A writer and chameleon-like comic actor, Aykroyd has been proven to be among the most versatile and talented of all the many Saturday Night Live TV alumni who have ventured into the movies. He has not, however, been the most popular of his fellow comic actors, in part because he has not developed a specific comic persona. An intelligent performer, Aykroyd has successfully played everything from good-natured goofballs to hardnosed idiots, with several innocent Danny Kaye types in between. He has also coauthored the scripts for three of Hollywood's biggest comedy hits, exhibiting the underlying depth of his comic sensibility.
Born in Canada, Aykroyd honed his comic talents as a member of Chicago's famous Second City improvisational comedy group. His big break came when he was hired as an original cast member of TV's Saturday Night Live, on which he and fellow cast member John Belushi introduced the characters of the Blues Brothers. The routine started out as a hip, comic singing act, but the idea caught on and the team began performing as Elwood and Jake Blues at sold-out concerts across the country, eventually leading them to star in the classic movie comedy The Blues Brothers (1980), which Aykroyd coscripted. It was Hollywood's first truly bigbudget comedy, costing $30 million to produce; miraculously, it still turned a profit.
The Blues Brothers, however, was not Aykroyd's movie debut. He had appeared earlier in a little-known Canadian movie, Love at First Sight (1977), and in a small role in Steven Spielberg's mega-bomb, 1941 (1979). But with the success of The Blues Brothers, Aykroyd's career was truly launched and it was followed by splendid performances, if modest box-office successes, in the weirdly entertaining Neighbors (1981) and the more traditional comedy Dr. Detroit (1983). When Aykroyd then put together an excellent performance as a stuffy stockbroker in the critically admired and commercially successful Trading Places (1983), he was overshadowed by the emergence of Eddie Murphy as a new comic star. It wasn't until the following year, when he cowrote and starred in the huge comedy hit Ghostbusters (1984) that Aykroyd was finally perceived by many as a brilliant comic force.
Since Ghostbusters, Aykroyd's career has been uneven. While films such as The Couch Trip (1988), in which he played an escaped lunatic posing as a radio talk-show psychologist, showed an adventurous comic spirit, fans did not come out to see it. On the other hand, he had a hit with his savagely funny version of Dragnet (1987), in which he was partnered with the hot comic actor Tom Hanks. He also coscripted and starred in the successful Ghostbusters II (1989).
Dan Aykroyd eventually turned into a successful “serious” actor when he played Boolie, the son of Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy) in Driving Miss Daisy (1989), though other comic roles also awaited him. Since his affecting role in Driving Miss Daisy, Aykroyd was also brilliant playing Mack Sennett in Sir Richard Attenborough's Chaplin (1992) and was featured in 32 other films during the years that followed. In 2001 Aykroyd played Captain Thurman in Michael Bay's battle epic, Pearl Harbor, and was also featured as Gus Trenor in the Edith Wharton adaptation House of Mirth, directed by Terence Davies. But his forte has remained comedy, and only in comic films such as Sgt. Bilko (1996) is he likely to be cast in leading roles, shared in the latter case with Steve Martin.
An actor whose potential was never fully realized though there were flashes of greatness in his truncated career. A boyishly handsome young man, he became a star at the age of 21 and worked steadily until World War II dramatically changed his life, but not in the way it did most Hollywood actors who left the screen during the war to fight.
Born Lewis Ayer, he was a medical student who was discovered in a Hollywood nightclub playing the piano (and several other instruments) with a band. His first film appearance was a miniscule part in The Sophomore (1929). Later that same year, though, he burst upon the Hollywood scene in a big way as the recipient of GRETA GARBO's love in The Kiss (1929). It became better, still, for the actor, when he won the starring role in Lewis Milestone's classic antiwar film, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
Ayres had become a major star, and it seemed as if he could do no wrong. But he found himself sidelined in “B” movies throughout much of the rest of the decade, starring in all but forgotten films with titles such as Many a Slip (1931), Okay America! (1932), and Cross Country Cruise (1934). He cranked out 31 films in seven years before landing a supporting role in George Cukor's “A” movie treat, Holiday (1938), and did a credible job as KATHARINE HEPBURN's drunken brother. That same year, he was given the role of Dr. James Kildare in the MGM medical series created because the Andy Hardy films had become such a success. LOUIS B. MAYER was especially interested in the Kildare project because Lionel Barrymore could act the part of Dr. Gillespie in a wheelchair even though he had hurt his hip. It was Ayres's big break, and the Dr. Kildare films were a huge hit. Young Dr. Kildare (1938) was the first of nine films during a four-year period in which he played the dedicated physician. Though the world forgot the lesson of All Quiet on the Western Front, Lew Ayres did not. His refusal to bear arms in World War II effectively blackballed him from the film industry. He was dropped from the Kildare series, theaters would not show his films, and an enraged public wouldn't have gone to see them anyway. Eventually, Ayres volunteered as a medic and won the respect of his fellow soldiers by showing his courage in combat.
He returned to the screen in 1946 in The Dark Mirror, then made The Unfaithful (1947), and costarred as a doctor (a familiar role) with Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948), but the last of these would be his best role for a long time to come. By 1953, he was playing a mad doctor in the interesting but decidedly low-budget Donovan's Brain.
Ayres faded from Hollywood films during the rest of the 1950s, dedicating himself, in part, to writing, producing, and narrating a documentary about religion called Altars of the East (1955), which was based upon a book he had written. Twenty-one years later, he almost singlehandedly created a two-and-a-half-hour sequel called Altars of the World (1976). As for his acting career, Ayres began popping up in the 1960s and 1970s in small featured roles in movies such as Advise and Consent (1962), The Carpetbaggers (1964), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), and Damien - Omen II (1978). He appeared far more regularly on television, though, in a spate of TV movies during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. In 1989, Ayres appeared in the TV movie Cast the First Stone. Other TV roles included Stephen King's Salem's Lot in 1979.
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1. Abbot and Costello were very popular during the sound era
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