I Killed John Belushi

Summary

“I Killed John Belushi” – Crimes of the Times (October 21, 2025)

Podcast: Crimes of the Times
Host: Christopher Goffard, LA Times Studios
Guests: Tony Brenna (former National Enquirer reporter), Shawn Levy (author)

---

Episode Overview

This episode investigates the death of John Belushi, the SNL and Animal House star whose 1982 overdose at the Chateau Marmont became the center of a sensational media and criminal drama. Host Christopher Goffard focuses on the shadowy journalism of the National Enquirer—specifically reporter Tony Brenna—and the resulting prosecution of Catherine Evelyn Smith, the woman who administered the fatal dose. Through interviews with Brenna and author Shawn Levy, the episode explores how tabloid tactics, celebrity myth-making, and legal maneuvering converged to shape the legacy of Belushi's tragic end.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

John Belushi: A Brief Portrait

• Persona and Self-Destruction:
  Belushi was revered for his physical comedy and reckless, boundary-busting persona—both on and off screen.

  “My characters say it’s okay to screw up...most movies today make people feel inadequate. I don’t do that.” (John Belushi, paraphrased by Goffard, 01:09)

• Addiction as Public Knowledge:
  Friends, colleagues, and the public were largely aware of Belushi’s destructive habits and periodic interventions.

The Fatal Night at Chateau Marmont

• Setting & Privacy:
  The Chateau Marmont was legendary for its privacy and bohemian flair—a favored haunt for artists seeking to evade the public eye.

  “It was a place where people could camp out...an arts colony...comings and goings, no one took note.” (Shawn Levy, 12:05)

• The Overdose:
  On March 5, 1982, Belushi died at 33 from a speedball (heroin and cocaine). The role of Catherine Evelyn Smith (occasionally called “Kathy Silverbag”) emerges.

Tony Brenna & The National Enquirer’s Pursuit

• Tabloid Culture:
  Tony Brenna shares the aggressive, cutthroat, and ethically flexible culture of the Enquirer, with its British “Fleet Street” import of checkbook journalism:

  “Most of the reporters at the Inquirer were British because the Brits have got a much more easygoing standard to checkbook journalism.” (Brenna, 04:55)

• Hollywood as a Tabloid Warzone:
  The Enquirer maintained paid informants throughout Hollywood—restaurants, hospitals, agencies—to track potential stories.

  “We were detested in Hollywood. We were up against a legion of PR people...working for the CIA.” (Brenna, 08:53)

The Hunt for Catherine Evelyn Smith

• Tracking a “Mystery Woman”:
  Brenna and a colleague follow Smith to Toronto, trawling bars and clubs, plying contacts with drinks and cash, and eventually drawing her out with the promise of payment.

  “We did about three to four nights of this, and we were really getting pretty bloody desperate.” (Brenna, 15:58)

• The Negotiation and Confession:
  The Enquirer wanted a front-page confession: “I killed John Belushi.” For days, Brenna and the team partied with Smith, negotiating the price (up to $30,000) and pushing for a specific photo and taped quote. Smith resisted, but ultimately:

  “She said, all right, what do you want me to do? I killed the effing guy. Well, I killed the effing guy.” (Brenna, 20:11)
  The confession was splashed on the June 29, 1982 cover.

Legal Consequences & Aftermath

• LAPD Involvement and Prosecution:
  The taped confession, obtained in the context of Enquirer “browbeating,” prompted the LAPD to charge Smith—ultimately leading to indictment and extradition.
• Trial and Sentencing:
  Much of Smith’s confession was ruled inadmissible as it had been given in “an atmosphere of levity,” but other evidence and testimony were sufficient for involuntary manslaughter.

  “[Fox, prosecutor] told me it was an unusual case since a prosecutor doesn’t often get a defendant who both provides the lethal drugs and admits to injecting them.” (Goffard, 24:23)

• Smith’s Fate:
  Smith served half of a three-year sentence before deportation to Canada. Later, she recanted her confession, telling students she was misquoted and prosecuted because she “was the only one left standing.” She died in 2020 at age 73.

Reflections on Tabloid Ethics and Repercussions

• Brenna’s Regrets and Pride:
  Brenna is proud of breaking the story, but expresses complicated feelings for his role in Smith’s conviction:

  “I didn’t like Kathy Smith really, but I felt some sort of sympathy for her.” (Brenna, 26:42) “It was the only time in my long career I’d actually put someone behind bars.” (Brenna, 26:29)

• The Enquirer—then and now:
  From media behemoth to “limping wreck,” its era of influence and tactics has mostly ended.

Lasting Legacy: Chateau Marmont and the Belushi Myth

• Hotel’s New Reputation:

  “It goes from people having to describe Chateau Marmont in newspapers to Chateau Marmont, the famous hotel on the Sunset Strip where John Belushi died.” (Levy, 27:43) The hotel’s aura shifted, becoming a “fetish” for the macabre with celebrity guests seeking Belushi’s bungalow.

• Enduring Symbol:
  The Chateau now markets a luxe Hollywood experience, with a lingering undercurrent of “hedonistic and naughty and even perilous behavior.” (Levy, 28:48)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I killed the effing guy. Well, I killed the effing guy.”
  – Catherine Evelyn Smith’s taped confession, extracted by Tony Brenna (20:11)
• “You’re not going to get any Pulitzer Prizes for purity or anything like that. This is tabloid journalism at its very most vicious and worst.”
  – Tony Brenna, reflecting on his methods (20:11)
• “…absent the wiles of a self described ruthless tabloid operator like Tony Brenna, it seems unlikely the story forever linking Smith’s name to Belushi’s would have seen print.”
  – Christopher Goffard (26:04)
• “It’s nearly over. I mean, it’s something out of the past now.”
  – Brenna, on the fading age of the print tabloid (27:29)
• “It becomes…like a fetish for certain people. Rick James and Jean Michel Basquiat both requested…to stay in the Belushi bungalow.”
  – Shawn Levy (27:43)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:00 – 02:30] — Introduction to John Belushi’s myth and unraveling
• [03:03 – 07:20] — Tony Brenna’s tabloid origins and motivations
• [09:55 – 13:09] — The Chateau Marmont and Belushi’s last days
• [13:52 – 19:36] — The search for and negotiations with Catherine Evelyn Smith
• [21:21 – 25:54] — Smith’s confession, legal fallout, and trial
• [26:04 – 27:29] — Brenna’s reflections; the demise of the tabloid age
• [27:34 – 29:18] — The Chateau’s transformed image and lasting legacy

---

Overall Tone

Goffard’s reporting and Brenna’s candor give the episode a gritty, unsentimental tone—unflinching in its depiction of both the feverish world of 1980s tabloids and the moral complexities of their scoops. Shawn Levy’s observations add historical color and a sense of tragic inevitability to the Belushi and Chateau Marmont lore.

---

Listeners unfamiliar with the Belushi case will come away with a clear, vivid understanding of how media, addiction, ethics, and crime collided in one of Hollywood’s most notorious chapters.

Transcript

[A]

This is an LA Times Studios Podcast. Chris Gofford here at LA Times Studios. Thanks for joining us on Crimes of the Times. Today we discuss the death of comic legend John Belushi and the unusual prosecution that followed. We'll talk to the tabloid journalist who made it possible. Tell us what you think in the comments below. In the mid-1970s, a magazine called comic John Belushi the most dangerous man on tv. He was one of the breakout stars of the original Saturday Night Live. He played a giant bee in a gibberish shouting samurai. A prodigy of physical comedy, his Persona was recklessness and unpredictability and a gleeful abandonment of all proprieties. His role as John Bluto Blutarski in National Lampoon's Animal House is what people tend to remember about the 1978 movie. His character was a lovable mischief making fraternity slob with no off switch and colossal appetites for everything that was bad for him. He guzzled liquor like water and stuffed burgers whole into his mouth. Once Belushi gave an interview trying to explain the appeal of his characters. My characters say it's okay to screw up, belushi said. Most movies today make people feel inadequate. I don't do that off screen, Belushi's appetites for everything that was bad for him were also Titanic. One Saturday Night Live writer who sometimes did cocaine with him spoke of Belushi's quote, very self destructive drive, that crazed death oriented gusto that puts the edge on his performance. According to Wired, Bob Woodward's book about the comedian, Belushi binged heavily during the making of the blues Brothers, the 1980 comedy, and the director punched him in the face when he found him with a pile of cocaine. Other people tried repeatedly to intervene as he spiraled out of control. On March 5, 1982, Belushi died of an accidental overdose at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles. He was 33. The resulting news coverage made many people familiar with the term speedball, the combination of cocaine and heroin that killed him. I know, it was the first time I heard the term. For years, Belushi had been ruining himself, hurtling toward disaster in plain view of friends, hangers on and Hollywood associates. It was not immediately obvious that any crime had been committed. But then the National Enquirer got involved and an especially aggressive reporter named Tony Brenna, with a pile of company cash and a mandate to get a confession from the woman who supplied the comedian with his fatal overdose, she comes to the hotel.

[B]

We've got a fairly big suite. We're Figuring this is going to take a couple of days to get everything out of her. Not just to do an interview with her, but they want a headline to put on the front cover. And they're not going to pay any money unless they get that headline. And that headline is her saying, I killed John Belushi.

[A]

Today on crimes of the Times, the death of John Belushi and the highly unusual prosecution that follows. For the Los Angeles Times, this is Christopher Goffard. Tony Brenna is Now in his 90s, retired and living near Seattle. The English born Brenna thrived in mainstream journalism for decades. He covered the United nations for the London Daily Telegraph and the BBC. He joined the National Enquirer in the mid-1970s when the tabloid was selling nearly 6 million papers a week. The tabloid was ubiquitous at supermarket checkout lines. It was gleefully low minded. It specialized in scandals, miracle cures, ugly celebrity divorces, celebrity love, children and juicy tell alls. It was an environment that Brenna describes as endless high octane requiring guile and enterprise. It turned out he was great at it. Many of the journalists who thrived at the Enquirer were British reporters trained in the methods of London's Fleet Street. In other words, they were skilled in dangling money in front of otherwise reluctant sources, a practice forbidden at mainstream media outlets like the one I work for.

[B]

Most of the reporters at the Inquirer were British because the Brits have got a much more easygoing standard to checkbook journalism, although they have tougher laws than Americans.

[A]

Brenna says he was chased out of Israel for ambushing Henry Kissinger's wife at a hotel pool and kicked out of Memphis for trying to bribe a janitor for photos of Elvis Presley's autopsy. Brenna says his publisher got it in his head that he wanted to see Presley's organs.

[B]

He wanted to see Elvis's heart and his liver. So myself and another reporter threw a lot of bribery and a lot of skull daggery found the mortuary staff and we approached one of them and said, we'll pay you big bucks for these pictures. Will you do it? And he said he would. We agreed a fee, I think, I don't know, 50 grand or something like that. And then the police come and arrest us and they say, okay, pack your things up, you're out of Memphis. And they escort us to the airport. We have to leave. So we never saw those pictures.

[A]

He tells a lot of these stories in his memoir, Anything for a A Reporter's Life. Brenna says it felt liberating to work for, quote, One of the most scabrous papers in the world, as he puts it. He had a six figure salary, three times what the regular press was making. He became what he calls a ruthless predator, the perfect tabloid operator, and says the job exacerbated his amoral streak.

[B]

The type of reporters at the Inquirer were from all over the place. We had people who'd worked at the LA Times, we had me who had worked at the United nations, we had people who had worked for the London Times, Australian papers. We were earning like three times as much money as most American journalists. And also we were getting global assignments. I mean, we were going all over the world. Buenos Aires, Madrid. I went to Moscow, the Philippines, Tokyo.

[A]

He says that Enquirer management fostered paranoia as a management tool, pitting reporters against each other in an environment of cutthroat competition. The publisher, Generoso Pope Jr. Fired people constantly.

[B]

So now you've got a house with a pool, you're living in Florida, you're on the road most of the year, you're not spending all your salary. But all of this can end in a flash if you piss off Generoso Pope. And every Friday there would be a huge office party all financed by Pope, with all the booze you could drink and all the food you could eat. But every Friday, a whole bunch of us got fired. You know, we charge through brick walls to get storage because we want to keep our lifestyle and our jobs, you know, and also too, after you've been sort of working at the National Enquirer, you're not very welcome now anywhere else. People don't like inquiry journalists. They are automatically suspect as being unreliable. Cheat slides. I took a lot of pride in being the best there. And that's why I got a promoted me to roving editor.

[A]

Eventually, the tabloids sent him to cover Hollywood, which he says was probably the Enquirer's most demanding beat. The staff had a vast network of paid informants stationed strategically around town.

[B]

Basically, we were detested in Hollywood. And we were up against a legion of PR people who were trying to smite us down all the time. And private detectives and. And lawyers. It was like working for the CIA. Okay? We had the people in the restaurants who were on the payroll. Most of the managers were on the payroll. We had people in the hospitals. We had orderlies and nurses. We had agents who were working both sides of the fence and making money from the tabs as well as from their clients. I was very, very careful. Some of those sources, I would not let the office have either because I didn't trust the office either. Editors were all in competition with each other to keep their jobs. So the paranoia was in the office as well. This thing was a rat's Nest.

[A]

In March 1982, John Belushi was staying in Bungalow 3 at the Chateau Marmont Hotel on Sunset Boulevard for $200 a night. The hotel was a favorite of bohemian New York actors. It had a charming run down vibe with mismatched furniture and duct taped carpet.

[C]

It was always a part of Hollywood, but it was sort of like a speakeasy almost. It was like a hidden place.

[A]

Shawn Levy wrote a book about the history of the hotel called the Castle on Sunset.

[C]

It's also a history of Hollywood because Chateau Marmont has been an adjunct and sometimes a hub of to the history of Hollywood basically since the silent film era, right through the present day. But it also is known for being affordable. So it was cheap and it was private. It was built as an apartment house. So you had your own space. You didn't have a lobby, you didn't have a restaurant, you didn't have a bar. So there were no looky loos, there were no paparazzi. It catered to bohemians, it catered to people who wanted to sort of get away with stuff. The very famous dictum of Harry Cohn telling his young actors in the 30s, if you want to be seen, go to the Beverly Hills Hotel. If you don't go to Chateau Marmont.

[A]

In the 1970s it was discovered by TV producer Lorne Michaels, who created Saturday Night Live in New York and would stay at the hotel when he came to Los Angeles.

[C]

When his cast members started to go to Hollywood, he told them, go stay at Chateau Marmont, they'll take care of you. So all the factors that were in it, it was cheap, it was, it was central. But it was sort of off to the side. And it had a specific connection to Saturday Night Live. That said, most people in Los Angeles did not know what that building was. The signage is separated from the building. It's down on the road and it's tiny.

[A]

For someone like Belushi, it offered privacy from prying eyes. His drug suppliers could slip in and out without passing through the lobby.

[C]

You could come in through the garage and go straight up to somebody's room. You could come in the back door where the bungalows are on the street that runs behind the hotel. And it had developed a reputation as a rock and roll hotel, although not a riot house like the hotels a little further west on the Strip. It was A place where people could camp out. You know, people lived there for literally years at a time. And you know, people at Chateau were used to there being late night carrying on. You know, people had pianos in their rooms. You would pass people practicing scenes, you know, so it was like an arts colony and comings and goings. No one took note of them. The morning of Belushi's death, his personal trainer showed up with a typewriter. No one would have blinked at that. So of course he was slipping in and out with an envelope of powder, even a big manila envelope of powder. No one would have thought anything about that.

[A]

In March 1982, the National Enquirer's man in Hollywood, Tony Brenna, got the call that Belushi had been found dead there. He arrived at the scene in time to see the comedian's covered body wheeled to a coroner's. Soon he learned the name of one of the last people to see Belushi alive. Katherine Evelyn Smith. People called her Kathy Silverbag because she carried drugs in her silver purse. She had been briefly questioned and released. Brenna thought she might have answers if he could find her.

[D]

As the weather cools, I'm swapping in warm, durable pieces that are built to last. And Quince delivers every time with wardrobe staples that'll carry you through the season. Quince has those kinds of fall staples that you actually want to wear on repeat, like 100% Mongolian cashmere from just $60. Classic fit denim and and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up. By partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver premium quality at half the cost of similar brands. The suede trucker jacket has become an essential part of my wardrobe lately and just looks really casual but well made. Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they Look. Go to quince.com Crimesofthetimes for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Crimesthetimes free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Crimesofthetimes.

[A]

According to police, Catherine Evelyn Smith was one of the last people to see Belushi Alive. She was 34, a former roadie and rock band groupie and occasional backup singer. She had been the live in paramour of musician Gordon Lightfoot who had written a song about her. She had jet setted with the Rolling Stones. She had partied with the band. She had been Clinging to the periphery of the entertainment industry for years. Recently, she'd been living in Los Angeles and dealing heroin to pay for her own habit. Police briefly detained her after Belushi's death, found a syringe and a spoon in her purse, and then released her. She fled to her native Toronto. Brenna got orders to find her, and he jumped on a plane with another Enquirer reporter. He began prowling Toronto's seedier precincts. They went from bar to bar, club to club, buying people drinks, handing out cash, and leaving word for Smith.

[B]

These are the amateur and the professional drag crowd. I mean, the amateur people are a little more scary than the professionals. The professionals are more businesslike and not as likely to sort of lose their cool. But the amateurs threatened to punch us out and cut our throats and Christ knows what. It was a very unhappy scene. I mean, people stoned and drunk or high. We did about four, I think about three to four nights of this, and we were really getting pretty bloody desperate. And then suddenly we get a phone call from the office, and it's my editor. And he says, hey, I've got Kathy Smith on the other line. She has now got the word that we're looking for her, and she has called the National Enquirer in Florida. And she's a very savvy woman. I mean, she's dealt with the tabloids before, and she's. She's out to make money out of this, the whole deal.

[A]

Smith was also angry at the Inquirer reporters. They were spooking her drug connections, but she was also lacking a reliable source of money and desperate for it. Brenna says she had a girl next door quality to her, but beneath that Persona, she was a street hustler. He found her to be what he called a real scumbag, the kind he says Hollywood produces in big numbers. Brenna says he offered her $20,000 for her story, but she wanted at least twice as much, which the editors would not approve. So he spent what he called a decadent week trying to persuade her, which left even the Inquirer shocked by the size of the expenses. The Inquirer editors wanted a headline that said, I killed John Belushi. Those were the exact words they wanted Brenna to extract from her, otherwise the story wouldn't fly. She was adamantly against it. For one thing, she knew the LAPD wanted to question her.

[B]

There's a sort of psychological battle now, now develops between myself and her and the other reporter there, too. She's not happy with 20 grand. Then we get it up to 30 grand, and she's outraged at 30 grand. She wants 50. So the office is now deciding they don't want to pay 50. And this thing is dragging out. Our bar bill is becoming enormous, and we're now all smoking marijuana and drinking a lot of booze. Coming up from the. From room service. We're into our third day of this, and it's just one long party. And we're trying to ingratiate ourselves as her friend. And we got her to the point where she's going to accept the $30,000, but she will not stand in front of a picture of the National Enquirer, which we got pinned to the wall with John Belushi's face on it. And we wanted to stand there in front of it and say, I killed John Belushi. She absolutely refuses to do this. And we call the office. The officer said, well, no story, no money, unless she says these words. And on tape.

[A]

In a chapter called Coup de Grace in his memoir, Brenna frankly details the browbeating that ensued. So there's a whole chapter here in your book. Anything for a headline where you're telling her, we gotta get this shot, Kathy. And this is you saying, furious. I insisted, Kathy, we're on the home stretch now. It's just a frigging tabloid yarn. Nobody believes the bull we print, especially the LA District Attorney. You want the cash, don't you? I'll even try to get you another five if they like the photo. So it sounds like really high pressure tactics that you're employing here.

[B]

It was. I mean, you weren't going to get any Pulitzer Prizes for purity or anything like that. This is tabloid journalism at its very most vicious and worst. I mean, I'd spent. I'd spent 10 years as a tableau journalist at this point, I think, and I had never been involved in anything quite as crass and demeaning as this, but it was like we had to get this freaking story. So I say to her, finally, after a lot of verbiage, look, Kathy, you have to say it us. You're not going to get paid. You're not. Nobody else is going to pay you. You're up in Canada. You're safe from lapd. It's going to be okay. So she said, all right, what do you want me to do? I killed the effing guy. Well, I killed the effing guy. So that's it. Click. We turn off the tape recorders, and story goes, page one.

[A]

There it was on the COVID of the June 29, 1982 issue, along with some celebrity gossip, some horoscope news, and a story about a sperm bank baby. A surly looking Kathy Smith was standing by the quote, I kill John Belushi. And the Tease World exclusive. Mystery woman confesses. She said she shot up John Belushi with a speedball because he feared needles. She described herself as Florence Nightingale with a hypodermic syringe. The story quoted her saying, I didn't mean to, but I was responsible for his death. At 3:30am I shot up John for the last time. He got his coup de grace, which is what he wanted. In Los Angeles, prosecutors took notice. The Inquirer was forced to surrender its tapes. And Brenna endured six months before a grand jury.

[B]

Grueling buddy appearances in the grand jury and having to answer most of their questions, many of which are embarrassing because there's references to, well, Mr. Brenner, did you supply drugs? And I had to admit that we'd smoked marijuana. I also had to admit that she'd had a lot to drink and as we had too.

[A]

In March 1983, a year after Belushi's death, Smith was indicted on account of second degree murder, a charge potentially carrying 15 years to life and 13 counts of administering cocaine and heroin to the comedian. She was extradited to the U.S. her attorney, Howard Weitzman, insisted that she had just done what Belushi had asked her to. He said Belushi had been on a suicide mission and that his client was a victim. He told reporters that she clearly did not intend to murder anyone. He said, quote, the real culpable individuals in all of this are, are the people who continue to give Mr. Belushi money, knowing where that money was going. A judge excluded most of Smith's taped confession, including the coup de grace remark. The judge said that she had given the statements in an atmosphere of levity and that she didn't necessarily understand what she was saying. But enough of the evidence was admitted to keep the case alive. And at Smith's preliminary hearing in September 1985, Belushi's companions testified that she had injected Belushi multiple times in the days before he died. I talked to Eldon Fox, the prosecutor. He told me it was an unusual case since a prosecutor doesn't often get a defendant who both provides the lethal drugs and admits to injecting them. He told me that he felt bad for Kathy Smith after listening to the tape of her confession. You could hear the Inquirer reporters whining and dining her and feeding her Alcohol. Her lawyer worked out a deal for her. She was allowed to plead no contest to involuntary manslaughter. Fox, the former prosecutor, told me he thinks she would have avoided jail altogether and got off with probation if she had not relapsed before her sentencing. But a probation report noted that she had 54 fresh needle marks and Superior Court Judge David A. Horowitz scolded her. Yes, he said Belushi's drug infested life led to his own death. But she was also culpable. She served half of a three year prison sentence, got out in 1988 and was deported to Toronto. A decade later, Smith appeared at Hollywood High School to give an anti drug lecture. She warned students that addiction leads to an early grave, an institution, a dumpster. But now she was denying that she had given Belushi the fatal speedball. She claimed she was misquoted about the coup de grace. She claimed she was prosecuted because, quote, I was the only one left standing. She died in 2020 at age 73.

[B]

She is, you know, much smarter than us in some ways and much more ruthless too, I think. But she was a broken, spoiled person.

[A]

You know, absent the wiles of a self described ruthless tabloid operator like Tony Brenna, it seems unlikely the story forever linking Smith's name to Belushi's would have seen print.

[B]

Sounds egotistical, but I think. No, I think you're absolutely right.

[A]

Well, for, I mean, for one thing, you had the, you had the bundle of cash. That helps.

[B]

Oh, yeah, of course.

[A]

Brenna said he's proud of having cracked the story, but his feelings about his role in Smith's fate are more complicated. He says it was the only time in his long career he'd actually put someone behind bars.

[B]

Apart from our promises of her immunity and all the rest of it. And you're going to be okay up in Toronto. She goes in the slammer for a year and I think, I think it kind of really broke her. And, you know, I felt pretty bad about that. I didn't like it. I mean, I didn't like Kathy Smith really, but I felt some sort of sympathy for her.

[A]

These days, the Enquirer's circulation is way down from its peak, hobbled by online competition and scandal. Brenna calls it a limping wreck of what it once was. Also gone is the era of print tabloids that it embodied.

[B]

It's nearly over. I mean, it's something out of the past now.

[A]

The Chateau Marmont is still standing. But Shawn Levy tells me that Belushi's death altered the hotel's image overnight.

[C]

It goes from people having to describe Chateau Marmont in newspapers to Chateau Marmont, the famous hotel on the Sunset Strip where John Belushi died. And that's in every citation of the hotel's name in every medium for like the next 15, 20 years. That's what it's known for. It's on the Hollywood ghoul tours. It becomes sort of like a fetish for certain people. Rick James and Jean Michel Basquiat both requested when they visited Chateau Marmont to stay in the Belushi bungalow. It acquired this reputation of being like this orgiastic. You're taking your life into your hands if you go to brunch there. And that naughty reputation suddenly became a commodity.

[A]

Celebrity sightings are still common there. The hotel has gone upscale. Cottages can now rent for $1,200 a night.

[C]

Underneath the marketing for this luxurious golden age of Hollywood place is this hint of bohemian and hedonistic and naughty and even perilous behavior.

[A]

From LA Times Studios, this is Crimes of the Times. To read more about these cases, check out Crimes of the [e-mail] we also have a link to our video episodes in the show Notes. This episode was written and reported by me, your host, Christopher Goffard. Our senior producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shifflett with sound design by Jonathan Shifflett. Associate producer is Jordan Patterson. Video editing by Cooper Kenward. Special thanks to LA Times Studios, Paul President, Anna Magzanian, president and chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argenteri and executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Crimes of the Times is executive produced and co created by Darius, Derek Shahn and me, Christopher Goffard.