ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 29, 1996 TAG: 9611290089
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN SAMPEY ASSOCIATED PRESS
It's hard to know what to expect from Bill Murray.
He opens the door to a hotel suite in New York dressed in black slacks and an orange-print shirt so loud it is positively screaming.
One instinctively braces for a barrage of ``noogies.''
Instead, Murray extends a soft, mechanical handshake and offers a soda, politely inquiring just how much ice is desired.
Listening carefully to each question, he alternates between sober responses or comic rifts so droll it is hard to tell the difference.
Murray claims not to have yet seen his new movie, ``Larger Than Life,'' in which he portrays a motivational speaker who inherits an elephant from the newly dead, circus-performer father he never knew about. He's also coming out in ``Mars Attacks,'' Tim Burton's offbeat science fiction comedy about aliens who land in Arizona, and find an assortment of odd Earthlings. He also has a role in ``Space Jam.''
A question about his Roman Catholic upbringing in Wilmette, Ill., sparks observations about the similarities between Pope John Paul II and Muhammad Ali.
``It's a big deal that the pope's sick,'' Murray declares. ``He's got Parkinsons maybe, they say. Muhammad Ali and the pope, both with the same affliction. They're two of the most famous people on Earth and they got it and they're going down. It's one thing to be a retired boxer. People don't expect you to work. But the pope's got a worldwide gig. What does he do?''
Murray is staring off into space now, and it's as if he's talking to himself.
``To have a guy who is really way up there, who can't hide - it just makes it Greek. Very heroic. I don't know what all this illness means.''
Suddenly self-conscious, Murray smiles.
``Am I really raving here?'' he asks. ``Because the world is raving so much.''
His demeanor is almost meditative. He can be philosophical and funny without being obviously ``on.'' It's a trait not unlike that of a man he lists as one of his comedic influences: Jack Benny.
``Only when I got older did I go, `Holy cow!' that guy's moves are amazing,'' Murray, 45, says of the comedian whose show he watched regularly in his childhood.
As a player in Chicago's Second City comedy troupe in the early 1970s, Murray recalls constantly wondering who had it and who didn't in terms of comedy.
``Guys like Jackie Gleason. This guy had a lot of moves,'' he says with an air of amazement. ``Here was a guy who was really a solid, strong actor and you saw how much comedy was about acting.''
An original cast member of television's ``Saturday Night Live,'' Murray seems to approach movie roles as that of a dramatic actor trapped in a comic's body: His steady gaze can either signal that an exasperated eye-roll is imminent or that a wounded introspection lurks beneath those frat-boy hijinks.
As if to underscore the point, Murray who is of Irish descent, leans forward and effects a whispering brogue to reveal what he considers his most Irish characteristic: ``I tend to brood,'' he says with a nodding squint. ``And I can hold a grudge. I also have an affinity for working people. Working people don't frighten me.''
In fact, they inspire him. His father, Edward, was a lumber salesman, and the nine Murray children often competed for the privilege of making him laugh.
He insists that doing live television every week is much more work than making movies and admits to a certain longing to be back in the ``creative hammock'' that was SNL.
``I miss that job. When something really great goes on in the world, you think, `We could do some funny stuff with that.'''
Murray also misses the zany comedian Gilda Radner, an original SNL cast member who died of ovarian cancer in 1989.
He played the sleazily nerdy Todd DiLaMuca, dispensing ``noogies'' to her nasally nerdy Lisa Lupener on SNL, and says, ``I never was funnier in my life than I was with Gilda Radner. She pushed me to do stuff that I never did with anyone.
``She had very high standards because, obviously, she was a very funny person. I remember doing a thing where I had a toy teddy bear and I beat this thing up the whole day. I just kept doing more stuff with this thing and couldn't stop making her laugh. It was almost sadistic.''
As for the current SNL, Murray thinks it's much improved.
``They got really good really fast,'' he says of the newest cast. ``The one where Phil Hartman hosted just killed me. He does a Sinatra with these two girls. The sketch is just unbelievable.''
Among other works he describes as ``unbelievable'' for their artistry are the book ``Huckleberry Finn,'' which Murray recently reread, and his favorite film, ``North by Northwest.''
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP "Space Jam's" Bill Murray: ``I never was funnier inby CNBmy life than I was with Gilda Radner [on 'Saturday Night Live']. She
pushed me to do stuff that I never did with anyone." color