A proud Chicagoan, Belushi graduated from Southern Illinois University with a degree in speech, education, and theatre before moving on to become a resident member of Chicago’s famed Second City from 1976 to 1980. 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.

Currently starring on CBS’ hit one-hour drama The Defenders, Belushi plays a colorful defense attorney in Las Vegas who will do anything to win for his clients. The show co-stars Jerry O’Connell, and has earned solid ratings and reviews. Starting February 4th, The Defenders airs on Friday nights at 8:00pm on CBS. And coming up on the horizon, from April to July of 2011, you can see Belushi star in Garson Kanin’s “Born Yesterday” on Broadway. This revival, directed by Tony Award-winning director Doug Hughes, was first staged in 1948, and was later made into a film starring Judy Holliday, William Holden, and Broderick Crawford.

Belushi is no freshman to television. In 1983 he wrote and appeared in Saturday Night Live for two seasons. Among his other television credits as an actor are the Oliver Stone/ABC miniseries Wild Palms, the movie Sahara for Showtime, and the critically acclaimed series Beggars and Choosers. Belushi starred on the ABC hit comedy According to Jim, in which he played the husband in a marriage that actually works, and the father of five young children. He also served as executive producer, music composer, and director. After wrapping 182 episodes for its eighth and final season, the family favorite series also hit a milestone when it launched into off-net syndication in 2007.

Belushi’s first film was Michael Mann’s Thief in which he played James Caan’s partner in crime, but 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 that 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. Most recently, Belushi traveled to Berlin to shoot the part of a hard-talking publisher in Roman Polanski’s The Ghost.

In 2000, Belushi co-starred in MGM’s Return to Me, directed by Bonnie Hunt and starring David Duchovny and Minnie Driver, and he 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 with Arnold Schwarzenegger; John Hughes’ Curly Sue; Taking Care of Business; Once Upon a Crime; Mr. Destiny; Only the Lonely; The Man with One Red Shoe; Real Men; Jumpin’ Jack Flash; Jingle All the Way; Retroactive; and Gang Related with Tupac Shakur. Belushi was recently cast 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. He has leant his voice to hundreds of animated television shows from The Mighty Ducks to The Tick and AAAHH! Real Monsters; Scooby Doo to Superman. You will also see him in the upcoming independent features The Secret Lives of Dorks and Cougars, Inc.

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, and for Joseph Papp as the “Pirate King” in “Pirates of Penzance.” He starred off-Broadway in “True West” at the Cherry Lane Theatre, in the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of John Guare’s “Moon Over Miami,” and in Richard Nelson’s “Baal” at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

Besides acting, Belushi loves music. His band, The Sacred Hearts, is the Official House Band for the House of Blues chain. They are a rhythm and blues band who have been together for 14 years, performing 40 nights a year at clubs, casinos, and corporate events all over the country. With his harmonica in hand, Belushi and the band have entertained President Clinton, Vice President Gore, Senators, and other politicians. Big Men Big Music is a project that Belushi started with his friend, Dan Aykroyd, after spending ten years together performing as The Blues Brothers. In September 2005, 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, Have Love, Will Travel, was number one on the blues chart. Belushi currently has five CDs out: Blues Brothers Live from Chicago, The Sacred Hearts’ 36 x 22 x 36, The Big Men Big Music CD, Have Love Will Travel, and the recently-released According to Jim soundtrack.

Belushi has also added authorship to his repertoire as he released his first book in May of 2006, entitled Real Men: According to Jim. In it, Belushi 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. In his spare time he participates in many charities, and has made a major commitment as founder and member of the board of the John Belushi Scholarship Fund, which supports the College of Du Page, and the Chicago Academy of the Arts for students pursuing performance and visual arts education. Read Less ^