Bill Murray is one of the greatest actors to have come out of Hollywood in the past 50 years. Known for his powerful acting that often comes out of left field to put the viewer into some form of an existential crisis, Bill Murray has starred in a diverse genre of films and has never let any director typecast him. From the understated development of the relationship between him and Scarlett Johansson in Lost In Translation to the effortless comedy of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray has explored the many facets of cinema and has been able to give us memorable moments in all of those roles.
What makes Bill Murray so great?
The vast majority of the great actors of our time are more often than not remembered for a single career-defining moment. The magnum opus so to speak. The exact moment when you can see all that they have worked for crystallize in a crescendo of marvelous acting prowess. An Oscar generally follows, and that character is forever immortalized in public memory. Eventually, the power of the character overtakes the power of the actor, and the character overtakes the actor themselves. What this eventually translates into is a long line of similar movies that the actor does in order to somehow be able to get hold of that same magic again. It almost never happens. The fact that Bill Murray has never had that one moment that defines him is what makes him great. He eludes the definition. All the iconic roles he has done fight with each other and preserve the man himself, Bill Murray. For one moment, he is Herman Blume from Rushmore, and then the very next moment he is a television executive in Scrooge. The beauty of his eluding definition is that you cannot ever put him in a certain shape, he is fluid and the variety of all the roles that he has done bears witness to that fact.
More than his acting, it’s just the man himself. To put it bluntly: He’s so cool. Playing guitar with a man who is quite literally one of the greatest guitarists of all time? Check. Just think how cool you need to be in order to just share the same stage as the man who led the band Cream and created undoubtedly the best guitar riff of all time, Layla. There are videos of him shaking hands with people for over a minute for no reason but just for the hell of it. Do I need to even mention the camera he equipped with himself which to come to Cannes with? Face it, the man is more than a myth. He is the walking face of class and always keeps the audience guessing about what he will do next. More than a performer on the silver screen, he is also a performer on life’s colorful canvas as well.
Does Bill Murray own a private jet?
The question that we have all been waiting for to be answered. Does Bill Murray own a private jet? Let’s look at the facts. The man is worth nearly $180 million. After all, delivering blockbuster after blockbuster and grossing billions of dollars overall has made the man a decent fortune as well. He is also excruciatingly famous as well, which means that he will be instantly recognizable as well. For a man who is so famous, Bill Murray must have a real hard time being on commercial flights. Hordes of fans must be flocking around him to get a glimpse of him and better yet, a selfie. He has money and he is famous, he must own a jet. However, the truth is that he does not own a private jet of any sort. In fact, he flies coach like the rest of us mere mortals. He is often seen flying economy around the world, sitting with his fans, and taking selfies as he flies to his destination. Perhaps Bill Murray is one of those rare celebrities that have a genuine personality underneath the façade that they have to put up. Perhaps his real-life personality is not so indifferent to his likable movie persona. I think one has to admit that Bill Murray is pretty cool.
Bill Murray’s airline experience
There are several stories that have circulated the internet about Bill Murray’s experiences in airlines. One such account states that Bill Murray placed the peas from the cabin dinner into a stewardess’s empty shoe and ate out of it just to make a point about the terrible flavor of the peas. There’s another one that chronicles him proposing to flight attendants. On top of that is the fact that Bill Murray has been spotted flying JetBlue, a commercial airline that entirely does not have first-class.
Bill Murray himself is a character that is rather hard to forget. He seems to be able to masterfully dance around the rope between boring and being too eccentric for his own good. Perhaps this is the reason why he has been able to capture the imagination of multiple generations. Lost In Translation will still inspire an existential crisis in a 20-year-old just as powerfully as it first did nearly 2 decades ago. His staying power is certain and his entry into American Pop Culture seems to be one of permanence. I think the only thing that is truly shocking about him is the fact that he has only one academy award. But then again, so does Al Pacino of all people. Then again, Led Zeppelin never won a Grammy, so we do know that awards don’t seem to mean much in the long run.
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