William James Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and director. Known for his deadpan delivery, Murray rose to fame on The National Lampoon Radio Hour (1973–1974) before becoming a national presence on Saturday Night Live from 1977 to 1980, where he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. He starred in comedy films including Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Stripes (1981), Ghostbusters (1984), Scrooged (1988), What About Bob? (1991), Groundhog Day (1993), Kingpin (1996), The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997), Osmosis Jones (2001) and Garfield (2004). His only directorial credit is Quick Change (1990), which he co-directed with Howard Franklin.
Murray's performance in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003) earned him a Golden Globe and a British Academy Film Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He has frequently collaborated with directors Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, John McNaughton and the Farrelly brothers. He received Golden Globe nominations for his roles in Ghostbusters, Rushmore (1998), Hyde Park on Hudson (2012), St. Vincent (2014), On the Rocks (2020) and the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014), for which he later won his second Primetime Emmy Award.
Murray received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2016. He is also known for voicing Garfield in the family comedy film Garfield: The Movie (2004) and its sequel Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006), Clive Badger in Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Baloo in the live action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book (2016), and Boss in Isle of Dogs (2018). Murray reprised his role as Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and appeared as Lord Krylar in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023).
Early life
Murray was born on September 21, 1950, in Evanston, Illinois, to Lucille Murray (née Collins; 1921–1988), a mail-room clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II (1921–1967), a lumber salesman. He was raised in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago.
Murray and his eight siblings grew up in an Irish Catholic family. His paternal grandfather was from County Cork, while his maternal ancestors were from County Galway. Three of his siblings, John Murray, Joel Murray, and Brian Doyle-Murray, are also actors. A sister, Nancy, is an Adrian Dominican nun in Michigan; she has traveled the United States in two one-woman programs, portraying Catherine of Siena and Dorothy Stang. His brother Ed Murray died in 2020. Their father died in 1967 at the age of 46 from complications of diabetes when Bill was 17.
As a youth, Murray read children's biographies of American heroes like Kit Carson, Wild Bill Hickok, and Davy Crockett. He attended St. Joseph's grade school and Loyola Academy. During his teen years, he worked as a golf caddy to fund his education at the Jesuit high school, and was the lead singer of a rock band called the Dutch Masters and took part in high school and community theater. One of his sisters had polio and his mother suffered several miscarriages.
After graduating from Loyola Academy, Murray attended Regis University in Denver, Colorado, taking pre-medical courses, but quickly dropped out and returned to Illinois. Decades later, in 2007, Regis awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree. On September 21, 1970, his 20th birthday, the police arrested Murray at Chicago's O'Hare Airport for trying to smuggle 10 lb (4.5 kg) of cannabis, which he had allegedly intended to sell. It was discovered after Murray joked to the passenger next to him that he had packed a bomb in his luggage. Murray was convicted and sentenced to probation.
