Dan Aykroyd

Dan Aykroyd was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on July 1, 1952 (Canada Day), to a French Canadian Catholic mother and an English Canadian Anglican father. Both worked as public servants for the Canadian Federal Government. His maternal grandfather had a career as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police staff sergeant. This stimulated in Aykroyd a lifelong interest in law enforcement. Indeed, while filming Get on Up in Mississippi, he was sworn in as a Hinds County sheriff's deputy.

Renowned as an actor-comedian and writer, Aykroyd studied criminology and deviant psychology at Carleton University. In addition to writing papers on outlaw motorcycle gangs and the Michigan families of La Cosa Nostra, he held a summer position as a clerk 5 with the Canadian Penitentiary Service in the Solicitor General's office. While there, he composed a standard manual for the deployment of correctional personnel in emergency situations. Aykroyd also had jobs with Canada's Department of Transport (as an airport runway load-tester) and the Department of Public Works (as a highway surveyor and flex-track/ATV assistant mechanic in the subarctic).

Somehow, Aykroyd found time for comedy, and in 1970, he performed on the CBC network as a writer/actor for producer Lorne Michaels in The Great Canadian Humour Test TV special. Two years later, he took a job with producer Ivan Reitman in Toronto.

In 1975, Aykroyd joined Michaels in New York as a writer and an original member of the Saturday Night Live cast, creating unforgettable characters during a spectacular four-year run. During this period, Elwood Blues was born.

The character migrated to the big screen in the 1980 classic film The Blues Brothers, which Aykroyd co-wrote with director John Landis. In addition to Aykroyd and John Belushi, the cast included James Brown as Reverend Cleophus James.

Aykroyd has accrued nearly 100 film credits since those days, with lead roles in comic blockbusters such as Trading Places and Ghostbusters, as well as a memorable supporting role opposite Morgan Freeman and the late Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy. Aykroyd received an Academy Award® nomination for his performance in Driving Miss Daisy, which won four Oscars®, including for Best Picture in 1990.

Aykroyd's more recent credits include 2012's The Campaign, in which he co-starred opposite Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis; and HBO's 2013 award-winning Behind the Candelabra, opposite Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, in which he portrayed Liberace's longtime manager, Seymour Heller. Aykroyd starred opposite Melissa McCarthy in Warner Bros. Pictures' Tammy.

Aykroyd's career honors include a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist in 1979 for the double-platinum-selling "Briefcase Full of Blues" album, which he recorded with then-partner Belushi. In 1977, Aykroyd shared a Primetime Emmy Award with fellow Saturday Night Live writers.

Aykroyd was awarded an honorary doctorate in literature from Carleton University in 1997 in recognition of his Saturday Night Live writing and the nine produced screenplays on which he shares credit: Love at First Sight, The Blues Brothers, Spies Like Us, Dragnet, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Coneheads, Nothing But Trouble and Blues Brothers 2000.

Aykroyd was invested into the Order of Canada, an honor given to prominent Canadians who "desire to make a better country." He joined the pioneering Canadian Union of Postal Workers as an active member in 1969. He is a member of the Association of Canadian Radio and Television Artists, SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America. He is a subscribing benefactor to the American Society for Psychical Research and the Mutual UFO Network.

In 1983, Aykroyd co-ventured as an investor with the co-founder of Hard Rock Cafe International, Isaac Tigrett, to open U.S. outlets of the famous establishment. In 1993, Tigrett, Aykroyd and Laurence Bilzerian founded House of Blues Entertainment Inc.

Aykroyd holds the Canadian distribution rights to Patrón Spirits. In 2005, he entered Canada's wine industry by investing in and partnering with Toronto-based Diamond Estates Wines & Spirits Ltd. He and his partners have launched several wines bearing his name, including the Dan Aykroyd Discovery Series and the Dan Aykroyd Signature Reserve VQA Vidal Icewine. The latter was named Canadian Wine of the Year at the 2008 Ontario Wine Awards. Spurred by this success, Aykroyd entered the U.S. marketplace in 2008 with his Crystal Head Vodka (CHV), which is produced in Newfoundland. CHV won the Double Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

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