Actor, writer, and director Harold Ramis, 1944–2014. Whether it’s Groundhog Day Ghostbusters, Stripes, Animal House, Caddyshack or some other film in his roster, at some point he probably made you laugh.
“These comedies have several things in common. They attack the smugness of institutional life, trashing the fraternity system, country clubs, the Army — even local weathermen — with an impish good will that is unmistakably American. Will Rogers would have made films like these, if Will Rogers had lived through Vietnam and Watergate and decided that the only logical course of action was getting wasted or getting laid or — better — both.”
Related from The New Yorker, 2004: Why Ramis’s comedies are still funny today. “The voice that Ramis originated — a defanged sixties rebelliousness that doesn’t so much seek to oust the powerful as to embolden the powerless — remains the dominant mode in comedy today.”
Update: “The ones who cultivate an inner calm while others are dropping around them might well have the tougher job. He was a straight man on and off the screen. But oh, what timing.” David Edelstein on Ramis.