Arguably the most talented alumnus to graduate to Hollywood from "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE," Dan Aykroyd has nonetheless been commercially unsuccessful (I beg to differ--transcriber's comment :-p) as a solo comic movie star. Unlike fellow comic actors such as Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Tom Hanks, Dan Aykroyd appears to lack a dedicated following (again, I beg to differ :-)
A writer and chameleonlike comic actor, Aykroyd has successfully played everything from good-natured goofballs to hard-nosed idiots, with several innocent, Danny Kaye types in between. At a time when many actors, comic or otherwise, tend to show themselves sparingly on the screen, Aykroyd has been unusually prolific, appearing in nearly two films per year (on average).
Born in Canada, Aykroyd honed his comedic 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" that he and fellow cast member John Belushi introduced the characters of the Blues Brothers. It started out as a hip, singing comic act. It caught on and the two of them began performing as Elwood and Jake Blues in sold-out concerts, eventually leading them to star in the classic movie comedy The Blues Brothers (1980), which Aykroyd co-scripted. It was Hollywood's first truly big-budget comedy, costing $30 million to produce and miraculously still turning a profit.
The Blues Brothers, however, was not Aykroyd's movie debut. He had earlier appeared in the little-known Canadian movie Love at First Sight (1974) and in a small role in Steven Spielberg's mega-bomb 1941 (1979). With the success of The Blues Brothers, Aykroyd's career was truly launched and was followed by a scattershot variety of performances from the weirdly entertaining Neighbors (1981) to the more traditionally comic Dr. Detroit (1983). Major box office success eluded him, however, until he played the stuffy stockbroker in the critically admired and commercially successful Trading Places (1983). Here, as in The Blues Brothers, he was teamed with another strong comic performer, in this case, Eddie Murphy.
It wasn't until the following year, when he co-wrote and starred in the huge comedy hit Ghostbusters (1984) that Aykroyd was finally perceived by many as a brilliant comic force, albeit as much for his writing as for his acting. He has co-scripted seven of his films, the majority of them critical commercial hits. He directed one of those films, Nothing but Trouble (1991), which was not a hit.
Since Ghostbusters, Aykroyd's career has been richly uneven. While 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 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.
In recent years, Aykroyd has more aggressively branched out of comedy into serious character parts, receiving a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his work in Driving Miss Daisy (1989).