Author Topic: Actor Writer Director Harold Ramis of Caddyshack Ghostbusters Groundhog Day Dies  (Read 27260 times)

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/24/showbiz/movies/obit-harold-ramis/



Harold Ramis
of 'Ghostbusters,' 'Groundhog Day' fame dies

By Todd Leopold, CNN
updated 2:34 PM EST, Mon February 24, 2014








 




(CNN) -- Harold Ramis, the actor, writer and director whose films include "Stripes," "Ghostbusters," "Groundhog Day" and "Analyze This," has died. He was 69.

His death was caused by complications related to autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a condition Ramis battled for four years, according to United Talent Agency, which represented Ramis for many years.

Ramis died Monday morning in his Chicago-area home, the agency said.

[His rare disease involved a swelling of the blood vessels and the report adds that his health issues began in 2010. His condition was so bad in the past, the actor/writer/director had to relearn to walk.

"His creativity, compassion, intelligence, humor and spirit will be missed by all who knew and loved him," read a press release from his agency.

Ramis was a Chicago native and earned a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. He got his start in the late 1960's at Chicago's Second City theater troupe.

His big break came when he penned "National Lampoon's Animal House" in 1978. His directorial debut came in 1980 with "Caddyshack." His latest work was for a 2009 movie "Year One," in which he wrote, directed and was featured in alongside Jack Black and Olivia Wilde. His "Ghostbusters" co-star, Dan Aykroyd, also told ABC News last spring that "Ghostbusters 3" could film this year, and that Ramis was "in on it."

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/ghostbusters-star-writer-harold-ramis-dies-69/story?id=22651174]

For more than 40 years, Ramis was a leading figure in comedy. A veteran of the Second City troupe in his hometown of Chicago, he was a writer for "SCTV" and wrote or co-wrote the scripts for "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978), "Caddyshack" (1980), "Stripes" (1981), "Ghostbusters" (1984), "Groundhog Day" (1993) and "Analyze This" (1999).

The films often featured members of his generation of comedy talents -- veterans of the National Lampoon's recordings, "Saturday Night Live" and "Second City TV" -- most notably Ramis' old comedy colleague and fellow Chicagoan Bill Murray.

His directing credits include "Caddyshack," "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983), "Groundhog Day," "Analyze This" and -- in a change from his usual comedies -- the dark 2005 film "The Ice Harvest." He occasionally acted as well, most notably playing Murray's friend in "Stripes," Dr. Egon Spengler in "Ghostbusters" and a doctor in "As Good as It Gets" (1997).

Ramis' films were some of the most influential -- and highest-grossing -- comedies of recent decades. "Animal House" remains a model for knockabout laughs and gross-out moments. "Caddyshack" is eminently quotable. "Ghostbusters" was the second-biggest box office hit of 1984, just behind "Beverly Hills Cop."

But though the movies were full of silly moments, Ramis often tried to tap into larger themes. Perhaps most successful was "Groundhog Day" in which Bill Murray's cynical weatherman is forced to relive the same day over and over again until he finally comes to terms with his life. The film has been used as the subject of philosophical and religious discussions.

That intellectual bent didn't always go over well with studio bosses, Ramis observed.

In an interview with the Onion A.V. Club, he mentioned the studio for his 2009 film "Year One" was uncertain how to pitch it.

"When the studio said, 'Well, what is the movie about?' I said, 'The movie tracks the psycho-social development of civilization.' And they said, 'Uh, that's not going to be too good on a poster.' "

Ramis was also a mentor to several current comedy writers and directors, the Chicago Tribune noted in its obituary. Judd Apatow, a fan, cast him as Seth Rogen's father in "Knocked Up." Jake Kasdan put him in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" (which was co-produced and co-written by Apatow).

Ramis was usually a good-natured presence, playing understanding characters -- often doctors, of one sort or another. It was true to his personality, the late Second City founder Bernie Sahlins told the Chicago Tribune in 1999.

"He's the least changed by success of anyone I know in terms of sense of humor, of humility, sense of self," Sahlins told the paper. "He's the same Harold he was 30 years ago. He's had enormous success relatively, but none of it has gone to his head in any way."

Indeed, Ramis always seemed to find a way to laugh.

Asked by The New York Times about the existential questions raised by "Groundhog Day" -- and competing interpretations of the film's meaning -- he mentioned that he didn't practice any religion himself.

''Although I am wearing meditation beads on my wrist,'' he noted. ''But that's because I'm on a Buddhist diet. They're supposed to remind me not to eat, but actually just get in the way when I'm cutting my steak.''

Ramis is survived by his wife, Erica Mann Ramis, three children (sons Julian and Daniel, daughter Violet) and two grandchildren.

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline southendmd

  • Town Administration
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,962
  • well, I won't
Very sad to hear, John. 

After a recent viewing of "Groundhog Day", I also watched an interview with Harold Ramis (one of the DVD extras).  He truly was both thoughtful and humble. 

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011


For video, Chicago Tribune reporter Mark Caro reflects on the career of Harold Ramis, who passed away at the age of 69.
Click on:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-harold-ramis-dead-20140224,0,4983189,full.story




Harold Ramis
Chicago actor,
writer and director,
dead at 69

Best-known as an actor for 'Ghostbusters', 'Stripes',
writer/director for 'Caddyshack', 'Groundhog Day'


By Mark Caro, Tribune reporter
11:50 a.m. CST, February 24, 2014




Harold Ramis was one of Hollywood’s most successful comedy filmmakers when he moved his family from Los Angeles back to the Chicago area in 1996. His career was still thriving, with "Groundhog Day" acquiring almost instant classic status upon its 1993 release and 1984's "Ghostbusters" ranking among the highest-grossing comedies of all time, but the writer-director wanted to return to the city where he’d launched his career as a Second City performer.

"There's a pride in what I do that other people share because I'm local, which in L.A. is meaningless; no one's local," Ramis said upon the launch of the first movie he directed after his move, the 1999 mobster-in-therapy comedy "Analyze This," another hit. "It's a good thing. I feel like I represent the city in a certain way."

Ramis, a longtime North Shore resident, was surrounded by family when he died at 12:53 a.m. from complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a rare disease that involves swelling of the blood vessels, his wife Erica Mann Ramis said. He was 69.

Ramis' serious health struggles began in May 2010 with an infection that led to complications related to the autoimmune disease, his wife said. Ramis had to relearn to walk but suffered a relapse of the vasculitis in late 2011, said Laurel Ward, vice president of development at Ramis' Ocean Pictures production company.

Ramis leaves behind a formidable body of work, with writing credits on such enduring comedies as "National Lampoon's Animal House" (which upon its 1978 release catapulted the film career of John Belushi, with whom Ramis acted at Second City), "Stripes" (1981) and "Ghostbusters" (in which Ramis also co-starred) plus such directing efforts as "Caddyshack" (1980), "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983), "Groundhog Day" and "Analyze This."

Previously he was the first head writer (and a performer) on Second City's groundbreaking television series "Second City Television (SCTV)" (1976-79). More recently he directed episodes of NBC’s "The Office."

Ramis' comedies were often wild, silly and tilting toward anarchy, but they also were cerebral and iconoclastic, with the filmmaker heeding the Second City edict to work at the top of one's intelligence. This combination of smart and gut-bustingly funny led a generation of comedic actors and filmmakers — including Judd Apatow ("The 40 Year Old Virgin," "Knocked Up," Jay Roach ("Meet the Parents," the "Austin Powers" movies), Peter Farrelly ("There's Something About Mary," "Dumb and Dumber"), Jake Kasdan ("Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," "Orange County," both of which featured Ramis in small roles) and Adam Sandler (who starred in his own wacky golf comedy, "Happy Gilmore") — to cite him as a key inspiration.

“When I was 15, I interviewed Harold for my high school radio station, and he was the person that I wanted to be when I was growing up," said Apatow, who later would cast Ramis as Seth Rogen’s father in "Knocked Up" and would produce Ramis' final movie, "Year One" (2009). "His work is the reason why so many of us got into comedy. We grew up on 'Second City TV' and 'Ghostbusters,' 'Vacation,' 'Animal House,' 'Stripes,' 'Meatballs' (which Ramis co-wrote); he literally made every single one of our favorite movies."

Ramis also left behind a reputation as a mensch and all-around good guy.

"He's the least changed by success of anyone I know in terms of sense of humor, of humility, sense of self," the late Second City founder Bernie Sahlins, who began working with Ramis in 1969, said of him in 1999. "He's the same Harold he was 30 years ago. He's had enormous success relatively, but none of it has gone to his head in any way."

Laurel Ward, vice president of development for Ramis' Ocean Pictures production company, called him "the world's best mentor." She recalled that when she first began working for him 15 years ago as his assistant, he had to be in California for a month, and he told her that although he didn't need an assistant out there, she should go anyway because it would be a good experience for her, and he'd make sure her expenses were covered.

"He just did it for me," she said. "He loved teaching people. He loved helping people. He loved seeing people succeed."

The son of Ruth and Nathan Ramis, who owned Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the West Side before moving the store and family to Rogers Park, Ramis graduated from Senn High School and Washington University in St. Louis. For his first professional writing gig, he contributed freelance arts stories to the Chicago Daily News in the mid-1960s. He also wrote and edited Playboy magazine’s “Party Jokes” before and during his Second City days.

When, after some time off, he returned to Second City in 1972 to act alongside a relative newcomer in the cast, Ramis said he came to a major realization.

“The moment I knew I wouldn't be any huge comedy star was when I got on stage with John Belushi for the first time," he said in a 1999 Tribune interview. "When I saw how far he was willing to go to get a laugh or to make a point on stage, the language he would use, how physical he was, throwing himself literally off the stage, taking big falls, strangling other actors, I thought: I'm never going to be this big. How could I ever get enough attention on a stage with guys like this?

"I stopped being the zany. I let John be the zany. I learned that my thing was lobbing in great lines here and there, which would score big and keep me there on the stage."

With his round glasses lending a professorial air, Ramis would become the calm center of storms brewed by fellow actors, playing the bushy-haired, low-key wisecracker to Bill Murray's troublemaker in "Stripes" and being the most scientific-minded "Ghostbuster." Later roles included the sympathetic doctor of James L. Brooks' "As Good as It Gets" (1997) and the "Knocked Up" (2007) dad, whose dialogue, Apatow said, was almost all improvised.

Sahlins, who died last June, said he knew from the start that Ramis "would be an important factor in American comedy. He has all the skills and abilities to be funny and to write funny, but he also is a leader, a very nice guy. He was always looked up to, in Second City to being head writer at 'SCTV.' He was never separate from anybody. He was always one of the boys, but he was the best boy."

Ramis followed Belushi from Second City to New York City to work with him plus fellow Second City cast member [Bill] Murray (who would collaborate with Ramis on six movies) on "The National Lampoon Radio Hour." Those three plus Gilda Radner also performed in a National Lampoon stage show produced by Ivan Reitman, who went on to produce "National Lampoon's Animal House" and to direct such Ramis scripts as "Meatballs," "Stripes," "Ghostbusters" and "Ghostbusters II" (1989).

"I always thought he was a very talented writer who always had a very perceptive and intelligent point of view about the material," Reitman told the Tribune in 1999. "He managed to get the people to speak in a realistic way but still found something funny in their voices."

Apatow said he was captivated not just by the spirit of Ramis’ movies but also his frequent collaborations with a collective of funny people.

"We noticed this group of friends who were making comedy together — all the 'SCTV' people and ‘Saturday Night Live' people and National Lampoon people — and that seemed the most wonderful community you could ever be a part of,” said Apatow, who has developed his own group of regular collaborators. "In addition to wanting to be comics, we also wanted to make comedies with our friends."

As zany as Ramis' early comedies were, they rigorously pursued a theme close to the heart of someone who grew out of the 1960s counterculture: characters rebelling against institutions, be they authoritarian college administrators and pampered rich kids ("Animal House"), a stuffy golf club ("Caddyshack") or the military ("Stripes"). After the collapse of his first marriage and the flop of his 1986 comedy “Club Paradise” (with greedy developers as the institutional villain), the Jewish-raised Ramis immersed himself in Zen Buddhism.

"It's my shield and my armor in the work I do," he said. "It's to keep a cheerful, Zen-like detachment from everything."

Ramis’ later directorial efforts, starting with “Groundhog Day” and including "Stuart Saves His Family" (1995), "Multiplicity" (1996), "Analyze This" and his "Bedazzled" remake (2000), reflect a spiritual striving, exploring individuals' struggles with themselves more than outside forces.

Comparing his later to earlier comedies, Ramis told the Tribune : "The content's different, but it comes from the same place in me, which is to try to point people at some reality or truth."

He recalled that at the "Analyze This" junket, a writer told him his genre had become "goofy redemption comedy," to which Ramis responded, "OK, I'll take that."

Ramis had been living in Los Angeles since late the '70s before he returned to Chicago, basing his production company in downtown Highland Park.

"In L.A., you're much more aware of an artificial pressure, just that you're in a race of some kind," Ramis recalled one morning over a veggie egg-white omelet at the coffee shop downstairs from his office. "You know, if you're not moving forward, you're dead in the water, because everyone around you is scheming, planning and plotting to advance themselves, often at your expense.

"I've compared it to high school: Am I popular? Am I cool? Am I in? Who's the in crowd? How do I get into that party? These are not things I ever wanted to worry about. Here I'm so liberated from that."

After unsuccessfully lobbying Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro to film "Analyze This” in Chicago, Ramis finally got his wish to shoot a movie locally with the 2005 dark crime comedy "The Ice Harvest," which starred Evanston native John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton.

Until his illness Ramis was out around town a fair amount, whether cheering on the Cubs and leading the occasional "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" or attending theater or appearing at local organizations' fundraisers or collecting honors, such as an honorary Doctorate of Arts from Columbia College Chicago in 2001 and a lifetime achievement award from the Just for Laughs festival in 2009. And when Second City celebrated its 50th anniversary in December 2009, Ramis joined "SCTV" cast members Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas and Martin Short in a Mainstage set that proved to be the weekend's hottest ticket.

Ramis was quiet about his illness, but friends did visit, including brothers and Second City castmates Bill Murray, from whom he'd been estranged for years, and Brian Doyle-Murray, who appeared in seven Ramis movies.

"He was like the campfire that we all gathered around for light and warmth and knowledge," his adult daughter Violet Stiel said.

"And that's the truth," added Erica Ramis.

He is survived by Erica Mann Ramis, Stiel, sons Julian and Daniel Ramis and two grandchildren. Erica Ramis said a private service is planned for this week with a public memorial in Chicago to take place probably in May.

[email protected]

Twitter @MarkCaro





Copyright © 2014 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
http://www.vulture.com/2014/02/harold-ramis-explains-groundhog-day-metaphors.html


Watch a Short Video in Which
Harold Ramis
Explains the Metaphors of
Groundhog Day
By Gilbert Cruz
Today at 1:03 PM




"Every day, someone says something to me about this movie." Groundhog Day, directed by Harold Ramis, who died this morning at the age of 69, has proven to be one of those movies that gets deeper the more you think about it. According to Ramis, the movie's concept of reliving the same day over and over and over again has been appropriated by everyone from Hasidic Jews to Zen Buddhists to Christians to psychotherapists. Watch the video below:




[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkEUpymTanA&noredirect=1[/youtube]
Harold Ramis on the Metaphor of Groundhog Day
(Youtube may require you watch this on the Youtube site)
&noredirect=1


« Last Edit: August 09, 2017, 07:53:37 am by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011




[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VF5P7qLaEQ[/youtube]



"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011



[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTVuSVG9DKA[/youtube]


"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011


[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jvcNrjM_F4[/youtube]




[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M628DuIEZ_o[/youtube]




[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt4JXKUv5MQ[/youtube]


"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011



[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUWhN6j7OS4[/youtube]



[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQLhORPoUJs[/youtube]




"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011



[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jiKYtyDg5c[/youtube]


"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/movies/harold-ramis-who-helped-redefine-what-makes-us-laugh-on-screen-dies-at-69.html



MOVIES
Harold Ramis
Who Helped Redefine
 What Makes Us Laugh
on Screen, Dies at 69


By DOUGLAS MARTIN
FEB. 24, 2014




Harold Ramis, a writer, director and actor whose sly but boisterous silliness helped catapult comedies like “Groundhog Day,” “Ghostbusters,” “Animal House” and “Caddyshack” to commercial and critical success, died on Monday in his Chicago-area home. He was 69.

The cause was complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a disease of the blood vessels, said Chris Day, a spokesman for United Talent Agency, which represented Mr. Ramis.

Mr. Ramis was a master at creating hilarious scenes and plotlines peopled by indelible characters, among them a groundskeeper obsessed with a gopher, fraternity brothers at war with a college dean and a jaded weatherman condemned to repeating Groundhog Day over and over.

In “Stripes,” a 1981 film about military life written by Mr. Ramis with Dan Goldberg and Len Blum, Bill Murray exhorts his fellow soldiers by yelling: “We’re not Watusi! We’re not Spartans — we’re Americans! That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We’re the underdog. We’re mutts. Here’s proof.”

He touches a soldier’s face. “His nose is cold.”

In 2004, The New Yorker  magazine quoted the screenwriter Dennis Klein as saying that Mr. Ramis rescued comedies from “their smooth, polite perfection” by offering a new, rough-hewn originality. The writer of the article, Tad Friend, compared Mr. Ramis’s impact on comedy to that of Elvis Presley on rock and Eminem on rap.

“More than anyone else,” Paul Weingarten wrote in The Chicago Tribune Magazine in 1983, “Harold Ramis has shaped this generation’s ideas of what is funny.”

Mr. Ramis collaborated with the people who came to be considered the royalty of comedy in the 1970s and ‘’80s, notably from the first-generation cast of “Saturday Night Live,” including John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner.

He was born in Chicago on Nov. 21, 1944, and attended Washington University in St. Louis on a National Merit Scholarship. He graduated with a degree in English literature before going to work as an orderly in a mental hospital, a substitute teacher in inner-city Chicago and the jokes editor at Playboy.

He got his start in comedy in 1969 at Chicago’s famed Second City improvisational theater troupe, an incubator for many “Saturday Night Live” performers, including Mr. Belushi, Mr. Murray and Mr. Aykroyd.

Mr. Belushi went on to star in “Animal House,” which Mr. Ramis helped write. Mr. Murray and Mr. Aykroyd starred alongside Mr. Ramis in “Ghostbusters,” which he also helped write. And Mr. Murray starred in “Groundhog Day” (1993) and “Caddyshack” (1980) — both directed by Mr. Ramis — and “Meatballs” (1979), which was written by Mr. Ramis and Mr. Blum, Mr. Goldberg and Janis Allen.

Among his projects in later years was “Analyze This” (1999), a comedy he directed and wrote in collaboration, starring Billy Crystal as a psychiatrist and Robert DeNiro as his mobster patient.

Mr. Ramis is survived by his wife, Erica; his sons Julian and Daniel; his daughter, Violet; and two grandchildren.

Mr. Aykroyd issued a statement on Monday calling Mr. Ramis “my brilliant, gifted, funny friend,” adding, “May he now get the answers he was always seeking.”

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"