Bill Murray: The Guy Who Can Get Away With Murder

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 12, 2012 8:30PM

It is no surprise that yesterday's amusing Bill Murray hoax concerning his plan for a nationwide party crashing tour was widely believed. The Internet seems bent on becoming a glorified collection of delightfully spurious Bill Murray anecdotes, in part because the beloved Wilmette native, actor, and part-time urban legend has seeded its fertile landscape with enough documented, zany encounters (Bill crashing karaoke parties, Bill tending bar, Bill washing dishes, Bill getting pulled over in a golf cart in Sweden, etc.) that our usual bullshit detectors just aren't good for much any more. What is it about Bill Murray that makes us want to believe this stuff?

Bill has no use for publicists, and years ago fired his agents. Is it a coincidence soon after he began crashing parties? There is no barrier between you and Bill Murray beyond the not-insignificant amount of demand on his attention. If you want to reach him, you can call his 1-800 number. That's what Woody Harrelson had to do to get him on board for Zombieland. His approachability is kind of his thing.

It's also now a key component of his identity. That Bill will hang out with you, perhaps even if you break into his home, has become a key part of his public persona. That you will encounter him where you least expect it is thematized in movies as often as it is fabricated on Tumblr. Bill Murray is famous, but he is also famous for being a constant threat to be spending time with non-famous people.

Isn't this the way we would want to act if celebrity ever found us? Using our notoriety to have a good time and increase the happiness of unsuspecting strangers? He once told Roger Ebert that at Second City he learned the value of making those around him look good. That he's been able to carry this spirit through during his career's second act as a comedic actor of great pathos is remarkable, but that he's seems to be willing to do this for people he doesn't know is worth far more than any agent. There are risks to this approach, such as the potential scandals and law suits that a handler would try to insulate him from, but the reward is that he remains a people's champ. This is the best-case scenario for a guy who, as he once wrote in Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf, "The crowd is where the fun is."

At 20, Murray got busted trying to move 10 pounds of pot through O'Hare (he only got searched because he joked that he had bombs in his luggage). These days, he seems to be able to get away with whatever he wants to get away with, whether that's wearing this jacket at Cannes, owning a baseball team (actually, he is part owner of multiple teams), or showing up at parties. The weird thing is that the more he gets away with, the more mundane the things he seems interested in getting away with become. That's why we not-so-secretly want him to crash ours: because every quasi-believable Bill Murray story is a reminder that it's possible to be a success without being ruined by it.