The actor Robin Williams compared to James Brown and Dante: “I admired the shit out of him”
The parallels between Robin Williams and an actor he held a deep-seated admiration for were plentiful, with their intertwined stories covering both success and tragedy.
For Williams, he was already a legend of the stand-up comedy circuit before he’d even dabbled in acting to a significant extent, with his breakthrough role in front of the cameras coming on sitcom spinoff Mork & Mindy, which brought his signature blend of exuberant comedy to the masses and earned a Primetime Emmy nomination along the way.
From there, the next logical step was cinema, which didn’t quite go according to plan when his first major leading role in a feature came in Popeye. Williams wasn’t best thrilled with the results, but his combination of comedic timing and charisma virtually guaranteed he was going to make it eventually.
That breakthrough moment came when he landed a ‘Best Actor’ nod at the Academy Awards for Good Morning, Vietnam, which not only raised his profile to the next level but indicated there was a powerhouse dramatic talent buried underneath the stream-of-consciousness stylings and boundless energy.
There was a similar belief being espoused over one of his contemporaries and a casual acquaintance who was fast becoming a firm friend, although nobody was ever given the chance to find out. Much like Williams, John Belushi first made waves in the comedy world as a founding cast member of Saturday Night Live, and he possessed a similar larger-than-life persona and natural charisma.
Of course, Belushi cracked Hollywood quicker than Williams did through classic comedies Animal House and The Blues Brothers, not to mention a plum part in Steven Spielberg’s maligned-if-successful war caper 1941. He showed signs of his dramatic prowess in 1981’s romantic dramedy Continental Divide, too, which proved to be the penultimate credit of his career.
Beyond their upbringings in live comedy and subsequent forays into screen stardom, another thing Williams and Belushi had in common was their love of cocaine. The two were even partying together and hoovering up mountains of the stuff the night before the latter died from an overdose, which caused the former to give it up completely.
Reflecting on the time they spent together in an interview with Rolling Stone, Williams shared how Belushi went out of his way to try and take him as far out of his element as possible. “I mean, I admired the shit out of him. I’d had a wonderful time with him,” he said. “One time he took me to a heavy hardcore punk club, and I was scared shitless.”
Williams compared his wild nights out with Belushi to “being on a tour with Dante, if Dante were James Brown.” A hybrid of a 14th-century poet, philosopher, and writer and the ‘Godfather of Soul’ is nothing if not a curious connection to make, but it’s not the most far-fetched thing in the world, either.
After all, Belushi was indeed a writer who used his SNL skits as a way to philosophise on the current state of the social, political, and celebrity landscape, with his wild-eyed and manic screen persona that evoked Brown’s freewheeling and exaggerated tics – which took over when he was pumped full of drugs – often obscuring the fact he was known to be a quiet, introverted, kind, and fiercely loyal person in a private setting.
It’s a hypothetical scenario, but it’s not all that difficult to imagine Belushi going on to enjoy a Williams-like career had he not passed away at the age of only 33. One of them would set the blueprint for evolving from a comedic phenomenon into an acclaimed thespian before comfortably settling into the role of beloved icon and established veteran. They had many of the same tools in their locker, so it’s not out of the question to suggest they could have carried on their professional kinship for decades to come.
Of course, Williams’ own life would be dogged by struggles and tragedy, but he never forgot those crazy nights on the town when Belushi made it his mission to see him as uncomfortable as possible.
