‘WARM, FRIENDLY’ COMEDIAN HAD A RAZOR-SHARP SENSE OF HUMOUR

His school friends were the weirdest and most eccentric, in the most positive ways. Where I was introverted, I saw how free Peter was, and I admired that.

DAN AYKROYD BROTHER

After a single season as a performer and writer on Saturday Night Live, for which he received an Emmy nomination, he collaborated with his brother, Dan, on a series of projects over the next two decades

At the ancestral family farm north of Kingston, Peter Aykroyd would delight in taking friends for summer drives around the area in an odd-looking car. Eventually he’d head toward the lake and drive the vehicle down a boat ramp at an incautious speed.

His friends would be shocked when the vehicle splashed in the water, but the driver would exhibit no alarm. The vehicle was an Amphicar, an amphibious automobile manufactured in the 1960s. Peter had a taste for high jinks and the high life.

“I built a formidable log cabin at the farm, but all the best parties happened at Peter’s shack on the cliff of the lake,” Peter’s older brother, the comedian and actor Dan Aykroyd, told The Globe and Mail. “He was unpredictable, but once he had his first cup of coffee in the morning, Peter was warm, friendly and incredibly funny.”

Peter Aykroyd, comedian, actor, writer and musician, died Nov. 6, in Spokane, Wash. According to his brother, he had developed septicemia from an internal infection precipitated by an untreated abdominal hernia. He was 65.

Known as a humane man with an absurdist, anarchic sense of humour and razor-sharp comic reflexes, the Ottawa native Peter was nominated for an Emmy Award for best writing in a variety or music program for his one-season stint on NBC’s Saturday Night Live in 1980. (His brother, Dan, was an original member of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players on the iconic sketch-comedy series from 1975 to 1979.)

His death was recently noted on

SNL, which also tweeted a short film by Tom Schiller that Peter starred in for the show. The noir parody Java Junkie also featured Teri Garr.

After SNL, Peter often worked with Dan, whether as a co-writer on the 1991 horror-comedy film

Nothing but Trouble or as a bit actor in feature films such as Dragnet (1987) and Coneheads (1993). A song Peter wrote for Dragnet, called

City of Crime, was used for a video that unfortunately required actor Tom Hanks to rap.

Peter had left Ottawa for Toronto when he was 18. Initially he stayed with Dan, who, in addition to being a cast member of the Second City comedy troupe in the early 1970s, co-owned an afterhours club at 505 Queen St. E., called Club 505. A hangout for police officers, comedians, musicians, garbage collectors and downtown rounders, the lively speakeasy also welcomed special visitors including Jack Nicholson, Paul Shaffer and John Belushi. Members of Canada’s Downchild Blues Band were regulars.

“Peter was a really nice, friendly guy who looked like a movie star,” Downchild bass player Gary Kendall said. “He was really supportive of the musicians who used to hang around that joint.”

Initially, Peter slept under a pinball machine in the club’s basement. In 1976, he joined the Second City mainstage troupe himself as a writer and performer with a cast that included Robin Duke, Brenda Donahue, Len Stuart and future SCTV member Dave Thomas.

“In the competitive environment of Second City, Peter was always very generous and supportive of the other performers,” Mr. Thomas told The Globe. “I know Dan admired his brother’s gentle soul and worried that Peter might get eaten alive in the competitive environment of Second City and, later, SNL. But that really didn’t happen because others, myself included, also recognized what a good person Peter was.”

In a 1977 feature interview with The Globe and Mail, Peter displayed a self-deprecating tone. Speaking about his success at a relatively young age – the comedian was 22 – he offered a disclaimer. “I’ve got a quantum leap to make before I’m where Dave Thomas is.”

Globe writer Bryan Johnson found Peter’s low-key sobriety in sharp contrast to his older brother’s more dynamic manner. “I’m a pretty serious guy,” Peter told his interviewer. “I take a fairly philosophical view. If people want to laugh, they can always come to the show.”

The comedian had considered thinking up a few humorous quips in advance of the interview to liven up his story, but ultimately decided to play it straight.

“I don’t think saying that my ambition is to eat a Volkswagen bus says much about me at the moment,” he explained. “Maybe when I get bigger?”

Peter Jonathan Aykroyd was born Nov. 19, 1955. His father, Peter Hugh Aykroyd, was a career bureaucrat in Ottawa. As chief engineer with the National Capitol Commission, he oversaw construction of the Gatineau Parkway.

From 1964 to 1967 in the Privy Council Office, he served as adviser to the cabinet of prime minster Pierre Trudeau.

His mother was Lorraine Hélène Marie (née Gougeon) Aykroyd, a farmer’s daughter who parlayed a shorthand course into a career as a senior public servant that included a position as secretary to Minister of Transport Lionel Chevrier and a high-paying job with the Canadian Maritime Commission.

Peter spent his first 12 years in Hull, Que., near Ottawa.

“I didn’t learn French,” he would later say, “I just learned English with a French accent.”

That accent would serve him well at Second City, where he impersonated celebrated French Canadians Guy Lafleur and René Lévesque.

He attended, but did not graduate from, Lisgar Collegiate Institute, in Ottawa.

Dan admired the company young Peter kept.

“His school friends were the weirdest and most eccentric, in the most positive ways,” the actor said. “Where I was introverted, I saw how free Peter was, and I admired that.”

Before graduating to Second City mainstage cast, he first joined the touring company, which was a kind of farm club for the headlining troupe. He had auditioned in front of his brother and comedian John Candy.

“They laughed, and I was in,” Peter told The Globe. “It wasn’t really like, ‘I’m going to crack this nut,’ but more like, ‘Geez, I’ll see if I can worm my way in here somehow.’ ”

Later, with the mainstage cast, Peter wrote and performed in sketch revues such as East of Eaton’s and Wizard of Ossington.

Off stage, Peter displayed offbeat esprit. In favour of drama and unique automobiles, he would don goggles, a white scarf and a helmet while tooling down Ontario’s 401 Highway in a threewheeled Messerschmitt car.

In addition to his comedic prowess, Peter was a punk-styled guitarist, extroverted singer and a spontaneous, humorous songwriter. He recorded demo material of his with famed producers Jimmy Miller and Andy Johns. With American guitarist and record producer Jon Tiven, he wrote the songs Rock the House Down (which appeared on the soundtrack of 1985’s Spies Like Us) and Fresh Fruit (on the soundtrack of 1986 comedy One More Saturday Night).

Mr. Tiven played a gig with Peter’s New York-based band the Mini-14s, which had been hired to play at a wrap party for Robert Altman’s 1982 film Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.

“We showed up with our equipment and Robert Altman told us to set up the amplifiers so they would block off the back of the room because he wanted a place where he could drop his pants and smoke a joint,” Mr. Tiven recalled. “After we played every song we knew twice, Altman’s wife gave us a couple hundred dollars to keep playing, because everyone was having so much fun.”

Peter never married. “But he always had very beautiful girlfriends, and he always seemed happy,” Mr. Tiven said.

Leaving New York, Peter moved to California and bought a house in Malibu with his brother. He built an analog studio in the basement and did some work as a recording engineer.

In 1996, Peter co-created the Canadian sci-fi series Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal, which ran for four seasons and was hosted by Dan, who co-wrote and costarred in the popular supernatural comedies Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989). The family’s historical involvement in the Spiritualist movement was documented in the 2009 book A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Séances, Mediums, GhostsandGhostbusters, by Peter Sr., who died in 2020.

Peter Jr. also took an interest in homeless people, helping them out when he could.

“He had a sense of righteousness and justice,” Dan said. “He took in souls who were lost or disadvantaged and needed a little kindness and charity. He was almost like a minister in that way.”

In his last years, that generous spirit, coupled with an enthusiasm for alternative medicine, took him to Spokane, Wash., where he helped a company that advocated the use of ozone gas to fight injuries and disease. It was his naturopathic leaning, Dan believed, that ultimately contributed to his death.

“He died because he didn’t call 911 about a septic infection that had developed as result of an untreated hernia from 30 years earlier,” Dan said. “In the end, he just thought he could fix himself.”

Peter Aykroyd leaves his brother, Dan; and nieces, Danielle (known by her stage name, Vera Sola), Stella and Belle.