William James "Bill" Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning American comedian and actor.
Murray, the fifth of nine children, was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois, the son of Lucille, a mail room clerk, and Edward J. Murray II, a lumber salesman. Murray, along with his siblings, grew up in an Irish Catholic family.Three of those siblings are also actors: John Murray, Joel Murray, and Brian Doyle-Murray. A sister, Nancy, is an Adrian Dominican Sister in Michigan who travels around the country portraying St. Catherine of Siena.
Growing up, Murray's family had little money and his mother pressured her children to get jobs. As a child, Murray read biographies for children of American heroes like Kit Carson, Wild Bill Hickok and Davy Crockett. He attended St. Joseph's grade school, located just minutes away from his home. He attended Loyola Academy. As a teenager, he worked alongside his brothers as a caddy to pay for his tuition in a Roman Catholic High School. The 1960s were tough on Murray and his family. His father had diabetes, one of his sisters had polio and his mother had several miscarriages. During his teen years he was the lead singer of a rock band called the Dutch Masters and took part in high school and community theater.
After graduation, he attended Regis University in Denver, Colorado where he took pre-med courses. He later dropped out after being arrested for possession of marijuana at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. He worked numerous jobs including a stint at a Little Caesar's alongside future chef Kerry Simon.
With an invitation from his older brother, Brian, Murray got his start at Second City Chicago studying under Del Close. The improvisational comedy troupe was a perfect fit for Murray's clever, dry humor and ad libbing. In 1974, he moved to New York City and was recruited by John Belushi as a featured player on The National Lampoon Radio Hour, which aired on some 600 stations from 1973 to 1974. In 1975, an Off Broadway version of a Lampoon show led to his first television role as a cast member of the ABC variety show Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell that featured animal acts and little kids with loud voices. Murray landed his first starring role with the film Meatballs in 1979. He followed this up with his portrayal of famed writer Hunter S. Thompson in 1980's Where the Buffalo Roam. In the early 1980s, he starred in a string of box-office hits including Caddyshack, Stripes and Tootsie. Murray began work on a film adaptation of the novel The Razor's Edge. The film, which Murray also co-wrote, was his first starring role in a dramatic film. He later agreed to star in Ghostbusters in a role originally written for John Belushi. This was a deal Murray made with Columbia Pictures in order to gain financing for his film. Ghostbusters became the highest-grossing film of 1984. But The Razor's Edge, which was filmed before Ghostbusters but not released until after, was a box-office flop. Murray returned to films in 1988 with Scrooged and the sequel Ghostbusters II in 1989. In 1990, Murray made his first and only attempt at directing when he co-helmed Quick Change with producer Howard Franklin. His subsequent films What About Bob? (1991) and Groundhog Day (1993) were box-office hits and critically acclaimed.
After a string of films that did not do well with audiences, he received much critical acclaim for Wes Anderson's Rushmore for which he won several awards. Murray then experienced a resurgence in his career as a dramatic actor. After dramatic roles in Wild Things, Cradle Will Rock, Hamlet (as Polonius), and The Royal Tenenbaums, he garnered considerable acclaim for the 2003 film Lost in Translation. He received a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA award. In 2005, Murray announced that he would take a break from acting, as he had not had the time since his new breakthrough in the late 1990s. He did return to the big screen, however, for a brief cameos in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited and in Get Smart as Agent 13, the agent in the tree.
Murray will also lend his voice for the upcoming game Ghostbusters: The Video Game, due out Summer 09. Murray became the first guest on NBC's new late night talk show, Late Night with David Letterman on February 1st 1982. He would later appear on the very first episode of The Late Show with David Letterman in August 1993, when the show moved to CBS. Murray is an avid golfer who often plays in celebrity tournaments. His 1999 book Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf, part autobiography and part essay, expounds on his love of golf. In 2002, he and his brothers starred in the Comedy Central series, The Sweet Spot, which chronicled their adventures playing golf. Murray played Carl Spackler in Caddyshack.
He is a partner with his brothers in Murray Bros. Caddy Shack, a restaurant chain with locations near Jacksonville and in Myrtle Beach and St. Augustine.
He is a part-owner of the St. Paul Saints independent minor-league baseball team and occasionally travels to Saint Paul, Minnesota to watch the team's games. He also owns part of the Charleston RiverDogs, Hudson Valley Renegades, and the Brockton Rox. He invested in a number of other minor league teams in the past, including the Utica Blue Sox, Fort Myers Miracle, and Salt Lake Trappers. He was also a part-owner of the Auburn Astros (now the Auburn Doubledays) in Auburn, NY.
Being very detached from the Hollywood scene, Murray does not have an agent or manager and reportedly only fields offers for scripts and roles using a personal telephone number with a voice mailbox that he checks infrequently.
During the filming of Stripes, Murray wed Margaret "Mickey" Kelly on Super Bowl Sunday in Las Vegas on January 24, 1981. They married again in Chicago in a church for their families.They had two sons, Homer (born 1982) and Luke (born 1985). They filed for divorce in 1994 because of his affair with Jennifer Butler. Margaret and Bill Murray's divorce became final in 1996.
In 1997, he married Jennifer Butler. They have four sons together: Caleb James (born January 11, 1993), Jackson William (born October 6, 1995), Cooper Jones (born January 27, 1997), and Lincoln Darius (born May 30, 2001). Butler filed for divorce on May 12, 2008, citing spousal abuse along with drug and alcohol addiction. Butler's petition for divorce was finalized on June 13, 2008.