HOLLYWOOD FEUDS: CHEVY CHASE AND BILL MURRAY

Their animosity began in the chill backstage corridors of Saturday Night Live in February 1978. Chevy Chase, having risen to instant fame as SNL's original "Weekend Update" anchor, had departed after season two, confident his movie career awaited. Bill Murray, brought on in the next season, was dubbed the “new Chevy,” a tag that felt more like a weight than an honor to the quieter performer.

When Chevy returned to host the 11th episode of the third season, the air was already thick with tension. John Belushi, a close friend of Murray's, had been spreading veiled critiques of Chase to stir the pot. Things reached a boiling point one afternoon when Murray confronted Chase, accusing him of being universally disliked by the cast and crew. Their argument ignited with Murray mocking Chase’s personal life—“Go f**k your wife, she needs it”—to which Chase retorted with a biting insult about Murray’s appearance, likening it to lunar terrain.

Moments before airtime, the verbal rigmarole escalated into shoving and wild slaps in the hallway. Bill Murray cursed out Chevy as SNL writers and even Belushi intervened to pull them apart. Filmmaker John Landis later described them slapping and screaming, with Murray calling Chase a “medium talent,” evidence that their feud carried raw emotions and barbed humor.

In reflecting on the clash, Murray would later call it a “Hollywood fight,” a melodramatic eruption driven by shifting seasons, wounded pride, and collective resentment over Chase’s departure. He said it represented an “Oedipal thing”—a symbolic betrayal where he became the avenging voice for the ensemble.

Despite the heat of the moment, neither emerged with serious injuries. Chevy later shrugged, “Billy Murray and I came to fisticuffs, but we never really ended up hitting each other... we tried, but Belushi got in the middle and we both ended up hitting John”. The fight subsided under a flurry of intervention—John Belushi, Brian Doyle‑Murray, writers Michael O’Donoghue and Tom Davis—restoring pre-show calm and ensuring the broadcast proceeded as planned.

 
Time, oddly enough, became the balm. In 1979, at a party, Chevy delivered one of the wildest peace offerings in comedy lore: he drunkenly approached Murray, unzipped his fly, and mimed an oral gesture. Both burst into laughter, and just like that, the ice cracked. Their subsequent friendship was sealed on the set of Caddyshack (1980), where their camaraderie on-screen—smoking pot together—mirrored the thawing of their earlier hostilities.

Over the decades, their relationship transformed from fiery rivalry to mutual respect. Bill would later acknowledge that Weekend Update wouldn’t exist without Chevy, ranking him a worthy fourth among its anchors—humble praise tucked into a tribute that concluded with warm acknowledgment. Chevy, for his part, would lean on Murray’s subtle kindness even during tense moments, paying homage at SNL’s 50th anniversary with genuine picture-posting camaraderie.

Their feud, once a product of wounded egos and high-stakes comedy, ultimately became a testament to reconciliation. A loud hallway fight fades into the lore of showbiz; their later friendship, captured in film and shared history, reminds us that even the bitterest clashes can give way to something deeper and enduring...

HOLLYWOOD FEUDS: BILL MURRAY AND RICHARD DREYFUSS

The 1993 comedy What About Bob is now considered to be one of Bill Murray's greatest films. Thirty plus years after it came out the film is celebrated now, but the tension and drama on the set was anything but funny then. Director Frank Oz has confirmed in interviews that there was conflict on the set during the making of the film.In addition, both Murray and Dreyfuss have stated in separate interviews that they did not get along with each other during filming:

It's entertaining—everybody knows somebody like that Bob guy. [Richard Dreyfuss and I] didn't get along on the movie particularly, but it worked for the movie. I mean, I drove him nuts, and he encouraged me to drive him nuts.
— Bill Murray, March 19, 1993 interview with Entertainment Weekly

How about it? Funny movie. Terribly unpleasant experience. We didn't get along, me and Bill Murray. But I've got to give it to him: I don't like him, but he makes me laugh even now. I'm also jealous that he's a better golfer than I am. It's a funny movie. No one ever comes up to you and says, "I identify with the patient". They always say, "I have patients like that. I identify with your character". No one ever says that they're willing to identify with the other character.
— Richard Dreyfuss, October 8, 2009 interview with The A.V. Club

Oz himself also verified that there was a feud between Murray and Dreyfuss:

I was just trying to get the best out of both of them. Richard is a very structured person. And I'm not that structured. And Billy is very unstructured. So you have that opposite going also. And as a matter of fact, I just wrote Richard a letter, after all these years, because I was looking at that movie, and I realized how brilliant Richard's work was. But yes, they didn't get along. And in my perverse directorial intent, I was very pleased [laughs]. They're not supposed to get along. It's not that I was simpatico with Bill, but I leaned more towards the ideas that Bill had. But I am so grateful to Richard for his performance.
— Frank Oz, January 28, 2021 interview with Rolling Stone

In subsequent interviews, Dreyfuss reiterated what he said of his experience working with Murray, notably when he appeared at Fan Expo Canada in 2017. Dreyfuss further alleged in 2019 that at one point during the production, Murray screamed at him while intoxicated, telling him "Everyone hates you! You are tolerated!" and then threw an ashtray at him. When Murray appeared on The Howard Stern Show in 2014, Howard Stern asked him if he intended to irritate Dreyfuss. Murray responded: "I really try to make the other actor look good whenever I can (...) In this particular film, annoying Dreyfuss, which I kind of got to enjoy I gotta confess—but I didn't try to annoy him off the screen." Murray also acknowledged in 2025 that he threw a glass at the ceiling and denied throwing it at Dreyfuss. Although neither of them have crossed paths since the release of the film, Dreyfuss confirmed in a 2020 interview that he has forgiven Murray.

Producer Laura Ziskin recalled having a disagreement with Murray that resulted in his tossing her into a lake. Ziskin confirmed in 2003: "Bill also threatened to throw me across the parking lot and then broke my sunglasses and threw them across the parking lot. I was furious and outraged at the time, but having produced a dozen movies, I can safely say it is not common behavior".

In April 2022, following the suspension of the Being Mortal production, Dreyfuss's son Ben tweeted a recollection about Murray's on-set behavior towards his father and Ziskin: "Bill Murray had a meltdown during [What About Bob?] because he wanted an extra day off and Laura said no and he ripped her glasses off her face and my dad complained about his behavior and Bill Murray threw an ashtray at him." Ben also added, "Everyone walked off the production and flew back to L.A. and it only resumed after Disney hired some bodyguards to physically separate my dad and Bill Murray in between takes."

Whatever the issues making the film were, it might have made for a better movie. The actors might not have been on their best behavior, but the film is a classic!

BILL MURRAY ON GILDA RADNER

Bill Murray says “SNL” costar Gilda Radner used to 'wet her pants' laughing: 'She'd have to run out of the room' Radner, who died in 1989, was one of the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players."

The Saturday Night Live family has lost many cast members over the years. Former show regular Bill Murray remembered one of them, his friend Gilda Radner, in probably the best way that a comedian can.

"Everybody liked making her laugh," Murray said of Radner.

The reason was simple.

"She would wet her pants, that's what Gilda would do," Murray said. "You could get her going, and she'd have to run out of the room. But there was sort of no limit to how much she could laugh until her bodily functions broke down."

The comedians worked together on the show in its early years. Radner was one of the original seven ensemble players starting in 1975, and she stood out for her characters such as Baba Wawa, her parody on Barbara Walters, and "Weekend Update" consumer affairs reporter Roseanne Roseannadanna. She was on the show until 1980, which overlapped with Murray's tenure from 1977 to 1980.

"To know her for as long as I knew her was, really, sort of a training camp," Murray said. "It was like a real discipline, like, I've got a possibility here to make someone laugh a lot. And she'd see it and go like, 'Uh-oh, here it comes.' And you do, and it's fun."

Murray has acknowledged that he cried at last month's star-studded SNL50 special, celebrating a half-century of the sketch comedy remembering Gilda Radner...

RECENTLY VIEWED: GHOSTBUSTERS - AFTERLIFE

This weekend I was just looking at the movies on cable, and I decided to watch Ghostbusters: Afterlife finally. I was 10 when the original Ghostbusters came out, and I enjoyed the movie but I never thought it was a great as people said it was. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a 2021 American supernatural comedy film directed by Jason Reitman from a screenplay he co-wrote with Gil Kenan. It is the sequel to Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and the fourth film in the Ghostbusters franchise. The film stars Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, and Paul Rudd, alongside Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Sigourney Weaver reprising their characters from the earlier films. Set 31 years after the events of Ghostbusters II, it follows a single mother and her children who move to an Oklahoma farm they inherited from her estranged father Egon Spengler, a member of the original Ghostbusters.

A third Ghostbusters film was in development since the release of Ghostbusters II, but production stalled because Murray refused to return to the series. After cast member Harold Ramis died on February 24, 2014, Sony produced a female-driven reboot that was released in 2016. In 2019, Jason Reitman confirmed a sequel to the original films, the new cast was announced by July, and the original cast signed on two months later. Filming took place from July to October. This was the final film to be produced by and involve the franchise's co-creator Ivan Reitman before his death in February 2022.

Produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Bron Creative, Ghostbusters: Afterlife was screened unannounced during the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas on August 23, 2021, and was then released in the United States on November 19, after being delayed four times from an original July 2020 date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film received praise for the cast's performances, Reitman's direction, nostalgic tone, and its respectful tribute to Ramis, with criticism mostly being directed towards its screenplay and fan service. It grossed $204.4 million worldwide against a production budget of $75 million. A sequel is set to be released on March 29, 2024.

I won't tell you the whole plot of the film, but there are a lot of great moments honoring the original film as well as the memory of Harold Ramis. The new cast of Ghostbusters are excellent, and even the the original Ghostbusters appeared, it was sad to not really have Harold Ramis among them. If you liked the orignal Ghostbusters, you will like this movie. Even if you are a new viewer, the movie has a sort of Stranger Things vibe to it, and you will still like the film. As a movie to watch on a lazy Saturday evening, Ghostbusters: Afterlife really fit the bill...

MY RATING: 8 out of 10

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: BILL MURRAY

URBAN LEGEND: Comedy legend Bill Murray does not have a cell phone, and the only way to contact him is through his 1-800 line.

STATUS: It is 100% True!

Bill Murray famously doesn't have an agent -- or assistant or anything -- so if you want to make an appointment with him, you have to call and leave a message at his 1-800 number. It doesn't matter if you're a director or a dentist, that's the only way you'll get to Murray (that, or have a wedding).

He recently told GQ why he only screens movie pitches through his voicemail: "Well, it's what I finally went to. I have this phone number that they call and talk. And then I listen." I hope the director of Garfield 3 does not have his number!...

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE MOMENTS

It is really hard to capture 40 years of Saturday Night Live in pictures. There are some memorable skits though that when you see them you will instantly remember them. I just picked out six photos of SNL skits that were memorable to me...

CHRIS FARLEY: "Living in a van down by the river"

STEVE MARTIN and DAN AYKROYD: "Two wild and crazy guys"

GILDA RADNER & STEVE MARTIN: a simple comedic dance with no words

BILL MURRAY: "Lounge Singer"

WILL FERRELL and DARRELL HAMMOND: "Celebrity Jeopardy"

WILL FERRELL: "We need more cowbell"

BILL MURRAY: THE LAST NIGHT I SAW GILDA RADNER

Funny girl Gilda Radner died way too young of cancer in 1989 at the age of 42. She seemed to touch every life she came in contact with including fellow comedian Bill Murray. Here is Bill's story about the last night he saw Gilda Radner...

Gilda got married and went away. None of us saw her anymore. There was one good thing: Laraine had a party one night, a great party at her house. And I ended up being the disk jockey. She just had forty-fives, and not that many, so you really had to work the music end of it. There was a collection of like the funniest people in the world at this party. Somehow Sam Kinison sticks in my brain. The whole Monty Python group was there, most of us from the show, a lot of other funny people, and Gilda. Gilda showed up and she’d already had cancer and gone into remission and then had it again, I guess. Anyway she was slim. We hadn’t seen her in a long time. And she started doing, “I’ve got to go,” and she was just going to leave, and I was like, “Going to leave?” It felt like she was going to really leave forever.

So we started carrying her around, in a way that we could only do with her. We carried her up and down the stairs, around the house, repeatedly, for a long time, until I was exhausted. Then Danny did it for a while. Then I did it again. We just kept carrying her; we did it in teams. We kept carrying her around, but like upside down, every which way—over your shoulder and under your arm, carrying her like luggage. And that went on for more than an hour—maybe an hour and a half—just carrying her around and saying, “She’s leaving! This could be it! Now come on, this could be the last time we see her. Gilda’s leaving, and remember that she was very sick—hello?”

We worked all aspects of it, but it started with just, “She’s leaving, I don’t know if you’ve said good-bye to her.” And we said good-bye to the same people ten, twenty times, you know.

And because these people were really funny, every person we’d drag her up to would just do like five minutes on her, with Gilda upside down in this sort of tortured position, which she absolutely loved. She was laughing so hard we could have lost her right then and there.

It was just one of the best parties I’ve ever been to in my life. I’ll always remember it. It was the last time I saw her...

SOURCE

MY FIVE FAVORITE SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE STARS

As we celebrate a week of Saturday Night live stories, I wanted to start out with a list of my five favorite alumni from the show. That show, which has been on for 40 years has been the showcase from some of the greatest comedians our present entertainment industry has ever known. Here are my five favorites...

5. TINA FEY (2000-2006)

Tina Fey breathed new life into Weekend Update, bringing sharp, literate political satire to what had been a regularly scheduled dead spot for years. It says a lot that the show's best political joke since her departure has been the Sarah Palin impression she started doing as a special guest.

4. WILL FERRELL (1995-2002)

Long before Old School, Ferrell looked like the friendly, super-straight guy at the fraternity beer bash who'd been putting off graduation for too long because he wasn't looking forward to managing his dad's construction firm. Watching strange demons take over that normal-looking countenance was a joke that seldom got tired. His surrealist sensibilities carried the show for years. 

3. JOHN BELUSHI (1975-1979)

John Belushi brought the pleasures of brash slapstick to a show that otherwise tended towards hip and cerebral. He made it look easy to dominate the stage and make audiences laugh by brute force. But if you look at the performers influenced, including Chris Farley and his own brother Jim, you can see that it isn't that easy after all.

2. GILDA RADNER (1975-1979)
Gilda Radner won an Emmy for her performance on SNL in 1978 and carried many a sketch amongst the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players." Her Barbara Walters and Roseanne Roseannadanna characters remain legendary.

1. BILL MURRAY (1977-1980)

Bill Murray's stature as the most beloved of all the SNL alumni was hard-won. He basically made it onto the show over Lorne Michaels' dead body, and he had a rough couple of weeks trying to win over an audience that was hell-bent on hating him because he'd replaced the show's first breakout star, Chevy Chase. But by the time Chase returned to guest host, it was Murray's show he came back to. Murray really proved his mettle when he himself hosted the only exciting episode of the notorious 1980-81 season. It looked then and still looks today as if Golden Age SNL is something Bill Murray carries around in his back pocket in case of emergency. ..

MY FIVE FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIES

Awwww...Christmas is almost here. Time to dust off the remote control and watch some holiday movies to get me in the Christmas spirit. I figured I would take a look at my five favorite holiday movies. Before anyone comments or throws burning eggnog on my house, I did not include It's A Wonderful Life on the list. I didn't include it because I have never seen the movie all the way through! However, that is another story for another time...

 

 

                              5. A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983)
I believe this nostalgic film used to be my favorite holiday movie. For years now there has been a marathon on cable channel TBS, and over the past few years I have gotten a little bored of the movie. It is a great comedy, and a great look at Christmas in American in the late 1940s. Like so many movies, when it first came out in 1983 it was a bomb. However, over the last thirty years it has become a beloved holiday classic. From the leg lamp to the line “You’ll shoot your eye out”, the movie has taken on a life of its own. I’ll still watch the movie over the holidays, but I just may not try to watch 24 hours of it in a row anymore.


                                     4. SCROOGED (1988)
Many of the versions of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” are dry and dull, so I have always liked this contemporary comedy based on the beloved Christmas story. Bill Murray makes this movie with his funny and charming version of “Ebenezer Scrooge”. The movie is about Christmas and changing your life for the better, but I loved the additional cast in the movie like: Robert Mitchum, John Houseman, and Buddy Hackett, and John Forsythe among others. Bill’s version of Ebenezer works as the head of a television studio, and as the station puts on an ambitious live version of “A Christmas Carol”, Bill Murray is changed through visits from three ghosts. One of the ghosts was played by the funny Carol Kane. It’s a great movie to get rid of the humbugs in anyone!

 

3. ELF (2003)

I don’t really watch Saturday Night Live anymore, but one of the funniest people to come out of that show is Will Ferrell. Early in his movie career, Will made this movie about a human raised as an elf. The elf goes to New York to find his dad. You can imagine what happens next. This movie has truly become a holiday classic, and I never get tired of the movie and can recite many of the lines. I use the line “smiling is my favorite” in my every day conversations I think! A surprising bit of casting was serious actor James Caan as Will’s dad. He is a great part of the movie, as is Bob Newhart as Will’s foster elf father. I am not sure if the movie was intended to become such a part of Christmas, but all I have to do is watch the film once to feel good inside and feel the Christmas spirit.


2. HOLIDAY INN (1942)
Even though I am a supposed fan of classic movies, this is the only truly classic holiday movie to make the list. Like so many holiday classics, this fim was not really intended as a holiday film, and there is very little about Christmas in the movie. The movie did introduce the world to one of the greatest holiday songs of all time “White Christmas”, and really a movie can not get any better with Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Irving Berlin songs in it. The movie was so popular that the Holiday Inn chain of motels and hotels were named after the movie. The song “White Christmas” would go on to be the biggest hit Bing Crosby ever recorded, and it would often be dubbed the most popular song of all time. I like the movie because the great Irving Berlin songs are woven around all of the holidays, and I feel the movie is as watchable in 2014 as it was 72 years ago when it debuted.

 1. NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989)
Many holiday movies give you warm and fuzzy feelings on how wonderful the holidays are. This comedy starring Chevy Chase reminds you what Christmas and the holiday season is really like. The movie is not afraid to show you that the holiday season often sucks! I don’t always find Chevy Chase funny, and this movie was pretty much the last good movie he made, but he is great as Clark Griswald. Griswald wants to have a huge family Christmas together like he remembers as a kid. He gets what he wishes for and so much more. From the Christmas tree catching fire to a squirrel running loose in the house to an unwanted family guest that just will not leave, we have all been there. There is a little bit of Clark Griswald in all of us. Of course in the end everything works out, but not until their house is destroyed and a swat team visits them on Christmas Eve! This movie does not paint a beautiful Norman Rockwell painting of Christmas, but it does portray a pretty accurate depiction of what the holidays are like. It is noisy and annoying and tiresome but keep on celebrating the holidays every year. I would not miss it for the world!

HOLLYWOOD REMEMBERS HAROLD RAMIS

When writer and director Harold Ramis died a few days ago, the world really lost a comedy genius. Some of my biggest laughs growing up were from movies like Ghostbusters or Groundhog Day. Ramis was well liked in Hollywood, and he left behind not only a wealth of great films but great friends as well...

BILL MURRAY
"Harold Ramis and I together did the National Lampoon Show together off Broadway, Meatballs, Stripes, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day," Murray said in a statement obtained by Time magazine. "He earned his keep on this planet. God bless him."

ADAM MCKAY
"Thank u Harold Ramis for 1000's of laughs and for being a warm, decent person. You will be very missed."

STEVE MARTIN
"So sorry to hear about the death of Harold Ramis, a comedy master. Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, and more."

STEVE CARELL
"Harold Ramis. Funny, gracious, kind hearted. A joy to have known"

OLIVIA WILDE
"Harold Ramis was a kind, wise, hilarious, brilliant guy with a buddhist heart. So grateful to have worked for him. Sending love to his fam."

NICK SWARDSON
"The world lost Harold Ramis today. Sad day for comedy and a sad day for a wonderful life gone. Take note and pay respects."

JON FAVREAU
"No no not Harold Ramis. Worked for him years ago. He was the real deal. Growing up, his work changed my life. He will be missed."

DAN AYKROYD
"Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my brilliant, gifted and funny friend, co-writer/performer and teacher Harold Ramis. May he now get the answers he was always seeking"....