Early life and education
Aykroyd was born in Ottawa to Lorraine Hélène (Gougeon), a secretary from a French-Canadian family, and Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd, a civil engineer who later advised Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. He was a natural mimic from a young age and began taking improvisational theatre classes as a boy. He attended Carleton University in Ottawa, where he studied criminology and sociology, a combination that would later inform the pseudoscientific worldbuilding behind Ghostbusters. He left university before finishing his degree and began performing in comedy clubs, joining the Toronto branch of the Second City improv troupe in the early 1970s, where he worked alongside Gilda Radner. His earliest professional work included a stint as a radio announcer, and it was in that capacity that he first crossed paths with future Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, who hired him as an announcer at a Toronto television station.12
Career
Saturday Night Live
Aykroyd was one of the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" on Saturday Night Live, appearing as a cast member from the 1975 debut through 1979. He became known for a gallery of sharply observed characters and impressions, including a recurring Richard Nixon, a manic pitchman in the "Bass-o-Matic" sketch, and, with Steve Martin, the "two wild and crazy guys." He also wrote for the show, winning an Emmy Award in 1977 for outstanding writing in a comedy-variety or music series. On SNL he formed a close partnership and friendship with John Belushi.1
The Blues Brothers and music
With Belushi, Aykroyd created The Blues Brothers, performing as harmonica-playing Elwood Blues opposite Belushi's Jake. What began as an SNL musical bit became a genuine recording and touring act backed by veteran rhythm-and-blues musicians; their 1978 album "Briefcase Full of Blues" was a multi-million-selling hit. The act spun off into the 1980 feature film The Blues Brothers, which Aykroyd co-wrote. He has continued to perform as Elwood Blues for decades, and the band has toured with original members including Steve Cropper.1
Film
Aykroyd left SNL in 1979 for a film career. Early credits included Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979), The Blues Brothers (1980), Neighbors (1981), and Trading Places (1983) opposite fellow SNL alumnus Eddie Murphy. After the success of Ghostbusters in 1984, his filmography broadened considerably, taking in Spies Like Us (1985), Dragnet (1987), My Girl (1991), Sneakers (1992), Coneheads (1993), Tommy Boy (1995), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Blues Brothers 2000 (1998), and Evolution (2001), among many others. In 1989 he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Driving Miss Daisy, becoming one of the first SNL alumni recognized in that category.12
Business ventures
Aykroyd's business interests run parallel to his entertainment career. In 1992 he co-founded the House of Blues chain of music venues and restaurants with Isaac Tigrett; the company was sold to Live Nation in 2006. In 2008 he co-founded Crystal Head Vodka with artist John Alexander, packaging a quadruple-distilled, multiply-filtered vodka in a glass bottle modeled after a crystal skull. He has also acted as a spokesman and distributor for wines and spirits, including the Dan Aykroyd Discovery Series wines.1
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters (1984)
Aykroyd conceived the original Ghostbusters premise, drawing on his deep personal interest in the paranormal, and co-wrote the screenplay with Harold Ramis. He portrayed Ray Stantz and drove the Ecto-1 during the New York location shoot. Ivan Reitman, who directed the film, had first worked with Aykroyd years earlier when he hired him as an announcer at a Toronto television station.
During the 55 Central Park West shoot, Aykroyd met science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, though Asimov was irritated by the traffic disruption the production caused and could not get home. On another night at the same location, Aykroyd and Bill Murray borrowed police motorcycles and rode around Central Park with the lights and sirens on, pulling over pedestrians. When City Hall revoked the filming permit for the Ecto-1 escort to Central Park West out of concern over the traffic snarl, Murray and Aykroyd disappeared for an hour and approached Mayor Ed Koch directly, who resolved the matter so shooting could proceed.
In a lighter production detail, Aykroyd was fond of the shaving cream used to simulate marshmallow residue and kept asking for more of it to be applied to him. His younger brother, Peter Aykroyd, connected Reitman with musicians Glenn Hughes and Pat Thrall during the search for a theme song.
Ghostbusters II (1989)
Aykroyd and Ramis returned as co-writers for the sequel, again with Aykroyd in the role of Ray Stantz. Aykroyd suggested using a Jackie Wilson song as a plot device. He and Ramis enjoyed the stunt sequence in which the Ghostbusters rappel into the Manhattan Museum of Art's restoration room so much that they performed it five times for fun. Due to a scheduling conflict that prevented Aykroyd from filming the scenes where Vigo possesses Ray, creature shop performer Howie Weed wore the makeup instead, as he was approximately the same size and was already on set, saving the time of fitting another actor.3
The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters
Aykroyd holds a "Based on Characters Created By" credit on both The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters animated series. In The Real Ghostbusters episode "Take Two," Winston reads off the cast of the in-universe Ghostbusters movie and mentions Aykroyd's name by way of an in-joke.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009)
Aykroyd is credited as a writer on Ghostbusters: The Video Game, where he and Harold Ramis performed rewrites on an original draft by John Zuur Platten and Flint Dille; Ramis then did an additional pass. Their work focused primarily on polishing the tone and vernacular of the dialogue.4 Aykroyd also voiced Ray Stantz for the game, recording at least three takes of each of his roughly 2,400 lines in under four studio hours. He joked in one interview that the artists had "shaved about 60 pounds" off his then-current weight to render Ray's look in the Wii version.
In a December 2007 interview with Game Informer, Aykroyd described the video game as "essentially the third movie," adding that it was "better than the third movie because it lasts longer, there's more development of the characters, there's more of a need for story layers." He told the magazine: "If you have an appetite for the third movie, then the video game is it."5
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)
Aykroyd served as executive producer on the 2016 film and appeared in a cameo as a taxi driver who quotes the original film's tagline, "I ain't afraid of no ghost," and offers that the ghosts he sees are merely "Class 5 vapors." He also exchanged emails with screenwriter Katie Dippold about Ghostbusters jargon and science to help inform the reboot. His cameo was filmed on the night of July 13, 2015. An earlier, discarded idea had him playing a spiritual adviser named Rick Gale, which was cut for pacing reasons, and a beat in which the cab driver was attacked by a ghost was dropped because the filmmakers felt it was too unkind to do to Aykroyd on screen.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Aykroyd returned as Ray Stantz and served as executive producer. He contributed to the dialogue in the scene where Phoebe Spengler calls the Ghostbusters' old phone number and reaches Ray.6 On the day Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson filmed their scenes together, the first shot of the morning was the sequence in which Gozer hurls the three of them into the side of Ecto-1; director Jason Reitman encouraged Aykroyd to ad-lib insults at Gozer's godly pretensions. His daughter, Stella Aykroyd, portrays Deputy Medjuck in the film.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
Aykroyd reprised Ray Stantz once more and continued as executive producer. Costume designer Alexis Forte fitted him for a denim jacket modeled after the one he wore in the 1984 film, then aged, stained, and sanded down the corduroy, a result that impressed director Gil Kenan.7 Ecto-C, the motorcycle variant of the Ectomobile featured in the film, was directly inspired by Aykroyd's personal Harley-Davidson Softail motorcycle. During production he came close to crashing Ecto-C into a pile of dirt in one take and had to steer the vehicle out onto the street.
Other Ghostbusters work
Aykroyd voiced Ray Stantz again in Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord, including the Slimer Hunt and Frozen Empire missions, and is credited as a head of Ghost Corps, the franchise stewardship organization under Sony. The IDW comics line repeatedly nods to Aykroyd's wider filmography, basing Ray's civilian outfits on costumes from Doctor Detroit, Trading Places, and Spies Like Us, and referencing his Asimov encounter and his Ottawa birthplace.89
Personal life
In 1983 Aykroyd married actress Donna Dixon, whom he met on the set of Doctor Detroit. The couple have three daughters: Danielle, a singer-songwriter who records as Vera Sola; Belle; and Stella, both actresses.1 In 2022, after nearly four decades of marriage, Aykroyd and Dixon announced they had separated while remaining legally married and continuing as co-parents and business partners.10
Aykroyd has spoken publicly about being diagnosed with Tourette syndrome as a child and with Asperger syndrome as an adult, and has connected both to the creation of Ghostbusters, citing a childhood obsession with the paranormal and with law enforcement, and a particular fascination with ghost hunter Hans Holzer, as direct inspirations for the film.11 He is a longtime member of the Mutual UFO Network and hosted the paranormal documentary series Psi Factor from 1996 to 2000. His honors include the Order of Canada (1999), a star on Canada's Walk of Fame (2002), and the Order of Ontario (2017). As of 2025 he is alive and continues to act and to run his spirits and music ventures.1
Aykroyd has been consistently aware of and generous toward the Ghostbusters fan community. When Kenner needed a Proton Pack for a gift Aykroyd requested shortly before Christmas in 1987, with all warehouse stock depleted for months, Kenner's Ed Zobrist pulled the display unit from Kenner's reception room and overnighted it to Los Angeles. Aykroyd also asked for a Kenner Fire House but it was sold out. He later declined Kenner's request to use his likeness on a ghost map for their 1989 Find the Ghost program.
A fan encounter Aykroyd has recounted captures the spirit of the GBFans.com community well:
"One guy in Vancouver showed up in full Ghostbusters regalia. He had a Proton Pack and a wand, everything. He was about 30. Ghostbusters was his life."
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Dan Aykroyd," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Aykroyd.
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"Dan Aykroyd," Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dan-Aykroyd.
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Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). "Ghostbusters Revisited," Cinefex #40, p. 45. Cinefex, Riverside CA USA. Tim Lawrence: "Howie Weed wore the makeup for scenes of Vigo transformed within the painting and for a subsequent scene when Ray becomes entranced by Vigo and momentarily turns into a demon before his friends restore him with a blast of positive slime."
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Spook Central, "Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Original Story Scripts & Transcripts" (January 21, 2023), https://www.spookcentral.tk/2023/01/21/ghostbusters-video-game-cutscene-script.html. Notes six credited writers (Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, John Zuur Platten, Flint Dille, Patrick Hegarty, John Melchior) and that Aykroyd and Ramis went on record describing their work as small rewrites and consultation.
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Spook Central, "Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Game Informer's Dan Aykroyd Interview (December 2007)" (reprinted January 20, 2023), https://www.spookcentral.tk/2023/01/20/game-informer-dan-aykroyd-interview-december-2007.html. Dan Aykroyd: "my rap now to people is, 'This is essentially the third movie.' And it's better than the third movie because it lasts longer, there's more development of the characters, there's more of a need for story layers."
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Den of Geek, "Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Jason Reitman Finally Addresses the Biggest Spoilers in the Movie" (November 22, 2021), https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/ghostbusters-afterlife-jason-reitman-spoilers/. Jason Reitman: "Particularly the dialogue for his character. When he's talking to Phoebe on the phone and he starts talking about the fuel isotopes and things like that, this is just stuff that only Dan can come up with."
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Spook Central, "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Production Notes" (March 22, 2024), https://www.spookcentral.tk/. Alexis Forte: "Dan had the fitting and loved it, and then we took it away and aged it so it looked like he'd had it for years. We gave it some stains and sanded down the corduroy."
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Ghostbusters Year One Issue #2 (IDW Publishing, 2020), p. 4 and p. 10. Ray Stantz's hairstyle is modeled on Aykroyd's character in Spies Like Us (1985), and Ray names Ottawa, Aykroyd's birthplace.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #1 (IDW Publishing, 2017). Ray's civilian outfit is based on the look of Louis Winthorpe III, Aykroyd's character in Trading Places (1983).
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UPI, "Dan Aykroyd, Donna Dixon separate after 39 years of marriage" (April 30, 2022), https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2022/04/30/dan-aykroyd/7201651357184/.
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Child Mind Institute, "Dan Aykroyd's Autism: How Being on the Spectrum Helped Make Ghostbusters," accessed 2026-06-13, https://childmind.org/blog/dan-aykroyd-says-being-on-the-spectrum-helped-him-make-ghostbusters/.
