Actor and screenwriter Dan Aykroyd got his professional start in his native Canada. Before working as a stand-up comedian in various Canadian nightclubs, Aykroyd studied at a Catholic seminary from which he was later expelled; he then worked as a train brakeman, a surveyor, and studied sociology at Carleton University in Ottawa where he began writing and performing comedy sketches. His success in school lead him to work with the Toronto branch of the Second City Comedy improvisational troupe. At the same time, he was also managing the hot nightspot Club 505. At this time, he met comedian and writer John Belushi who had come to Toronto to scout new talent for "The National Lampoon Radio Hour." In 1975, both Aykroyd and Belushi were chosen to appear in the first season of Canadian producer Lorne Michael's innovative comedy television series Saturday Night Live. It was there that Aykroyd gained notoriety for his dead-on impersonations of presidents Nixon and Carter. The show also allowed him to develop other popular characters such as Beldar, the patriarch of the Conehead clan of suburban aliens, and Elwood Blues, the second half of the Blues Brothers (Jake Blues was played by Belushi). He made his feature-film debut in 1977 in the Canadian comedy Love at First Sight, but neither it nor his subsequent film Mr. Mike's Mondo Video were successful. His first major Hollywood screen venture was a co-lead in Spielberg's 1941 (1979). Aykroyd still did not earn much recognition until 1980, when he and Belushi reprised their popular SNL characters in The Blues Brothers. Following that success, he and Belushi teamed up one more time for Neighbor's(1981)--the next year Belushi died. As an actor, Aykroyd himself believes that he works best as part of a team, and his subsequent films, such as Ghostbusters (1984), bear this out. During the 1980s he has appeared with some of Hollywood's foremost comedians, including fellow SNL alumni Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Eddie Murphy. He has also teamed up with Tom Hanks and the late John Candy. In such pairings, Aykroyd usually plays the straight man, typically an uptight intellectual, or latent psycho. He tried his hand at drama in 1989 as Jessica Tandy's son in Driving Miss Daisy and for his efforts won an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. As a screenwriter he has co-written many of his films, including Blues Brothers and Dragnet (1987).