Harold Ramis: 1944-2014
https://x.com/PaoloMRivera/status/438027991696683008
Actor, writer, producer and director Harold Ramis, who made many of the most iconic comedy hits of the 1980s and 1990s, died today at his home in Chicago. He was 69. The award-winning comedy filmmaker who co-starred in and co-wrote [[[Ghostbusters]]], [[[Ghostbusters II]]], and [[[Stripes]]] passed away from complications related to auto-immune inflammatory vasculitis which he’d battled for four years.
Chicago native Ramis graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, MO and worked as a joke editor for Playboy Magazine before launching his career as a writer for The National Lampoon Radio Hour, the radio show that was a launching pad for a who’s who of future comedy stars and collaborators including Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Richard Belzer, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner. Rising alongside his peers in the late-’70s comedy scene, Ramis came up through Chicago’s Second City improv troupe and was head writer on sketch comedy show SCTV before breaking into Hollywood as the co-writer of 1978′s [[[National Lampoon’s Animal House]]]. The campus comedy sparked his hot streak through the ’80s and Ramis’s career as a writer, director and actor skyrocketed from there. He wrote camp comedy [[[Meatballs]]] (1979) the next year before making his directorial debut with the Chevy Chase-Rodney Dangerfield classic [[[Caddyshack]]] (1980), which he also wrote with Douglas Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. Caddyshack went on to become a cult hit and was named one of AFI’s Top 100 Funniest Films of all time.
via Ghostbusters’ Ramis Dead at 69.
Mike Gold will have his own stories about Harold Ramis later. Our condolences to his family and friends.
