Photography courtesy of Justin Hoch, Wikimedia Commons
Comedy icon Harold Ramis, who graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1966 and has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, died early Monday morning. He succumbed to an illness complicated by vasculitis, a rare disorder leading to inflammation of blood vessels. He was 69 years old.
Most people knew him as Egon from Ghostbusters or as "Bill Murray's Buddy In Stripes Who Later Played Egon."
What most people don't know is that Ramis had his mitts in just about every successful iconic American comedy venture in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, as a writer, performer, and director. His IMDb page reads like a Google search of “really funny movies everyone liked over the past 40 years.”
Many people also might not know about the comedy legend’s connections to St. Louis.
“He had a special bond with Wash. U.,” says Henry Schvey, professor of drama and comparative literature at Washington University. Schvey served as the chair of the performing arts department until 2007 and had known the late comedian for more than 20 years, even accepting the star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame on Ramis’ behalf in 2004.
“His undergraduate years at Wash. U. were where he first found himself as an artist,” Schvey says. “He considered [late Washington University drama professor] Herbert E. Metz to be a mentor, and would send him notes and questions on some of these films as he was writing them up until [Metz’s] dying day.
“[Ramis] was a remarkable person—very giving,” Schvey continues, recounting how he donated the first endowment of the Herbert E. Metz Prize, awarded annually for exception dramatic writing. Ramis, who was given an honorary doctorate from the school in 1993, would also give lectures on acting, directing, and screen writing to students.
“Coming from Hollywood, a place known for its shallow values, Harold Ramis was someone with real values,” Schvey says. “He made a real connection with people.”
Ramis’ acting chops—while formidable enough to tame the stages of his hometown of Chicago’s improvisational theater “Second City” alongside John Belushi and Bill Murray—are generally considered to be less than equal to the rest of his considerable talents. Still, he turned around celebrated performances in Ghostbusters and Stripes, playing the straight man to Murray’s sillier characters.
He co-wrote Animal House, drawing inspiration for many of the film’s exploits from his fraternity days on Wash. U.'s campus. His first directing gig was the imitable Caddyshack. He later directed National Lampoon’s Vacation. Those three films alone constitute roughly most of the film-quip exchanges among college friends for the past 30 years. He wrote part or all of Meatballs, Caddyshack, Back to School, Stripes, and Ghostbusters, among many other films.
Ramis’ greatest talent may have been his ability to discover the best qualities in his cast or script and provide support to make the entire project better, either in a supporting role, behind the scenes, or behind the lens.
While not as commercially successful as blockbusters like Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day is considered by many to be Ramis’ greatest work. It seems to be one the most emblematic of himself. The 1993 film, which he directed and co-wrote, is a complicated one, rich with moral and philosophical quandaries built around the somewhat simple plot of a man who keeps living the same day over and over again. What would that man do with an infinite amount of consequence-free time? What would anyone do?
Ramis was able to help re-write the script, an initial version of which was even more philosophically dense, and stage it in a way that audiences could process and enjoy it. Schvey notes that the film, much like Ramis himself, is both accessible and daring. “There was a certain edginess to his writing," he says. "It was somewhat experimental, but always accessible."
“He was an actor’s director," Schvey adds. "His temperament was that of an intellectual. He was deep and widely read. His interests were eclectic. It’s a tremendous loss for American art that he’s passed away.”
