Dan Aykroyd

His paternal ancestor was Englishman Samuel Aykroyd from Halifax, Yorkshire, who emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Upper Canada near Kingston, Ontario in 1810.

His father, Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd (1922–2020), a civil engineer, worked as a policy adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and his mother, Lorraine Hélène Marie (née Gougeon; 1918–2018), was a secretary.

His mother was of French Canadian descent and his father was of English, Scottish, Irish, French, and Dutch ancestry.

Daniel Edward Aykroyd (born July 1, 1952) is a Canadian and American actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and musician.

Aykroyd was born on July 1, 1952, at The Ottawa Hospital in Ottawa, Ontario.

His brother, Peter (1955–2021), was also an actor.

He attended St. Pius X and St. Patrick's high schools, and studied criminology and sociology at Carleton University, but dropped out before completing his degree.

He worked as a comedian in various Canadian nightclubs and ran an after-hours speakeasy, Club 505, in Toronto for several years.

Aykroyd developed his musical career in Ottawa, particularly through his regular attendance at Le Hibou, a club that featured many blues artists.

He describes these influences as follows:

"There was a little disco club there called Le Hibou, which in French means 'the owl.' And it was run by a gentleman named Harvey Glatt, and he brought every, and I mean every, blues star that you or I would ever have wanted to have seen through Ottawa in the late '50s, well I guess more late '60s sort of, in around the Newport jazz rediscovery. I was going to Le Hibou and hearing James Cotton, Otis Spann, Pinetop Perkins, and Muddy Waters. I did actually jam behind Muddy Waters. S.P. Leary left the drum kit one night, and Muddy said 'anybody out there play drums? I don't have a drummer.' And I walked on stage and we started, I don't know, Little Red Rooster, something. He said 'keep that beat going, you make Muddy feel good.' And I heard Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett). Many, many times I saw Howlin' Wolf. As well as the Doors. And of course Buddy Guy, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.

So I was exposed to all of these players, playing there as part of this scene to service the academic community in Ottawa, a very well-educated community.

Had I lived in a different town I don't think that this would have happened, because it was just the confluence of educated government workers, and then also all the colleges in the area, Ottawa University, Carleton, and all the schools—these people were interested in blues culture."

Aykroyd's first professional experience, which he gained at the age of 17, was as a member of the cast of the short-lived Canadian sketch comedy series The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour with Lorne Michaels, among others.

He was a member of the Second City comedy troupe in 1973 in both Toronto and Chicago.

Aykroyd gained fame on the American late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL).

He was originally hired, and paid $278 a week, as a writer for the show, but became a part of the cast before the series premiered.

The original cast was referred to on the show as "The Not Ready For Prime Time Players".

Aykroyd was a writer and an original member of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" cast on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from its inception in 1975 until his departure in 1979.

During his tenure on SNL, he appeared in a recurring series of sketches, particularly featuring the Coneheads and the Blues Brothers.

Aykroyd was the youngest member of the cast, and appeared on the show for its first four seasons, from 1975 to 1979.

He brought a sensibility to the show which combined youth, unusual interests, talent as an impersonator, and a manic intensity.

Guest host Eric Idle of Monty Python said that Aykroyd's ability to write and act out characters made him the only member of the SNL cast capable of being a Python.

He was known for his impersonations of celebrities such as Jimmy Carter, Vincent Price, Richard Nixon, Rod Serling, Tom Snyder, and Julia Child.

He was also known for his recurring roles, such as Beldar, father of the Coneheads family; with Steve Martin, Yortuk Festrunk, one of the "Two Wild and Crazy Guys" brothers from Bratislava, Slovakia; sleazy late-night cable TV host E. Buzz Miller and his cousin, corrupt maker of children's toys and costumes Irwin Mainway (who extolled the virtues and defended the safety of the "Bag-o-Glass" toy); Fred Garvin – male prostitute; and high-bred but low-brow critic Leonard Pinth-Garnell.

Aykroyd and Jane Curtin parodied the Point/Counterpoint segment on the CBS news show 60 Minutes, which featured the liberal Shana Alexander and the conservative segregationist James Kilpatrick, by portraying the two as hating one another; Aykroyd's first words in response to Curtin's point were, "Jane, you ignorant slut!".

Aykroyd's eccentric talent was recognized by others in the highly competitive SNL environment; when he first presented his "Super Bass-O-Matic '76" sketch, a fake TV commercial in which a garish, hyper-pitchman (based on Ron Popeil) touts a food blender that turns an entire bass into liquid pulp, the other writers and cast members considered the sketch "so exhilaratingly strange that many remember sitting and listening, open-mouthed ... Nobody felt jealous of it because they couldn't imagine writing anything remotely like it."

Aykroyd later said that the inspiration for the sketch was seeing his aunt Helene Gougeon (a culinary writer and food columnist in Montreal) put a bass into a blender in order to make a bouillabaisse when he was 12 years old.

While Aykroyd was a close friend and partner with fellow cast member John Belushi and shared some of the same sensibilities, Aykroyd was more reserved and less self-destructive.

Aykroyd later recalled that, unlike Belushi and others of his peers, he was uninterested in recreational drug use.

For his work on the show, he received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 1977.

After his departure, he has since returned to guest roles.

He also is known for his comedic roles in Trading Places (1983), Spies Like Us (1985), Dragnet (1987), Coneheads (1993), The Great Outdoors (1988), The Blues Brothers (1980), and its 1998 sequel.

Aykroyd gained prominence for writing, and starring as Dr. Raymond "Ray" Stantz in Ghostbusters (1984), and Ghostbusters II (1989) and has reprised his role in various projects within the Ghostbusters franchise.

In 1990, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Boolie Werthan in Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

He has since appeared on various television shows including It's Garry Shandling's Show (1990), Home Improvement (1997), Family Guy (2009), The Simpsons (2021) and The Conners (2019).

Aykroyd is also a businessman, having co-founded the House of Blues chain of music venues and the Crystal Head Vodka brand.

Other dramatic roles include in My Girl (1991), Chaplin, and Sneakers (both 1992).

Aykroyd has done supporting roles in Tommy Boy (1995), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), 50 First Dates (2004), The Campaign (2012), and Behind the Candelabra (2013).

He starred as Reverend Mike Weber, in his sitcom Soul Man (1997–1998).