Photo: Everett Collection
In the 1980s, Walkmans and slap bracelets were popular, but comedians like Bill Murray and Chevy Chase were king. And a new book reveals that their lives were just as wild as the movies that they starred in.
For instance, Bill Murray, known for both kind and bizarre acts, once reportedly broke a heckler’s arm.
“According to people attending a performance ofThe National Lampoon Showin New York, after folk singer Martin Mull talked loudly throughout, [Bill] Murray attacked him backstage, bellowing, ‘I’LL KILL HIM! I’LL KILL THAT F—–!'” Nick de Semlyen writes inWild and Crazy Guys: How the Comedy Mavericks of the ’80s Changed Hollywood Forever,out Tuesday.
Bill Murray and Chevy Chase inCaddyshack.Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection
InWild and Crazy Guys, de Semlyen explores Murray’s antics, and the lives of other great comedians of the era, including Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, John Belushi, John Candy, and Rick Moranis. The author interviewed many of the stars, as well as people in their inner circles, to give an inside look at the creation of iconic films likeCaddyshack,Ghostbusters, andBeverly Hills Cop. He also delves into the comedians’ very human struggles — many grappled with stardom and got caught up in drugs.
“Most of them would prosper,” de Semlyen writes. “Some would fade away. A few would destroy themselves. But as a combined force they would bring about a new golden age of comedy.”
Here are the top highlights fromWild and Crazy Guys.
Bill Murray on punching Chevy Chase in the face.
Murray’s recollection of the event was different, according to the book.
Crown Archetype
Murray has a history of acting on emotion. In 2016, heallegedly threw cellphones of fanssnapping pictures of him off a restaurant rooftop, prompting a police investigation. The police confirmed that no charges were being pressed against Murray and that the case was closed after the two broken phones were paid for.
A year after the fight, while at a Hollywood party, Chase brokered a peace of sorts with Murray, according to Chase’s 2008 interview onThe Howard Stern Show, cited in the book. (Though Chase and Murray never became friends.)
“Chase put down his drink and marched toward Murray,” the author writes, “a furious glare on his face. Murray tensed up. But just as he reached him, Chase dropped to his knees and began to unzip Murray’s pants, miming preparation for a blowjob. Murray cracked a smile at Chase’s sophomoric bit, then both of them started to laugh.”
The stars react to John Belushi’s death.
WhenAnimal House‘s John Belushidied of a cocaine and heroin overdose in 1982at the age of 33,his friends and family were saddened, but not surprised.
“After cleaning himself up forContinental Divide, Belushi was back at his worst, hoovering up endless lines of cocaine, the substance he called ‘Hitler’s drug,” the author writes of the Belushi’s behavior leading up to his death. “He was pale, twitchy, talking nonsense, and behaving erratically. On the evening of Valentine’s Day, he talked his way into Steven Spielberg’s house, even though the director was out, taking a drink from the refrigerator and leaving a note.”
John Belushi.
Though Belushi has been long dead, his former costar John Landis still isn’t over it. “I genuinely loved him, and I’m still angry with him,” Landis told de Semlyen. “That was my reaction when he died… I thought, ‘Youf—-er… I won’t get to see you anymore.”
Murray and Dan Aykroyd mourned in a different way. According to the book, they went to Belushi’s place the night before his funeral and “fired shotguns at the moon.”
Dan Aykroyd remembers his short, but “intense,” romance with Carrie Fisher.
In an essay that appeared inEmpire, which is cited in the book, Aykroyd explains thathe and Fisher took “blood tests for compatibility from an East Indian female doctor.”
“Contemplating marriage, I gave Carrie a sapphire ring and subsequently in the romance she gave me a Donald Roller Wilson oil painting of a monkey in a blue dress next to a tiny floating pencil,” he wrote in tribute to Fisher, afterher death in 2016.
At one point, they went to Reno where they took acid and cried for three days while listening to Christmas songs, according to the essay.
“Certainly one of the planet’s greatest occasions where LSD was a factor,” Aykroyd wrote.
Dan Aykroyd and Carrie Fisher.Bei/REX/Shutterstock
Bill Murray’s struggle with stardom.
Murray turned down the cover ofTimemagazine, and then moved to France for six months. Murray alsoinfamously set up a voicemail account through a 800 number, so he wouldn’t have to talk to people who offered him roles.
“I’m famous enough,” Murray once said, according to the book. “Being more famous isn’t going to do anything but cause me more problems.”
Wild and Crazy Guysison salenow.
source: people.com
