John Belushi’s pal who ran secret Old Town club dies at 62

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Steve Beshekas with John Belushi

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Updated: February 24, 2012 8:05AM

Steve Beshekas ran a clandestine club that was the hottest ticket in town — maybe the country.

He managed the Sneak Joint, an Old Town hangout for two big stars who were “on a mission from God” as they filmed a movie that showed Chicago in all its rustbelt glory.

After stocking the Sneak Joint with liquor and a great jukebox, John Belushi hired the gregarious Mr. Beshekas — whom he’d known since they were young men in Wheaton and Villa Park — to operate the private club for him and Dan Aykroyd.

After a long day of crashing cars, fighting Illinois Nazis and singin’ the blues, Belushi and Aykroyd, aka Joliet Jake and Elwood, wanted a place where they could let off steam from making the 1980 film “The Blues Brothers.”

You never knew who was going to walk into the joint near North and Wells. Jackson Browne, the Eagles, Robin Williams and the gang from Second City dropped by and hung out with Mr. Beshekas.

“He was at the epicenter of a lot of fun,” said Belushi’s widow, Judy Belushi Pisano. “Steve was one of John’s best friends.”

“People offered huge money to get in there,” said Second City and Saturday Night Live alum Tim Kazurinsky. “It was the least glamorous place you could imagine, but it became mythic.”

Mr. Beshekas knew how to be a great host. “Treat the stars like folks,” he’d say, “and the folks like stars.”

If Beshekas’ name sounds familiar, it may be because Belushi routinely dropped the name when he was roaring through Saturday Night Live as one of its original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. When Belushi had to introduce himself in a skit, he’d often say, “I’m Steve Beshekas.”

“Anytime he needed a name, he’d say ‘Steve Beshekas,’” said his sister, Dolly Beshekas Rada.

Mr. Beshekas, 62, died last month in a fire in his apartment in the 500 block of West Wellington. Authorities said it may have begun from his own cigarette, but his sisters say that couldn’t have been. After years of running clubs, Steve hated smoking, said Dolly and another sister, Cookie Beshekas Brandt.

A neighbor said Steve was safely outside, but ran back into his apartment to try to save his cat, Yoda. The cat survived the fire — barely — but had to be euthanized, Dolly Rada said.

Mr. Beshekas had always been an animal lover, Cookie said — the kid who freed the lightning bugs from the jar when the other kids weren’t looking; the boy who couldn’t shoot a deer on a hunting trip.

An autopsy showed Mr. Beshekas was intoxicated. His sisters said he sometimes drank more than they liked. He had trouble finding a job, they said, after the closure of the restaurant where he had been a manager, Ranalli’s on Clark.

“The recession was bad, and he says to me, ‘Who wants a 60-year-old bartender?’ ” Cookie recalled. “I think he drank a little bit too much, had a little bit too much free time on his hands.”

And after his friend Belushi died in 1982 of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, Mr. Beshekas “was never the same,” Dolly said.

He told his sisters: “ ‘If I was there, he wouldn’t have died.’” Mr. Beshekas was a pallbearer at Belushi’s funeral.

Mr. Beshekas grew up in Villa Park and went to Willowbrook High School. He dabbled in theater and football, and hung out with teammate Tino Insana, a Belushi buddy who would go on to be a busy Hollywood voice actor.

With their Mediterranean and Orthodox backgrounds, Belushi and Beshekas hit it off, Cookie said. Mr. Beshekas, Belushi and Insana formed a comedy improv troupe, the West Compass Players. They visited the Urbana-Champaign area, where Judy studied at the University of Illinois. At one point, singer “Dan Fogelberg opened the show for them,” Pisano said.

When Belushi and Insana were accepted at Second City — and Beshekas was not — “he never begrudged them going on to better things,” Kazurinsky said.

And Belushi and Insana “never stopped being great pals to Steve,” Kazurinsky said. “He was really a gracious and fun guy. He always had a smile and a slap on the back for you.”

“He always wanted to be the host,” said Cookie. “Even going to the hardware store, if he didn’t make somebody laugh, he felt like he wasn’t living up to what he needed to do.”

Mr. Beshekas cut a commanding figure. His lush head of hair and luxurious moustache made him resemble “a Greek god,” his sisters said. “He had the long hair and the earring,” Dolly said, “and my dad’s freaking out — you know, an old Greek: ‘Get a haircut!’”

After the Sneak Joint, “We helped him get established in another place,” said Pisano. Mr. Beshekas opened U.S. Blues Bar at 1446 N. Wells.

Things went well for a time, his sisters said. The bar sported Blues Brothers memorabilia, including a car model that hung from the ceiling, said Pisano.

But his marriage broke up; the building sold. A new lease was hard to come by. “He was a good host,” Cookie said, “but not with paperwork.’’

Mr. Beshekas is also survived by a nephew and three nieces who will miss his practical jokes.

A celebration of his life is planned in Chicago in the New Year, said his friend, musician Pete Special.

Contributing: James Scalzitti