John Belushi Died In A Private Hollywood Bungalow After Doing Cocaine With Robert De Niro and Robin Williams

DECIDER – A bombshell new book from Shawn Levy recounts the tragic final hours of comedian John Belushi in March 1982. In The Castle on Sunset, an excerpt of which was published exclusively in The Hollywood Reporter, Levy traces Belushi’s final days inside his Chateau Marmont bungalow, where he stayed during the last few weeks of his life. According to Levy, Robert De Niro and Robin Williams were among the last people to see Belushi alive, as both actors allegedly stopped by the bungalow in the early hours of March 5 to snort “a few lines” of cocaine. Levy’s book goes on to claim that the next morning, De Niro called the hotel repeatedly in an attempt to contact Belushi, and when he finally learned that the beloved comedian had passed away, “he dropped the phone, crying.”

This is one of those fascinating things that I see in the headlines but I’m not sure if it’s a commonly known fact or not.  I hadn’t heard it, the guys in the office hadn’t heard it, so from that small sample size, and at the risk of being “that guy” that tells you something you already know…

The night before John Belushi died he was in a private bungalow in Hollywood doing cocaine with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams.

Belushi was at the Chateau Marmont, holed up in his room that was basically a disaster zone, full of trash and food and drugs, trying to “get a movie written” and “create a hit” 4 years after Animal House (his idea was called ‘Noble Rat,’ a wine industry romcom.)  He was originally in the penthouse, but when his wife came to visit him and saw how “depressing” the room was (and a Quaalude on the floor) asked him to move to the bungalow…which he quickly destroyed as well.

According to a new book the living room was a ‘shambles – not sloppy, but actually trashed, as if in a rage’.

All the writers and managers and friends who visited him all saw how out of control he was, and how he couldn’t focus on a single thing and always looked strung out.  De Niro was one of his best friends and had a penthouse on the top floor for whenever he visited LA, and was known to have some crazy times with Belushi:

…On this visit, De Niro had been joined for a time by his young son and adolescent daughter. One afternoon, he took them to a party where they encountered Belushi snorting such quantities of cocaine and heroin that he had to excuse himself to go find a place to vomit.  (HR)

So he knew all about the drugs and how bad it was.  A week after he checked in, De Niro stopped by to check on him and try to get him out for a little bit and hit up Sunset.

The night of March 4, De Niro reportedly encouraged Belushi to join him for a night on the Sunset Strip, but Belushi refused, instead suggesting that De Niro return to the bungalow to party after the clubs closed. While out, De Niro ran into Williams, who also agreed to stop by Belushi’s at the end of his evening. “Williams did, and like De Niro, was creeped out by the scene, leaving after a few words and a little coke,” writes Levy.

De Niro then bumped into Robin Williams at a club, and both of them ended up back at the hotel with Belushi and a table covered in coke.

According to Levy on March 4, Belushi’s last night alive, De Niro and his friend the actor Harry Dean Stanton kept calling Belushi to try and get him to come out with them but he wouldn’t pick up.

At that point they drove to his bungalow at the Chateau Marmont and found it in an ‘awful state’.

Levy describes how a ‘flinty, hard-eyed woman named Cathy’ was there and De Niro and Stanton left because they felt so uncomfortable.

They went to a club called On the Rox and came back at past 3am where he ‘had a few words and a few lines and took some of the cocaine that was piled on the living room’ and went back to his suite.

Williams also stopped by and was ‘creeped out by the scene’ and left after a quick chat and some cocaine.

The next morning, Belushi was dead.

At 8am the next day a room service waiter delivered wheat toast, jam and a pot of coffee to Belushi’s bungalow and Cathy signed for it – Belushi was in bed, snoring loudly.

Shortly after that music producer Derek Power knocked loudly because he was looking for a friend but did not get an answer and then realized he had the wrong bungalow.

At noon Wallace, Belushi’s bodyguard, went to see him and found him unconscious so tried to give him CPR. He called Brillstein, Belushi’s agent and told him: ‘I’m having trouble waking John up’

Minutes later he called again: ‘There’s something really wrong with John!’

Brillstein got his secretary to call 911 and ordered his assistant, Joel Briskin, to go the bungalow. When he arrived Wallace told him: ‘Get out of here! John’s dead!’

After the paramedics arrived pandemonium set in at the Chateau Marmont and journalists arrived en masse – one banged on De Niro’s door until he shouted: ‘Go away!’ (Daily Mail)

Just a really sad story all around that I didn’t know about until now.  RIP to the legend.  And to Robin Williams too while we’re here.  RIP to the legendS.

(via Decider, Hollywood Reporter, Daily Mail)