http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/fashion/mens-style/the-peculiar-ascent-of-bill-murray-to-secular-saint.html 2016-09-20 13:06:39 The Peculiar Ascent of Bill Murray to Secular Saint The recent proliferation of T-shirts, posters, murals and memes suggests that the man who had his first fame decades ago has become an icon. === Over the last few years, Mitch Glazer, the screenwriter and producer, has watched with awe and bewilderment what has happened to Mr. Glazer has been friends with the actor for decades, and they have worked together on several projects, including “A Very Murray Christmas,” his Netflix holiday special having its premiere on Dec. 4. Mr. Murray first gained notice during his “ “It’s the feeling of how they make crystals,” Mr. Glazer said. “It’s water, it’s water, it’s water, and then it reaches this density, and all of a sudden, it’s this other thing.” What Mr. Glazer means by “this other thing” is the transformation of Bill Murray the actor into a pop icon. The kind of figure for whom there is a coloring book, frameable art prints and T-shirts bearing his face in its many moods, from the smirking mug of “Stripes” (1981) to the pensive gray-bearded visage of “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” (2004). The bro-centric website Indeed, he now rivals James Dean, Elvis Presley and Albert Einstein in image appropriated bric-a-brac. On Etsy, you can buy: a “Saint Bill Murray” The actor has little or nothing to do with these products and seems not to have brought legal action. People are strangely moved to make this stuff and others to purchase it. As Mr. Glazer wrote in his recent There are murals of Bill Murray that decorate the interiors of bars from Toronto to Sydney, and tattoos of the actor’s face inked onto the arms and calves of 20- and 30-somethings. Tumblr blogs celebrate his awesomeness. It’s clear that he has come to symbolize something. But what, exactly? “There’s a lack of pretense, a lack of phoniness that people respond to,” said Robert Schnakenberg, author of “The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray,” an A to Z of the actor’s life and career published in September. Zach Tutor, who runs one of the Wearing his face on a T-shirt, Mr. Tutor said, “is a reflection of who you are.” Alexei Dawes, a psychology student in Australia and a Bill Murray fan, thinks the essence of the man is too great to be captured on a T-shirt (or, for that matter, on It’s hard to know how much of the fanboy love is a projection of the film roles onto the man. But the Murray mythology is based, to some degree, on his off-screen antics. The stories are legion: Bill Murray singing with the awe-struck patrons of a New York karaoke bar; Bill Murray appearing out of nowhere to join A request to interview Mr. Murray, sent to his lawyer, was unreturned as of press time. His spontaneous way of moving through the world has given him an air of authenticity and independence, and a Garbo-like mystique. “He dictates when or where he appears,” Mr. Schnakenberg said. “There’s ubiquity, but also absence, so people never get tired of him.” While researching his book, Mr. Schnakenberg discovered that Mr. Murray had done these things for decades. In 1977, as a newcomer to the “Saturday Night Live” cast, he crashed Elvis Presley’s funeral, hitching a ride to Graceland on a celebrity-filled jet. The difference, of course, is that no one had a camera phone and YouTube then. “Now, that would be all over the world the next day,” Mr. Schnakenberg said. Mr. Glazer witnessed this firsthand last year, when the two men were out walking in Charleston, S.C., where Mr. Murray owns a house. “There was a photographer taking a picture of a couple about to get married,” Mr. Glazer said. “The photographer said to Billy, ‘Would you get in the picture?’ I thought, ‘There’s no way on earth Bill’s going to stop.’ But he said, ‘O.K.,’ and he walked over and took the photo.’” The image went viral, with news outlets declaring, “ “Other celebs like Will Ferrell do these weird things,” said Tommy Avallone, a filmmaker who is producing a documentary about “Ghostbusters” fans who dress in costume. “But they’re usually followed by a camera for a stunt. Bill Murray plays to his own audience for himself.” For all his fame and wealth, he seems to live without the barricades cordoning off movie stars from the rest of us. Unlike virtually any other famous person, there is a real sense Bill Murray could He has had such a long film career that, in the public mind, there are multiple Bill Murrays. The Bill Murray of “Stripes” and “Ghostbusters” is an anti-authoritarian goofball: the kind of smart-aleck who leads a company of soldiers in a coordinated dance routine before a visiting general or responds to the possible destruction of New York City by saying, “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!” Hobson Brown made this Bill Murray his mascot for the golf apparel line he co-founded, Criquet Shirts. For the brand’s office in Austin, Tex., he commissioned a large mural of the Carl Spackler character from “Caddyshack,” spouting his nonsensical Zen koan, “Gunga Galunga.” “People connect to Bill because he has a charming irreverence,” Mr. Brown said. “And for us as a golf brand, it’s more about the 19th The midcareer Bill Murray of films like “Scrooged” (1988) and “Groundhog Day” (1993) is a narcissist who grows and softens as a human being while retaining a sardonic streak: a model for callow young men everywhere. With Wes Anderson’s film “Rushmore” (1998) and Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (2003), the layer of self-protective irony is all but gone as he enters a period sometimes referred to as “Sad Bill Murray.” He played older men lonely and adrift. The irreverent spirit remains, but it has been beaten down by life and transformed into a muted sarcasm that accompanies a rueful appraisal of personal failings. When he got divorced from his second wife in 2008, articles appeared including He began randomly showing up to loft parties in Brooklyn and karaoke rooms downtown; on another occasion, he commandeered a The civilians who have partied with him find themselves in possession of a golden dinner-party anecdote; but lost in the funny retellings is the melancholy reality of an older, divorced dad partying with 20-somethings. Justin Cozens, a Canadian artist, cleverly captured this heavy-hearted Murray in a chalk painting he did for a Toronto bar. “The reason it worked so well with that painting is that you get a sense with the Wes Anderson roles of loneliness and isolation and unhappiness,” Mr. Cozens said. “People feel a sense of connection to Bill Murray through those roles. It humanizes him. He’s not afraid to be flawed.” (For what it’s worth, Mr. Glazer said “the core of the guy” hasn’t changed since they met nearly 40 years ago, and rather than “the sad clown,” he finds Mr. Murray to be “just a really cool guy … a searching guy.”) Mr. Anderson’s movies (“Rushmore,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox”) have endeared Mr. Murray to the same hipsters and sensitive art-school kids who love the director. In other words, the type of people inclined to paint Steve Zissou in his red beanie on heavyweight paper and sell it for $22 on Etsy (or to buy it for their apartments). Mr. Murray has achieved what Mr. Schnakenberg called the “three-legged stool” of modern fandom: “He’s got the bros with ‘Caddyshack’ and the hipsters with the Wes Anderson movies and then the millennials with the social media stuff.” He added: “I don’t know if it’s calculated. I think it is a happy accident. But if you were designing a marketing plan to keep yourself relevant to all the demographics and generations, you couldn’t do it any better.” Cults of personality like the one surrounding Bill Murray usually arise posthumously. In seeing his face on a T-shirt, one thinks of Che Guevara, whose headshot on soft cotton or dorm-room posters has long served as a symbol of revolution, if not a stylish endorsement for a beret. In hearing the comparison, Mr. Glazer laughed; not long ago, he said, he happened to walk into a T-shirt shop near his home in Los Angeles and saw a mash-up of the two icons. “It had the beret, you know, with Bill’s face on it,” Mr. Glazer said. “I said to the guy, ‘Where’d you get this?’ He said: ‘I made it. Bill Murray is like Che.’” Mr. Glazer was dumbfounded all over again: “It’s surreal.” Bill Wyatt is the owner of the Y-Que Trading Post, the Los Angeles store that sells the “Che Murray” T-shirt. It started as a visual joke, he said. “People come in and say, ‘Is that Che? Is that Bill?’ It’s just confusing enough,” Mr. Wyatt said. He often plays with pop-culture references, as he did in the early 2000s with the “Free Winona” T-shirts that referenced Winona Ryder’s arrest on shoplifting charges. The “Che Murray” is a notable departure. “Usually,” Mr. Wyatt said, “the celebs have to go to jail for me to do a shirt.”