Bill Murray, right to the letter
Comic’s quirky life story told in an A-to-Z compendium
It might have something to do with the fact that he eschews managers and agents. Or that he actually agreed to supply his pipes as the feline Garfield in the film comedy because he was somehow led to believe that the Coen brothers were involved — which they most definitely were not.
There’s just something about Bill Murray, 64, that touches me and millions of other fans. He doesn’t adhere to the moviestar playbook. He doesn’t adhere to any playbook. He is a comic genius who cracks most of us up even before he opens his mouth on screen. He is no one’s notion of a leading man, and yet he pulls it off film after film.
At the Toronto International Film Festival last year, organizers decreed a Bill Murray Day in tribute to the actor who had actually shown up to promote his latest screen epic, St. Vincent. It has even been suggested that Bill Murray Day be turned into a Canadian holiday.
Murray, while still hamming it up on the set of Saturday Night Live, first made his mark on the big screen in this country. The movie was the box-office comedy smash Meatballs ( 1979), wherein Murray landed the lead as tripped-out camp counsellor Tripper Harrison. The film was directed by up-and-coming Canuck Ivan Reitman, who was to conscript Murray for Ghostbusters. And a star goof was born.
Directors as diverse as Harold Ramis, Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola were smitten by the odd charms of Murray and cast him in films ranging from Groundhog Day to Moonrise Kingdom and Lost in Translation.
Also smitten by the charms of Murray was author Robert Schnakenberg, who recently penned The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray: A Critical Appreciation of the World’s Finest Actor ( Quirk Books), set for release on Sept. 15. No surprise that this ambitious opus is entirely unauthorized, for there are few in his trade who are more publicity bashful than the actor dubbed by some as the Murricane.
Rather than assembling a chronicle, Schnakenberg furnishes an A-to-Z compendium on the actor’s life and quirks. A sampling: — Academy Awards: “Comedy never gets the Oscar. Groundhog Day was one of the greatest scripts ever written, and it didn’t even get nominated.”
— Belushi, John: The best actor he had ever seen: “He was like Babe Ruth. He could eat 50 hotdogs and he could hit 60 home runs. He could do it all.”
— Boy Scouts: He was kicked out for being unruly.
— Butler, Jennifer: His second wife and mother of their four sons. (He also has two sons from his first wife, Mickey Kelly.) She filed for divorce in 2008, citing, among other reasons, “adultery, addiction to marijuana and alcohol and frequent abandonment.” Murray would later call their split “devastating — the worst thing that ever happened to me in my entire life.”
— Forrest Gump: Turned down the title role. Then again, so did Chevy Chase and John Travolta. Tom Hanks is grateful: he took the part and the ensuing Oscar.
— Ghostbusters III: When asked by David Letterman in 2010, Murray said he’d do the film only if they killed him off in the first reel. “No one wants to pay money to see fat, old men chasing ghosts,” scribbled Murray in a hand-written note to Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis that accompanied a shredded copy of their Ghostbusters III script — according to a 2011 report in the National Enquirer. In 2014, Murray gave his blessing to an all-female take on a third Ghostbusters. (Murray finally agreed to do a cameo in the reboot starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig.)
— Groundhog Day: Nowdeceased director Harold Ramis, with whom Murray co-starred in Ghostbusters 1 & 2, was reluctant to cast him, because “he was getting crankier and crankier.” But after the role was turned down by Michael Keaton and Tom Hanks, Murray got the gig. Regardless, Murray and Ramis had serious issues as a consequence, so much so that the two didn’t speak for years.
— Lost in Translation: “I had a wish that I could do a movie that was sort of romantic,” he said in 2003. “I knew I was going to nail that character.” And he did, and it netted him, among other awards, his first Oscar nomination for best actor.
— Radner, Gilda: He had a tumultuous on-again, off-again romantic relationship with his late SNL castmate: “I’ve always had a thing for funny ladies. Gilda was the greatest laugher.”
— Raiders of the Lost Ark: Murray was one of several actors considered for the lead role of Indiana Jones.
— Zombieland: “It was like putting on an old coat and finding a couple of hundred dollars in it,” he told Esquire. Alas, Murray was the 10th choice for the role of the movie star who plays host to four zombie hunters. JeanClaude Van Damme, Joe Pesci, Matthew McConaughey, Dustin Hoffman and Sly Stallone all turned down the part.
I had a wish that I could do a movie that was sort of romantic. I knew I was going to nail that character.
BILL MURRAY ON HIS CHARACTER IN THE FILM LOST IN TRANSLATION