The Sun (Malaysia)

Comedy prize winner Murray honoured

-

US COMEDIAN Bill Murray ( right) is on cloud nine, and it’s not just because his beloved hometown baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, are advancing to the World Series for the first time in 71 years.

The Caddyshack and Lost in Translatio­n star got a major salute recently from America’s top comedians and Hollywood A-listers, who presented him with one of the nation’s top comedy awards.

“I’m confused and I feel like I’m in a hurricane,” Murray told a crowd in Washington after receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour – quickly goading the audience to pass around his trophy, a small bust of the 19th century writer and humorist, to “see how far back it can get”.

The 66-year-old was feted at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington by comedy’s finest – Aziz Ansari, Bill Hader, a fully bearded David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel.

They turned out to share anecdotes and jokes about the US comedian, whose appeal spans multiple generation­s.

“He’s a man who travels around the world spreading joy and foolishnes­s wherever he goes,” Kimmel told the audience.

“Bill Murray could shove you over the side of the Hoover Dam and you’d be like, ‘Hey, Bill Murray!’ all the way down,” Kimmel said of the comedian.

Murray is known for his notoriousl­y bizarre antics, such as crashing a recreation­al kickball game in New York in 2012 or joining a couple as an uninvited surprise guest in their engagement photos in South Carolina.

Singer Miley Cyrus paired with musician Paul Shaffer to perform a musical tribute to Murray, and actresses Sigourney Weaver and Emma Stone recounted their favourite memories from working on set with Murray.

Murray first rose to fame in 1977 on the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL), playing smarmy crooner “Nick the lounge singer,” before landing his first major big screen role in the 1979 hit Meatballs.

By 1980, Murray had quit SNL and over the next two decades became one of Hollywood’s biggest comedic stars through such roles as an oblivious groundskee­per in Caddyshack (1980), a supernatur­al investigat­or in Ghostbuste­rs (1984) and a doomed weatherman in Groundhog Day (1993).

In recent years, Murray’s roles have taken a more serious turn, including in a handful of Wes Anderson films such as Rushmore (1998) and his Oscar-nominated performanc­e as a worn-out movie star in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translatio­n (2003).

Former recipients of the Mark Twain Prize include Whoopi Goldberg, Tina Fey, Jay Leno and last year’s winner Eddie Murphy. – AFPRelaxne­ws

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Malaysia