I failed to play it cool. I was wrong. He then picked me up and, while giving me an enormous bear hug, swung me around the room. Eventually he put me down, rumpled my hair and disappeared into the party. As I walked towards the bar for a steadying drink, I thought how my encounter with Murray had felt weird, unforgettable, unique and surprisingly aggressive. Just like, in fact, the year-old comedy performances I still love him for. By now, many people have Murray stories because Murray has turned being famous into a kind of performance art.
Instead of locking himself away in a mega mansion in Malibu or the Hamptons with a team of stylists and social media brand managers, like other celebrities, he roams the world dressed like he got into a fight with a laundry basket and lost, surprising the heck out of people and doing whatever he likes, because he can.
Forty-five years into his career, 67 years into life, Murray still seems to find being Murray absolutely hilarious. This is true. One of my favourite Murray stories comes from long ago, before his every move was accompanied by millions of camera phones, threatening to reduce his freewheeling ways to performance or shtick.
It was the early 80s and Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman were sweating over their film project about a bunch of guys who fight ghosts in New York.
This movie would make Murray the megastar he still is, but they were having trouble locking him down to look at the script. Finally, Ramis and Reitman went to the airport when they knew he would be there to force him to read what they had done. My only problem with it is that people now feel they should document their life rather than live it.
Heh heh heh. They have already played in the US and the clips of the show I have seen online are charmingly weird in a distinctly Murray-ish way.
Put it this way: it is unlikely that Harrison Ford will waltz around a stage singing I Feel Pretty, or read James Fenimore Cooper while backed by classical music anytime soon. When I ask if this is how he relaxes in his downtime, kicking back with some Brahms and Hemingway, Murray chuckles.
If you want a weathered ham who chews the scenery with a quiet hunger, there is the Bill Murray of Moonrise Kingdom , Fantastic Mr. Fox and Zombieland. And if you want a long-lost best friend—one who pops up in the strangest of places at the oddest of times—there is the day-to-day Bill Murray, a man of mystery who crashes wedding photo shoots , minor-league baseball games and karaoke parties.
What did he say to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation? Does he really work without an agent, only taking jobs via messages left on a voice mailbox? The fact that a mountain of online chatter is dedicated to investigating the man, however, does. Rare is the movie star who has commanded such a loyal audience for so many years. Murray emerged from all the mistakes unscathed, often highlighted as the only decent aspect of an otherwise condemnable enterprise. In , Murray was coming off a string of hits including Stripes, Caddyshack , and Tootsie.
While his parts in these films are all ensemble roles, he steals the show in each of them. However, Murray felt like he was ready to do something different, and so he co-wrote a screenplay adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel, The Razor's Edge. The story concerns an American soldier named Larry Darrell who travels to Europe and India to seek wisdom. The film was a tough sell, and Dan Aykroyd suggested a trade: Columbia would give Murray the budget to make his movie, in exchange for being part of Ghostbusters.
It worked, and Murray indeed went to India to make his movie, then came back to New York to film Ghostbusters. The mega-success of that film and the huge failure of The Razor's Edge left Murray disillusioned. Like Larry Darrell, his frustrations spurred him into leaving America.
Murray took his family and went to Paris. He lived the life of a student bohemian, studying French as well as philosophy at the famous Sorbonne. He was a devotee of the Russian philosopher and mystic George Gurdjieff , who brought Eastern ideas of consciousness and self-actualization to Europe.
Murray drank at cafes where Ernest Hemingway hung out , ate chocolate and handed it out to strangers, and watched silent films at the Cinematheque. He spent a year in Paris, and didn't take on another starring role until 's Scrooged. Ever the comedian, Bill Murray delights in shocking strangers by crashing parties, photoshoots, and games. He's legendary for showing up and whispering " No one will ever believe you ," typically after he's pulled a prank or otherwise surprised and delighted a random person.
Currently living in Charleston, South Carolina, he's such a regular presence in the city that a Charleston insider blog ran a list of the best places to find him , which includes a restaurant he co-owns, the stadium of a baseball team he co-owns, and many notable local bars and restaurants.
He even has a dish named after him at a local market. Locals recall him heckling a band at a venue and jokingly telling a restaurant hostess to get a haircut. The documentary The Bill Murray Stories details a number of these encounters. He's read poetry to construction workers, did the dishes at a house party in Scotland, gave a Chicago Cubs World Series ticket to a random fan, tended bar but only served tequila shots in Austin, joined a private karaoke party, and crashed a kickball game.
He's popped up at a birthday party and danced to tunes like " Turn Down For What. When he replied that he played saxophone, Murray had them switch places , so the driver could play while he drove for him. They even stopped for barbecue along the way! While Bill Murray has starred in many films, his smaller roles still manage to stand out within his filmography.
In 's Tootsie , he played a straight man role as Dustin Hoffman's roommate. His stony reactions to the total craziness surrounding Hoffman's cross-dressing character add massively to the fun. In 's Little Shop Of Horrors , he played a masochistic dental patient who delights in sadistic dentist Steve Martin's torture.
Ed Wood sees Murray become Bunny Breckinridge, a member of Wood's troupe of actors who is also a drag queen. He devours the scenery every time he shows up. In Kingpin , he played the villainous bowling champion Eddie McCracken.
His crazy hair is one of the highlights of his smarmy performance, and believe it or not, he actually bowled three straight strikes to close out the game, just as his character does. Of course, Bill Murray's best role is always himself. Perhaps most memorably of all, Murray played himself in Zombieland , disguised in zombie makeup in order to get around Los Angeles undisturbed. His surprising death in a prank gone wrong is almost as fun a surprise as him popping up in the first place.
These masters of cool irony set the tone for a new generation of comedy that skewered the cheesy variety show conventions of the past.
Murray's entrances were especially memorable. On his first Late Show appearance, he ran in out of breath because he had gone to " the other place. He emerged in a fur parka and on crutches in another episode, claiming to have been injured in a skiing accident, and made Letterman sign his leg.
After the New York Giants won the Super Bowl in , Murray appeared in full uniform though he oddly had his pads on over his jersey and kicked a field goal outside.
On Letterman's last show, Murray stumbled out of a cake and gave Letterman a full-body, cake-covered hug.
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