The “absolutely perfect” comic actor who Bill Murray only found later in life
Trying to make people laugh is a tough thing that very few people do well. Simply being funny is an even rarer trait to acquire. When it comes to comedy, not many have provided more hilarity than Bill Murray.
The budding actor came to the public’s attention as a player on The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and an off-Broadway version of the show eventually landed him an invitation to join Saturday Night Live as a cast member.
From there, Murray began making his foray into the movie world. He portrayed Hunter S Thompson in Where the Buffalo Roam in 1980 and went on to perform in some of the best comedies ever made, including Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, and Kingpin. Murray would even go on to earn the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour in 2016, highlighting his excellent contribution to the genre.
But perhaps his greatest gift was not his desperation for laughs but his apparent ambivalence toward both the act of gaining a giggle and the guffaws that would often follow his deadpan deliveries. Murray was a performer who rarely chased the laughs, he let them come to him, and there’s a good reason to think that this came from the icons who inspired him.
During an interview with the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Murray was asked about the kinds of comics and comedians he enjoyed watching as a child. He replied: “I don’t know who particularly I did like. To me, what’s more interesting is the people that I really didn’t get when I was younger.”
“I heard the term comedians or comics. There are people that I didn’t quite understand when I was younger that later, I got to really like,” he added. “The person that jumps into my mind is Jack Benny. A fellow who I thought was a little bit dry for a 10-year-old or a 12-year-old.”
Jack Benny began his career playing the violin in vaudeville theatres in America but went on to become one of the leading entertainers in the country during the 20th Century. He performed widely on radio and television and had a profound impact on the future of the sitcom genre.
Murray continued: “But later, when I watched him, I saw that he was so deft, his timing was so precise. His face was such a beautiful photograph that I’d turn him on and watch him and hit record just to go back and watch him. Jack Benny was perfect, absolutely perfect.” It was Benny’s timing that was his best quality, and he was known to be able to make the audience laugh even with a mere moment of silence.
Another star of yore that Murray found a later appreciation for is John Way. “I didn’t really care for John Wayne much when I was a kid; I thought he was kind of stiff,” he said. “But later, I got to like him when I watched him more. I thought he had extraordinary self-control. You didn’t push him. He let the story come to him; he let himself be the vehicle of the story. Much better than I ever appreciated when I was a kid.”
“Let the story come to him”, is a similar vein which Murray has spent his years in front of the camera mining. A unique figure whose charisma and soulful balance allowed him to become both a broadside comedy torpedo and an indie flick weapon. Perhaps he learned it from Jack Benny, or even John Wayne, but most likely he didn’t learn it at all.
