Dammit. Harold Ramis just died. This is bullcrap, and I won’t stand for it. Someone needs to keep breakable objects away from me for a while.
The actor/writer/director/COMEDY LEGEND passed away in the wee hours of the morning from complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a rare disease that I’m just hearing about for the first time, but it’s on my sh*t list for eternity because it took Egon away from us.
In addition to playing Egon in the Ghostbusters movies, both of which he co-wrote, Ramis also co-wrote Stripes and Animal House and co-wrote and directed Caddyshack and that most wonderful of holiday movies, Groundhog Day. And then there was his early work on the classic sketch comedy show Second City Television (SCTV), other alumni of which include John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Rick Moranis, and Eugene Levy.
That’s only a small sample, of course. Browse Ramis’ IMDB page to look at the rest of his filmography and be sad. More recently his movies were, um, not so good—there’s Year One, Analyze That, and Bedazzled—but he brought hilarity to TV as the director of several episodes of The Office. And he’s Harold freaking Ramis. Let’s all watch Groundhog Day tonight and laugh through our tears.
Writes the Chicago Tribune:
Ramis was quiet about his illness, but friends did visit, including brothers and Second City castmates Bill Murray, from whom he’d been estranged for years, and Brian Doyle-Murray, who appeared in seven Ramis movies.
“He was like the campfire that we all gathered around for light and warmth and knowledge,” his adult daughter Violet Stiel said.
“And that’s the truth,” added [wife] Erica Ramis.
He was only 69. This ain’t cool, world. I don’t approve.
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