The many feuds of Bill Murray’s life
Like many other professions, at the end of the day, acting is about making money, not friends. While Bill Murray does admittedly have plenty of the latter go along with his millions of adoring fans, the actor and comedian has still managed to make his fair share of enemies along the way.
The star’s penchant for rubbing his colleagues and contemporaries the wrong way dates right back to the start of his career as a cast member on Saturday Night Live. Chevy Chase – himself no stranger to irritating his co-workers – and Murray fought each other after insults were thrown, although he described it as “a Hollywood fight, a ‘don’t touch my face!’ kind of thing”. Fences were clearly mended, though, seeing as they ended up co-starring in Caddyshack in 1980 with their movie careers in full swing.
Directors have hardly been spared from Murray’s scorn, either, with Richard Donner taking plenty of flak on Scrooged. In addition to saying, “he shot a big, long, sloppy movie”, Murray described the experience itself as a “fair amount of misery.” For his part, Donner labelled his leading man as “superbly creative but occasionally difficult,” ensuring that their rivalry wasn’t all one-way traffic.
Not even his Ghostbusters collaborator and long-time friend Harold Ramis was safe, with Groundhog Day fracturing their close relationship. After repeatedly clashing during production, they weren’t on speaking terms for over 20 years, something Murray fortunately took it upon himself to remedy prior to Ramis’ passing in February of 2014.
Charlie’s Angels director McG would tell The Guardian that Murray headbutted him so hard on the set of the action blockbuster that if his aim had been off by an inch, “my nose would have been obliterated”. However, when he was told that story, the actor responded in no uncertain terms: “That’s bullshit! That’s complete crap! I don’t know why he made that story up. He has a very active imagination. He deserves to die! He should be pierced with a lance, not headbutted”. Unsurprisingly, he did not return for the sequel.
Of course, Murray may not have been invited back for Full Throttle anyway, considering his disagreements with star Lucy Liu. Reflecting on their feud, the actor revealed she was only standing up for herself: “I don’t regret it,” Liu commented. “Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there’s no need to condescend or to put other people down,” she said. “And I would not stand down, and nor should I have.”
Murray remained nonchalant about the entire thing, offering his side of the story: “I will dismiss you completely if you are unprofessional and working with me”. The clash stemmed from a rewritten scene that he was made unaware of, which saw Liu become the target of his ire and begin throwing around language that she deemed “inexcusable and unacceptable”.
Long before that, Richard Dreyfuss regaled the tale of Murray throwing an ashtray at his head during their downtime on 1991’s What About Bob?, leaving the Jaws alumni of the opinion that his co-star was little more than “a drunken Irish bully”. Murray also said to have thrown producer Laura Ziskin into a lake before she later claimed that he “threatened to throw me across the parking lot and then broke my sunglasses”.
Wes Anderson seems largely immune from Murray’s chaos-causing antics, but Anjelica Huston wasn’t quite so lucky during the shooting of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou after he allegedly invited the entire cast for dinner except her. Naturally, that caused her to brand him as “a shit”.
When you’ve been in the game as long as Murray, causing friction is inevitable, but it’s nonetheless damning just how many people have raised issues with his behaviour over the years.
