What About Bill? A Quiz About Bill Murray.

Answer: Illinois

Bill was born in Evanston, Illinois. His mother, Lucille, was a mail-room clerk and his father, William, was a lumber salesman. Bill has eight brothers and sisters and grew up in a Catholic household. Three of his brothers are actors and one of his sisters is a nun.

Answer: September 1950

Bill was born September 21, 1950. As a teenager he went to a private preparatory Catholic high school and worked as a golf caddy to help pay for the school. After high school he attended a Jesuit university in Colorado and studied pre-med, however, he dropped out and returned to Illinois. The school, Regis University, gave Bill an honorary Humanities degree years later.

Answer: Saturday Night Live

Prior to his television work, Bill was a member of the improv group, Second City, in Chicago. Bill's brother, Brian, was the one who invited him to join the troupe. After Second City he joined "The National Lampoon Radio Hour" with Jim Belushi. Murray joined "Saturday Night Live" for its second season and was on the show from 1977 to 1980.

He won an Emmy for writing in 1977 and was nominated for a second Emmy in 1979.

Answer: Meatballs

"Meatballs" is a Canadian comedy directed by Ivan Reitman, and the first starring role for Murray. Murray and Reitman went on to work together in several movies including both "Stripes" and "Ghostbusters". In "Meatballs", Murray plays Tripper Harrison, the head counselor at a summer camp.

There, he is the head counselor for a group of trainees, befriends a lonely camp attendee, and leads the camp in a competition against a team from a superior camp. The movie won the "Golden Reel Award", which was awarded to the biggest grossing movie for the year in Canada.

Answer: Smuggling cannabis

On Murray's twentieth birthday he was traveling by plane and remarked to the passenger next to him that he was carrying a bomb. He was joking, but the passenger reported him and it turned out that Murray was carrying ten pounds of cannabis. He was arrested at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, convicted, and sentenced to probation.

Answer: William Murray Golf

On Murray's birthday in 2016 he launched a golf clothing brand with his brother, Joel. William Murray Golf invites customers to "unleash their inner Murray" and have fun while living life. Murray also partners with his brothers in the restaurant business with Murray Bros. Caddy Shack.

He has invested in and is or was part owner of a number of minor league baseball teams including the St. Paul Saints, the Utica Blue Sox, and the Catskill Cougars.

Answer: Rushmore

Wes Anderson and Bill Murray have worked together with quite a bit of success. In 1998 Murray was in "Rushmore" and won an Independent Spirit Award for his work in that film. He's also been in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", "The Royal Tenenbaums", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", and "The Darjeeling Limited." He voiced characters in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Isle of Dogs." The only one of Anderson's earlier movies that Murray was not in was "Bottle Rocket", which was released in 1996.

Answer: Stripes

There are many stories about Bill Murray being difficult to work with, which was a big surprise to me! Sean Young and Murray worked together on "Stripes" and did not get along very well at all. Apparently during the shoot the actors were encouraged to improvise, which Murray was quite comfortable with doing, but Young was not.

This bothered Murray and he did not enjoy working with her. Young has a reputation for erratic behavior herself and was sued at one point by actor James Woods. But back to Bill. Apparently he had a physical altercation with Chevy Chase, did not get along with Richard Dreyfuss during the making of "What About Bob", and often disagreed with director Richard Donner during the making of "Scrooged." Whatever it is that he's doing, it may make him tough to work with, but does make for good end results on screen!

Answer: No

The brilliant movie, "Lost In Translation", stars Murray as an older actor who is in Japan doing promotional work. While there he bonds with a younger woman who is accompanying her boyfriend, who is there for work as well. Scarlett Johansson plays the young woman and while the two apparently didn't get along very well (again with not getting along with co-workers Bill!) the two have great on-screen chemistry.

This Sofia Coppola directed movie was nominated for a number of awards and won for Best Original Screenplay. Murray was nominated for an Oscar, but did not win.

He did win an Independent Spirit Award and a Golden Globe. Coppola really wanted to work with Murray and tried to get in contact with him for about a year about the movie. He doesn't have an agent and is notoriously difficult to contact, but she finally got the script to him. Apparently he agreed to the film without signing a contract and Coppola was unsure if he would even turn up in Japan for the shoot!

Answer: Take Me Out to the Ball Game

In addition to investing in minor league teams, Murray can often be seen cheering on Chicago's professional league teams. He was a guest commentator for a Chicago Cubs game and sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 2016 World Series at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

He has been invited for champagne in the Cubs clubhouse and he was awarded a Hilda Award for his dedication to the game of baseball as a fan. In June 2021 the Chicago Cubs held their first full capacity game since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and guess who was at that game? Super fan Bill Murray reprised "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for the capacity crowd during the seventh inning stretch.