Please Rewind Talent Wall

Harold Ramis

Harold Allen Ramis built a career that moved easily between writing, directing and performing, helping shape a run of American comedies that remain rewarding to revisit. Born in Chicago on November 21, 1944, he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in English literature before finding his way into Chicago improvisational theatre with The Second City. He also worked as a jokes editor for Playboy and contributed to National Lampoon projects and Second City Television. His screenwriting breakthrough came with National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978. He went on to earn writing credits on Meatballs and Stripes, appearing in the latter alongside frequent collaborator Bill Murray. Ramis made his feature directing debut with Caddyshack in 1980, then directed National Lampoon's Vacation, another Please Rewind movie in which he also appears. For many viewers, though, Ramis is inseparable from Dr. Egon Spengler. He co-wrote Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II and played Egon in both films, bringing a controlled, matter-of-fact presence to stories filled with supernatural chaos. The performance captures an important part of his comic sensibility: the joke often lands harder when the person delivering it refuses to make a fuss. Ramis continued balancing large-scale comedy with ideas about behavior, frustration and self-improvement. That combination found one of its clearest expressions in Groundhog Day, which he directed and co-wrote. He and Danny Rubin shared the 1994 BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film. Later directing and writing work included Analyze This, Analyze That and Year One, his final feature as writer, producer, director and actor. An autoimmune inflammatory illness curtailed his ability to work from 2010. Ramis died on February 24, 2014, at age 69. His career remains closely tied to a collaborative comedy generation that included Murray, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi and Ivan Reitman—and to movies whose craft becomes clearer each time around.