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Murray became the first guest on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman on February 1, 1982. Learn 50 surprising facts about actor Bill Murray.
1. William James "Bill" Murray first gained exposure on Saturday Night Live.
2. For Saturday Night Live he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in comedy films, including Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Tootsie, Ghostbusters, Scrooged, What About Bob?, and Groundhog Day.
3. Murray garnered additional critical acclaim later in his career, starring in Lost in Translation.
4. Lost in Translateion earned him a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
5. He also received Golden Globe nominations for his roles in Ghostbusters, Rushmore, Hyde Park on Hudson and St. Vincent, and Primetime Emmy award for his supporting role in HBO's mini-series Olive Kitteridge.
6. He has collaborated more than once with such notable film directors as Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Frank Oz and the Farrelly brothers.
7. Murray was is Illinois native. He was raised in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago.
8. His mother Lucille was a mail room clerk.
9. His father Edward Joseph Murray II was a lumber salesman.
10. Murray and his eight siblings were raised in a Catholic Irish American family.
11. Three of his siblings, John Murray, Joel Murray, and Brian Doyle-Murray, are also actors.
12. A sister, Nancy, is an Adrian Dominican nun in Michigan, who has traveled the United States in a one-woman program, portraying St. Catherine of Siena.
13. Their father died in 1967 from complications of diabetes when Bill was 17 years old.
14. As a youth, Murray read children's biographies of American heroes like Kit Carson, Wild Bill Hickok, and Davy Crockett.
15. During his teen years, he worked as a golf caddy to fund his education at the Jesuit high school.
16. One of his sisters had polio and his mother suffered several miscarriages.
17. During his teen years he was the lead singer of a rock band called the Dutch Masters.
18. He took part in high school and community theater.
19. After graduating, Murray attended Regis University in Denver, Colorado, taking pre-medical courses. He quickly dropped out, returning to Illinois.
20. Decades later, in 2007, Regis awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree.
21. On September 21, 1970, his 20th birthday, the police arrested Murray at Chicago's O'Hare Airport for trying to smuggle 10 lb (4.5 kg) of cannabis, which he had allegedly intended to sell. Murray was convicted and later sentenced to probation.
22. With an invitation from his older brother, Brian, Murray got his start at The Second City in Chicago, an improvisational comedy troupe, studying under Del Close.
23. In 1974, he moved to New York City and was recruited by John Belushi as a featured player on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
24. 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 children with loud voices.
25. After working in Los Angeles with the "guerrilla video" commune TVTV on several projects, Murray rose to prominence in 1976.
26. He officially joined the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live for the show's second season, following the departure of Chevy Chase, but had been on the premiere episode of the show.
27. Murray was with SNL for three seasons from 1977 to 1980.
28. A Rutland Weekend Television sketch Eric Idle brought for his appearance on SNL developed into the 1978 mockumentary All You Need Is Cash with Murray (alongside other SNL cast members) appearing as "Bill Murray the K", a send-up of New York radio host Murray the K, in a segment of the film that is a parody of the Maysles Brothers's documentary The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit. During the first few seasons of SNL, Murray was in a romantic relationship with fellow cast member Gilda Radner.
29. Murray landed his first starring role with the film Meatballs in 1979.
30. He followed this up with his portrayal of Hunter S. Thompson in 1980's Where the Buffalo Roam.
31. In the early 1980s, he starred in a string of box-office hits including Caddyshack, Stripes, and Tootsie.
32. Murray became the first guest on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman on February 1, 1982.
33. He would later appear on the first episode of the Late Show with David Letterman in August 1993, when the show moved to CBS.
34. On January 31, 2012 - 30 years after his first appearance with Letterman - Murray appeared again on his talk show. He appeared as Letterman's final guest when the host retired on May 20, 2015.
35. 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.
36. 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 The Razor's Edge.
37. Ghostbusters in which he acted became the highest-grossing film of 1984.
38. He is a partner with his brothers in Murray Bros. Caddy Shack, a restaurant located near St. Augustine.
39. He also resides in Charleston, South Carolina, where he is a very active community member.
40. He is a part-owner of the St. Paul Saints independent semi-pro baseball team and occasionally travels to Saint Paul, Minnesota to watch the team's games.
41. He also owns part of the Charleston RiverDogs, Hudson Valley Renegades, and the Brockton Rox.
42. He invested in a number of other minor league teams in the past, including the Utica Blue Sox, Fort Myers Miracle, Salt Lake Sting (APSL), Catskill Cougars and Salt Lake City Trappers.
43. 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.
44. When asked about this practice, however, Murray seemed content with his inaccessibility, stating, "It's not that hard. If you have a good script that's what gets you involved. People say they can't find me. Well, if you can write a good script, that's a lot harder than finding someone. I don't worry about it; it's not my problem."
45. During the filming of Stripes, Murray married Margaret Kelly on Super Bowl Sunday in Las Vegas on January 25, 1981.
46. Later, they remarried in Chicago for their families.
47. Margaret gave birth to two sons, Homer and Luke.
48. Following Murray's affair with Jennifer Butler, the couple divorced in 1996.
49. In 1997, he married Butler. Together, they have four sons.
50. Murray is a fan of several Chicago professional sports teams, especially the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bears and the Chicago Bulls.
Source: Wikipedia.org
