Harold Ramis

Harold Allen Ramis (/ˈreɪmɪs/; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989) and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), and Analyze This (1999). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).

Harold Ramis
Ramis in 2009
Born
Harold Allen Ramis

(1944-11-21)November 21, 1944
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedFebruary 24, 2014(2014-02-24) (aged 69)
Glencoe, Illinois, U.S.
Resting placeShalom Memorial Park, Arlington Heights, Illinois, U.S.
Alma materWashington University in St. Louis
OccupationActor, comedian, director, writer
Years active1968–2014
Home townChicago, Illinois, U.S.
Spouse(s)
Anne Plotkin
​
(
m. 1967; div. 1984)

Erica Mann
(
m. 1989)
Children4

Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors.[1] Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites.[1] Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.[2]

Early life

Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois,[3] the son of Ruth (née Cokee) and Nathan Ramis, who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side.[1] Ramis had a Jewish upbringing.[4][5][6][7] In his adult life, he did not practice any religion.[8][9] He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools,[10] and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri,[1][11] where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.[12]

Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:

…prepared me well for when I went out to Hollywood to work with actors. People laugh when I say that, but it was actually very good training. And not just with actors; it was good training for just living in the world. It's knowing how to deal with people who might be reacting in a way that's connected to anxiety or grief or fear or rage. As a director, you're dealing with that constantly with actors. But if I were a businessman, I'd probably be applying those same principles to that line of work.[11]

Career

Early years

Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it."[1] He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.[13]

Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes.[14] He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features."[15] Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.[16]

Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine.[11] "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college."[15] Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.[17]

National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top

After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis' frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.[1]

During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings.[18] Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–79).[19] He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV.[17] Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.

In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.

The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."

Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Chevy Chase to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.

Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session. It was to be the last professional appearance by Andy Kaufman before his death.

The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.

Film career

Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.[1]

Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis.[1] His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.

In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted.[20] In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler,[21] a role he reprised for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."[1]

His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."[1]

Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).

In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.[1]

In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star)[22] but that none of the movie studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.

Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011[23] or for Christmas 2012.[24] The film was eventually made and released in 2016, although directed and co-written by Paul Feig, not Ramis. In this film, a bronze bust can be seen of Ramis when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.

Personal life

Ramis was married twice and fathered four children. On July 2, 1967,[3] he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel.[1][25] Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather.[1] Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced.[1] Ramis maintained a romantic and creative relationship with Second City actor Sandra Bogan from 1984 to 2014.[26] In 1985, Ramis had daughter Mollie Heckerling with director Amy Heckerling.[27] In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams.[28] Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994.[3] Although Ramis maintained Humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing was a huge influence on his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.

Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field.[29] His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.[1]

Illness and death
A memorial to Ramis appeared at the "Ghostbusters firehouse."

In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.[30]

He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69.[30] A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.

Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying: "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings."[31] He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.[32]

Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours.[33] Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.[34]

Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.[35]

Awards and honors

In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.[36] In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award.[37] In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.[38]

In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.

The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him.[39] A bust of his head appears in the film.

Collaborations

Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.

Filmography

Film
Year Title Director Writer Producer Notes
1978 National Lampoon's Animal House No Yes No
1979 Meatballs No Yes No
1980 Caddyshack Yes Yes No Directorial debut
1981 Stripes No Yes No
1983 National Lampoon's Vacation Yes No No
1984 Ghostbusters No Yes No
1986 Back to School No Yes executive
Club Paradise Yes Yes No
Armed and Dangerous No Yes No
1988 Caddyshack II No Yes No
1989 Ghostbusters II No Yes No
1991 Rover Dangerfield No Story No
1993 Groundhog Day Yes Yes Yes BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay
1995 Stuart Saves His Family Yes No No
1996 Multiplicity Yes No Yes
1999 Analyze This Yes Yes No
2000 Bedazzled Yes Yes Yes
2002 The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest No No executive
Analyze That Yes Yes No
2005 The Ice Harvest Yes No No
2006 I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With No No executive
2009 Archie's Final Project No No executive
Year One Yes Yes Yes

Television
Year Title Director Writer Notes
1979 Delta House No Yes Pilot episode
1982 The Rodney Dangerfield Show: It's Not Easy Bein' Me No Yes
2006–2010 The Office Yes No 4 episodes

Acting roles
Year Title Role Notes
1976–1978 Second City Television Various roles 28 episodes
1981 Stripes Russell Ziskey
Heavy Metal Zeke Voice, (segment "So Beautiful and So Dangerous")
1983 Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone Intercom Voice, Uncredited
National Lampoon's Vacation Marty Moose Voice, Uncredited
1984 Ghostbusters Dr. Egon Spengler
1987 Baby Boom Steven Bochner
1988 Stealing Home Alan Appleby
1989 Ghostbusters II Dr. Egon Spengler
1993 Groundhog Day Neurologist
1994 Airheads Chris Moore
Love Affair Sheldon Blumenthal
1997 As Good as It Gets Dr. Martin Bettes
2000 High Fidelity Rob's Dad (scenes deleted)
2002 Orange County Don Durkett
I'm with Lucy Jack
2006 The Last Kiss Professor Bowler
2007 Knocked Up Ben's Dad
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story L'Chai'm
2009 Year One Adam Final Appearance
2019 Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters Himself Documentary feature-film

Video games
Year Title Role Notes
2009Ghostbusters: The Video GameDr. Egon SpenglerVoice role;
Also writer
2015Lego DimensionsVoice role (Archive Audio)
gollark: I've heard that their support and warranty is not actually very good unless you pay even more.
gollark: Yes, that would be even more of a waste of money.
gollark: It's probably *possible*, with work, to run other general-purpose software on a DS. It's much easier with fairly standard x86 machines.
gollark: Very fast calculators with better I/O, yes.
gollark: What?

References
  1. Friend, Tad (April 19, 2004). "Comedy First: How Harold Ramis's movies have stayed funny for twenty-five years". The New Yorker. Retrieved August 28, 2007.
  2. "Awards Database—Film: Original Screenplay". bafta.org. British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
  3. "Harold Ramis Biography (1944–)". FilmReference.com. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  4. "'Ghostbusters' Actor, 'Caddyshack' Director Harold Ramis Dies at 69". Algemeiner Journal. February 24, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  5. Sacks, Ethan (February 24, 2014). "Harold Ramis dead at 69: Actor-director-writer was best remembered for 'Ghostbusters,' 'Groundhog Day'". New York Daily News. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  6. "Harold Ramis, Judd Apatow talk "Groundhog Day," Buddhism, and San Francisco in the 60s". Lion's Roar. July 18, 2016. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  7. Loerzel, Robert (April 24, 2014). "11 Questions for Harold Ramis: An Unpublished Interview". Chicago magazine. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  8. Leopold, Todd (February 24, 2014). "Harold Ramis of 'Ghostbusters,' 'Groundhog Day' fame dies". CNN.com. Retrieved February 25, 2014. 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.
  9. Kuczynski, Alex. "Groundhog Almighty", The New York Times, December 7, 2003, via Kenyon College Department of Religious Studies
  10. "Chicago Public Schools Alumni: 'Senn, Nicolas Senn High School'". Cpsalumni.org. Archived from the original on February 16, 2012. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  11. Sacks, Mike. And Here's the Kicker...: Conversations with Top Humor Writers About Their Craft Archived June 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine (Writer's Digest Books, July 2009). Online excerpt from Harold Ramis interview
  12. "Zeta Beta Tau – Notable Alumni". Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity. Archived from the original on December 5, 2016. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
  13. Martin, Brett (July 2009). "Harold Ramis Gets the Last Laugh". GQ: 64–67, 124–25. Archived from the original on July 1, 2009. Retrieved August 15, 2009.
  14. Caldwell, Sara C., and Marie-Eve S. Kielson, So You Want to be A Screenwriter: How to Face the Fears and Take the Risks (Allworth Press, 2000), p. 75. ISBN 1-58115-062-8, ISBN 978-1-58115-062-9
  15. Lovece, Frank, "Ramis' realm: Comedy creator surveys career from Second City to 'Year One'" Archived February 19, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Film Journal International online, June 12, 2009
  16. Patinkin, Sheldon. The Second City: Backstage at the World's Greatest Comedy Theater (Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2000) ISBN 1-57071-561-0, ISBN 978-1-57071-561-7.
  17. Martin, Douglas (February 24, 2014). "Harold Ramis, 69, Dies; Alchemist of the Hilarious". The New York Times. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
  18. Karp, Josh (2006). A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever. Chicago Review Press. p. 219. ISBN 1-55652-602-4.
  19. Caldwell, Kielson, p. 77
  20. Saito, Stephen "20 Movies Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You", Section: "A Confederacy of Dunces", Premiere, no date
  21. "'Ghostbusters 3' in Theaters by Christmas 2012!". Bloody Disgusting.
  22. Wolgamott, L. Kent (April 15, 2004). "An 'exceedingly dangerous woman':Emma Goldman's story". Lincoln Journal Star. Lincoln, Nebraska. Archived from the original on June 4, 2004.
  23. Abrams, Brian (December 28, 2009). "Ramis on 'Ghostbusters 3': 'Plans to Shoot Next Summer and Release in 2011'". Heeb. Archived from the original on March 29, 2010. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  24. Ramis interview, WABC-TV, via "Harold Ramis Says 'Ghostbusters 3' in 2011!". BloodyDisgustng.com. December 30, 2009. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  25. E Television Online: "Harold Ramis' Daughter Speaks Out: Stop Using My Dad as an Excuse to Hate the New 'Ghostbusters'" by John Boone July 14, 2016
  27. Swartz, Tracy. "Mollie Heckerling revealed as Harold Ramis' daughter in new book". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved April 18, 2018.
  28. Honan, William H. (November 23, 1991). "Daniel Mann, 79, the Director of Successful Plays and Films". The New York Times.
  29. Bacon, Shane (February 24, 2014). "Remembering Harold Ramis and "Caddyshack"". Yahoo!. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  30. Caro, Mark. "Harold Ramis, Chicago actor, writer and director, dead at 69". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  31. "Statement from the President on the Passing of Harold Ramis". whitehouse.gov. February 25, 2014. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
  32. Jordan Zakarin (February 25, 2014). "President Obama Makes 'Caddyshack' Joke in Tribute to Harold Ramis". TheWrap. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
  33. Boone, Brian (June 6, 2018). "How Harold Ramis and Bill Murray Ended Their Feud and Other Things We Learned in This Memoir". Vulture. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
  34. Wakeman, Gregory. "How Groundhog Day Ruined Bill Murray And Harold Ramis' Partnership". Retrieved May 28, 2015.
  35. McCarthy, Sean L. (February 25, 2014). "Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart pay tribute to the late great Harold Ramis". The Comic's Cosmic. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  36. "St. Louis Walk of Fame Inductees: Harold Ramis". Stlouiswalkoffame.org. Archived from the original on December 28, 2008. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  37. "Austin Film Festival Past Award Recipients". AustinFilmFestival.com. Archived from the original on August 15, 2012. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  38. "Harold Ramis Honored by Writers Guild with Screen Laurel Award". Variety. Retrieved January 19, 2014.
  39. Anderson, Melissa (July 10, 2016). "Busted Flat: All-Too-Normal Activity Dominates the 'Ghostbusters' Remake". Retrieved August 14, 2017.
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