legacy

Daniel Aykroyd's Ghostbusters, co-written with Harold Ramis, has generated a franchise with cumulative worldwide grosses exceeding one billion dollars across the original films, sequels, and reboots, establishing one of the most commercially durable properties originating from a Second City-trained performer's creative work. The Blues Brothers franchise, which Aykroyd co-created with Belushi and has sustained as a touring and recording entity for more than four decades, is the longest-running active project originating from an SNL character.

His Emmy Award for SNL writing in 1977 was among the first formal recognitions of improv-trained performers producing at the highest level in the television writing category, a validation of the writing capacity that the Second City tradition built through its sketch revue process. The subsequent careers of fellow SNL writers and performers from the Second City tradition benefited from this validation of the form's credibility in the industry.

His House of Blues venture with Judith Belushi Pisano, which honored the blues musical tradition that both Belushi brothers had championed, combined entrepreneurial investment with a specific cultural preservation impulse. The chain's acquisition by Live Nation for $354 million demonstrated the commercial viability of venue development by performers with deep cultural connections to a musical tradition.

His Order of Canada and Canadian Walk of Fame inductions, alongside his Hollywood Walk of Fame star, register his position across both the Canadian and American entertainment industries as a foundational figure in the development of sketch and improv comedy as commercially serious creative endeavors. His Television Academy Hall of Fame induction as part of the original SNL cast recognizes the collective contribution of that founding ensemble to the transformation of American television comedy.

Early Life and Training

Daniel Edward Aykroyd was born on July 1, 1952, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Peter H. Aykroyd, a civil engineer and policy advisor to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and Lorraine Gougeon. He grew up in Ottawa, attending St. Pius X and St. Patrick's High Schools. He was diagnosed with mild Tourette's syndrome at age twelve and received an Asperger's syndrome diagnosis in his thirties. He began improv classes at the Ottawa Little Theatre under Brian Gordon at age twelve. He enrolled at Carleton University to study criminology and sociology before departing to pursue comedy professionally.

Personal Life

Daniel Aykroyd married actress and comedian Donna Dixon in April 1983; they have three daughters, Danielle, Belle, and Stella. He has been a lifelong enthusiast of the paranormal and the blues tradition, both interests that directly informed his major creative projects.