For 'Ghostbusters' Day, Dann Gire revisits '84 cast interviews
It's “Ghostbusters" Day!
Wednesday, June 8, marks the anniversary of the 1984 release of the original “Ghostbusters” comedy, directed by Ivan Reitman and co-written by Dan Aykroyd and the late Harold Ramis. It will be shown in more than 800 theaters at 2 and 7 p.m. The remake, with women taking over the main roles, hits theaters July 15.
To celebrate “Ghostbusters” day, here are highlights from my 1984 interviews with the “Ghostbusters” cast in the Blue and Gold Room of New York's Plaza Hotel just before the movie opened.
Wilmette native Bill Murray could barely talk in a croak, the result of giving too many interviews and smoking too many strong French cigarettes.
“Danny (Aykroyd) came to me a while ago and said, 'I've got this thing I want you to look at. It's no good, but take a look at it.'” Murray read 75 pages of the “Ghostbusters” screenplay and said he would do it.
“It was a good thing to get back together again,” Murray told me. “It's been a rough time. Dan lost a good friend (the late John Belushi). I know I did. We really wanted to bond again. Danny and I haven't had fun like that (making 'Ghostbusters') since we were in the theater together.”
Sigourney Weaver ratted out Murray's talent as more trial-and-error than “magic.”
“The interesting thing about Bill is that he's so brilliant,” she told me. “But he's not brilliant all the time.
“During rehearsals, he would try different things and finally he would hit something that we all knew would be it and everyone would laugh. It was good to see that it wasn't sheer brilliance pouring out of every part of him. He's funny in the film, but it's not just magic.”
“Ghostbusters” had originally been designed as a vehicle for Aykroyd and Belushi, a Wheaton native. After Belushi's 1982 death, Aykroyd gave all the best lines and biggest laughs to Murray.
“The fact that he wrote me the first banana part is typical of him,” Murray said of Aykroyd. “He likes to hide behind the writer's credit. He wanted to give it away. It was a very nice gift.”
Aykroyd, 32 at the time, wrote “Ghostbusters” out of his interest in the paranormal.
“I believe in the continuum of the human soul,” he told me. “I believe we are not the only dimension and reality in the universe. There are parallel areas and mirror worlds that exist somewhere. This is where you get your stories about apparitions and lost souls, the ghost of Flight 401 and the other famous American ghost stories.”
Aykroyd at the time was a card-carrying “fellow” of the American Society for Psychical Research, located on 73rd Street in New York.
The comedy's fourth banana, Rick Moranis, said, “'Ghostbusters' could only have been written by Dan Aykroyd. It's a totally original idea, researched and developed by Dan. Harold (Ramis) helped him rewrite it to make it that much funnier.”
Reitman and Moranis worked on creating his accountant, Louis Tully, by fine-tuning his nerdiness.
“We went over the spectrum of nerds and decided to go with about four points on the Nerd-O-Meter with him,” Moranis said. “I don't know what the overall effect is. He's cute and harmless. And standing next to Sigourney Weaver, he sure looks funny.”
I asked Aykroyd point blank if he ever tried to contact Belushi's spirit.
“It's a conscious choice I've made not to open that up,” he said. “It's dangerous stuff. I don't want that to happen.
“There is no peace or rest I can impart to him. There's no point to opening that supernatural door.”
“Ghostbusters”
• Go to
fathomevents.com/event/ghostbusters to find local theaters showing “Ghostbusters” and for the $12.50 tickets.• Original cast members will join the new female “Ghostbusters” — including Plainfield native Melissa McCarthy — on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” at 10:35 p.m. on Wednesday, June 8, on ABC. The new “Ghostbusters” opens July 15.