South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of film, interactive and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring (usually in March) in Austin, Texas, United States. SXSW began in 1987, and has continued to grow in size every year. In 2011, the conference lasted for 10 days, with SXSW Interactive lasting for five, Music for six, and Film running concurrently for nine days.

South by Southwest is run by a company, called SXSW Inc., that plans and executes conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events.^[1] In addition to the three main South by Southwest festivals, the company runs two other conferences, both also in Austin: SXSWedu, a conference on educational innovation, since 2011;^[2] and SXSW Eco, an environmental conference, since 2012.^[3]

Overview[link]

SXSW Music is one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with more than 2,000 performers playing in more than 90 venues^{[citation needed]}. SXSW Music offers artist-provided music and video samples of featured artists at each festival via their official YouTube channel.^[4][5]

SXSW Film is a film festival, focusing on new directing talent^{[citation needed]}.

SXSW Interactive is focused on emerging technology, a focus which has earned the festival a reputation as a breeding ground for new ideas and creative technologies.^[6] According to a festival organizer Louis Black, SXSW Interactive "has probably been the biggest of its kind in the world" since 2007.^[7]

The music event has grown from 700 registrants in 1987 to nearly 12,000 registrants. SXSW Film and SXSW Interactive events have grown every year, most recently bringing around 15,000 to 20,000 registrants to Austin every March.^[8]

Collectively, SXSW is the highest revenue-producing event for the Austin economy, with an estimated economic impact of $167 million in 2011.^[9][10]

History[link]

In July 1986, the organizers of the New York City music festival New Music Seminar contacted Roland Swenson, a staffer at the alternative weekly The Austin Chronicle, about organizing an extension of that festival into Austin. The plans did not materialize, so Swenson decided to instead co-organize a local music festival, with the help of two other people at the Chronicle: editor and co-founder Louis Black, and publisher Nick Barbaro. Louis Meyers, a booking agent and musician, was also brought on board.^[11] Black came up with the name, as a play on the name of the Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest. The event was first held in March 1987. The organizers considered it a regional event and expected around 150 attendees to show up, but over 700 came, and according to Black "it was national almost immediately."^[7]

Meyers left Austin and the festival in the early 1990s, but Black, Barbaro and Swenson remained the festival's key organizers as of 2010.^[7]

1992

Singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked was the keynote speaker at the 1992 South by Southwest. She caused controversy by delivering a speech, written by her then-husband Bart Bull, criticizing white musicians for stealing music from African-American artists; and then later during the same conference when she tried to kick the band Two Nice Girls off of a benefit concert, a move that some called anti-gay, due to Two Nice Girls' overtly lesbian image.^[12]

1993

In 1993, SXSW moved into the Austin Convention Center, where it is still held.^[13]

1994

In 1994, SXSW added a component for film and other media, named the "SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference".^[7]

That year, the three brothers of the band Hanson were brought to SXSW by their father in order to perform impromptu auditions for music executives, in the hopes of getting industry attention. Among the people who heard them was A&R executive Christopher Sabec, who became their manager, and would soon afterward get them signed to Mercury Records.^[14]

1995

In 1995 the SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference was split into two separate events, "SXSW Film" and "SXSW Multimedia".^[7]

1999

In 1999, SXSW Multimedia was renamed "SXSW Interactive".^[7]

2000

Singer-songwriter John Mayer's performance at the 2000 SXSW Music festival led to his signing soon thereafter with Aware Records, his first record label.

2002

A performance by the band The Polyphonic Spree at the 2002 SXSW Music festival helped bring them to national attention before they had signed with a major label.^[15]

At the 2002 SXSW Film Festival, the film Manito won the jury award for narrative feature, while the documentary Spellbound won the jury award for documentary feature.

2004

British singer James Blunt was discovered by producer Linda Perry while playing a small show at the 2004 SXSW Music festival, and was signed to Perry's Custard Records soon thereafter,^[16] where he would go on to release all three of his subsequent albums.

2005

The 2005 SXSW Film is considered by some to be the origin of the mumblecore film genre. A number of films now classified as mumblecore, including The Puffy Chair and Mutual Appreciation, screened there, and Eric Masunaga, a musician and the sound editor on Mutual Appreciation, is credited with coining the term "mumblecore" at a bar while at the festival.^[17]

The film Hooligans won both the Feature Film Jury Award and the Feature Film Audience Award for narrative feature, while The Puffy Chair won the Feature Film Audience Award in the "Emerging Visions" category. The documentary film Cowboy del Amor won the SXSW Competition Award and the Audience Award.

2006

A secret concert at the 2006 SXSW Music by the band The Flaming Lips was called one of the "Top 10 Music-Festival Moments" of all time by Time magazine in 2010.^[18]

The 2006 SXSW Interactive featured a keynote panel of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.^[19]

That year, "Screenburn at SXSW", a component for video games, was added to SXSW Interactive.^[7]

2007

The 2007 music festival took place from March 14 to 18, and more than 1,400 acts performed.

Two of the top film premieres that year were Elvis and Anabelle and Skills Like This.

The social media platform Twitter notably gained a good deal of early traction and buzz at the 2007 SXSW Interactive,^[20] though it did not launch there, as is sometimes reported.^[7]

2008

The 2008 SXSW Interactive got media attention due to a keynote interview of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by technology journalist Sarah Lacy that was considered by some observers to be a "train wreck" due to an audience perception that Lacy was asking uninteresting questions, as well as mocking or terse answers in response from Zuckerberg.^[21]

2009

The 2009 festival was held March 13–22. In 2009, the Interactive section of SXSW in particular drew larger attendance levels. This influx of tech-savvy attendees seriously strained the networks of providers such as AT&T (primarily due to heavy iPhone usage).^[22] Also new was the founding of an international organization for those not attending, dubbed NotAtSXSW. Coordinating through Twitter and other online tools, notatsxsw events were held in London, New York, Wisconsin, Portland, Oregon and Miami.^[23]

The 2009 SXSW Interactive saw the launch of the Foursquare application, which was called "the breakout mobile app" of the event by the Mashable blog.^[24]

The 2009 SXSW Film screened 250 films, including 54 world premieres. The event was notable for having the United States premiere of the film The Hurt Locker, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2010.^[7] The winners of the feature jury awards were, for documentary feature, 45365, and for narrative feature, Made in China.^[25]

2010

The 2010 music festival, which took place March 12–21, was dedicated to Alex Chilton, who died shortly before he was to perform with Big Star.^{[citation needed]} A tribute concert was performed in his honor on March 20, 2010.^[26]

At the 2010 festival, nearly 2,000 bands were officially scheduled to perform,^[27] and festival reps estimated that over 13,000 industry representatives attended.^[28] Though traditionally the Austin Music Awards kick off the festival, that year organizers slated it as the closing act. Local musician Bob Schneider earned 6 awards, including Song of the Year, Singer of the Year, and Band of the Year (with Lonelyland.)^[27] The 2010 festival was also notable for appearances by the surviving members of the band Moby Grape.^[29]

At the 2010 Film festival, Magnolia Pictures bought the film rights to the science-fiction film Monsters on the night it screened, in what was the first-ever "overnight acquisition" at SXSW. Journalist Meredith Melnick of Time magazine called this purchase a turning point for SXSW, leading to a greater interest among film studio executives in attending the festival in person.^[30] That year also saw the premiere of the indie favorite Tiny Furniture, which won the award for Best Narrative Feature.

The 2010 Interactive festival had an estimated 12-13,000 paying attendees, which represented a 40% jump over the previous year.^[31] This was the first year in which the interactive festival's attendance surpassed the music festival's.^[31] The keynote presentation was an interview of then-Twitter CEO Evan Williams by Umair Haque, an interview that many in the audience found disappointingly superficial.^[32] Also during the interactive festival, the first-ever (and so far only) "Hive Awards For the Unsung Heroes of the Internet" were held.

2011

Conan O'Brien promoting Conan O'Brien Can't Stop at the 2011 SXSW

The 2011 SXSW festival ran from March 11 to 20.

The keynote presenter for SXSW Interactive was Seth Priebatsch, founder and CEO of the mobile-gaming platform SCVNGR.^[33] The 2011 Interactive festival was by far the largest it had ever been, with an estimated 20,000 attendees.^[34]

Also in attendance at SXSW was boxing legend Mike Tyson, promoting his new iPhone game with RockLive at the Screenburn Arcade ^[35]

At least two films screened at the SXSW Film festival gained distribution deals there: the documentary Undefeated (which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature) and the thriller The Divide. As a result, film critic Christopher Kelly wrote that in 2011, SXSW Film went from being "a well-regarded but fundamentally regional event" to having "joined the big leagues of film festivals around the world."^[36] That festival was also notable for having the premiere of the film Bridesmaids.^[37]

The March 15 screening of the Foo Fighters documentary Back and Forth was followed by a surprise live performance by the band itself, with a setlist that included the entirety of the then-upcoming album Wasting Light.^[38]

2012

SXSW 2012 ran from March 9 to 18.

The standout technology of the 2012 SXSW Interactive was generally stated to be "social discovery" mobile apps, which let users locate other nearby users. Social discovery apps that had a presence at SXSW included Highlight, Glancee, Sonar and Kismet.^[39][40]

SXSW Film saw the premiere of two major Hollywood films: The Cabin in the Woods^[41] and 21 Jump Street.^[37]

2012 was also the first year the music portion was expanded to Tuesday. The musical festival included rappers such as Talib Kweli and Lil' Wayne, along with surprise appearances by Big Sean and Kanye West. Bruce Springsteen was the keynote speaker opening the music portion of the 2012 festival.^[42]

Similar festivals[link]

SXSW has inspired similar festivals elsewhere, including 35 Denton (formerly known as "North by 35" or "NX35" and "35 Conferette") in Denton, Texas, North by Northeast (NXNE) in Toronto, North by Northwest (NXNW) in Portland, Oregon, West by Southwest (WXSW) in Tucson, Arizona, South by Due East in Houston, and Incubate (formerly known as "ZXZW") in Tilburg, The Netherlands. South by So What?!, a one day music festival, is also named after South by Southwest.

References[link]

External links[link]

Austin portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: South by Southwest

• South by Southwest website

Creed Bratton
Bratton in March 2009
Born	William Charles Schneider (1943-02-08) February 8, 1943 (age 69) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor/Musician
Years active	1965–present
Website
http://creedbratton.com/

Creed Bratton (born February 8, 1943 as William Charles Schneider) is an American actor and musician, a former member of The Grass Roots. Today, he is best known for playing a fictional version of himself on the American adaptation of The Office on NBC.

Background and education[link]

Born William Charles Schneider in Los Angeles, he grew up in Coarsegold, California, a small town near Yosemite National Park. His grandparents, mother, and father were musicians, and he took a liking to music at a very early age. At 13, he received his first guitar from a Sears mail order catalog. He became a professional musician during his high school and college years. Upon his mother's remarriage, his name was changed to Chuck Ertmoed.

Musical career[link]

Early years[link]

He decided to try life as a traveling musician and made his way on a global excursion, during which he changed his name again, to Creed Bratton. He traveled through Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Appearing with his group the Young Californians, he played guitar at a large folk festival in Israel. Fellow American and guitarist Warren Entner witnessed Bratton's performance, and asked him to give him a call when he got back to the United States. In 1966, they formed a partnership and recruited the remaining members needed for their group, the 13th Floor. Bratton played lead guitar, Rick Coonce played drums, Entner played rhythm guitar, and Kenny Fukomoto played bass. They recorded a demo and sent it to Dunhill, a new record company headed by Lou Adler.

Bratton playing at The Office Convention in Scranton, PA in 2007

The Grass Roots[link]

Producers/songwriters P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri heard the demo and liked it. They needed new band members for a folk rock group that they had created in 1965. The 13th Floor lost their bass player to the draft during this time, and quickly recruited Rob Grill. They changed their name to The Grass Roots for prior name recognition and went straight to the top 10 with their first recording, "Let's Live for Today" in 1967. The group continued in their hit-making vein and toured the United States. Iconic hit songs such as "Midnight Confessions" cemented their standing as major contributors to the rock music scene.

The Grass Roots had top songwriters offering their best songs to them and they wrote many songs themselves. Bratton co-wrote "Beatin' Round the Bush", "No Exit", and "Hot Bright Lights", and self-composed "Dinner for Eight" and "House of Stone". Bratton played with the group on their first four albums: Let's Live for Today, Feelings, Golden Grass, and Lovin' Things. Three albums charted and Golden Grass received a gold record certification. He took part in the first ten singles released, eight of which charted; Midnight Confessions received a gold record certification.

The Grass Roots played at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival on Sunday June 11, 1967 in the "summer of love" as their top ten hit "Let's Live For Today" was hitting the airwaves. This music festival is important because it occurred before the Monterey Pop Festival but did not have a movie to document it for the ages (see List of electronic music festivals). On Sunday October 27, 1968 they played at the San Francisco Pop Festival and then played at the Los Angeles Pop Festival and Miami Pop Festival in December of that year as their top ten hit "Midnight Confessions" was hitting the airwaves.

In April 1969 Creed, not happy with the band's shift away from their folk rock roots, left the Grass Roots.

Solo years[link]

In 2001 and 2002, Bratton released three albums showcasing his solo recordings since the 1960s with the assistance of Peter White. In 2007, he presented an induction award to The Wrecking Crew at the Musicians' Hall of Fame. In 2008, he released another album of new music with producer Jon Tiven. In 2010, Bratton released another new album titled "Bounce Back" with producer Dave Way. In 2011, Bratton released an album of greatest hits from his first three solo albums titled "Demo". In 2010 & 2012, Bratton performed live at the SXSW festival.

Acting career[link]

Bratton began to pursue an acting career in 1969. He has appeared in films such as Mask and Heart Like a Wheel. He is a current cast member (playing a fictional version of himself) on NBC's Emmy and SAG award winning The Office. In 2008, he appeared in a short film with Kyle Gass titled Just One Of The Gynos, which won an award for best short film at the 2008 Malibu International Film Festival. He appeared in the feature film Labor Pains in 2009. His recent film projects are The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, written, produced and directed by Paul Bunnell, I Am Ben, written, produced and directed by Mathew Brady and Gaelan Connell and Terri produced by David Guy Levy. Terri was selected by the Sundance Film Festival 2011 to appear in the US dramatic competition. It was one of only 16 films selected from 1,102 submissions to the US dramatic category.^[1] In 2012, he appeared as special guest star in Staged with Brandon Olive who appeared with him in Just One Of The Gynos. Bratton's latest film project is Saving Lincoln a biography set in the civil war period. It is produced by Horatio C. Kemeny and written and directed by Salvador Litvak.

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

Singles[link]

++ - Gold Record - RIAA Certification

+++ - Composed by Italian superstar Lucio Battisti)

Albums[link]

++ - Gold Record - RIAA Certification

References[link]

External links[link]

• Creed Bratton at the Internet Movie Database

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Creed Bratton

• Creed Bratton at AllRovi
• The-GrassRoots.com - Official Site
• Creed Bratton at MySpace
• Creed at AMG

Bill Murray
Murray at the premiere of Get Low at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	William James Murray (1950-09-21) September 21, 1950 (age 61) Wilmette, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, comedian, writer, golfer
Years active	1973–present
Spouse	Margaret Kelly (1981–1996) Jennifer Butler (1997–2008)
Children	With Kelly: 2, With Butler: 4
Family	Brothers: John Murray, Joel Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray Nancy Murray (sister)

William James "Bill" Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor, comedian and golfer. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984), and Groundhog Day (1993). Murray gained additional critical acclaim later in his career, starring in Lost in Translation (2003), that earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, and a series of films directed by Wes Anderson, including Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012).

Early life[link]

Murray was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, the son of Lucille (née Collins), a mail room clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II, a lumber salesman.^[1][2] Murray's father died in 1967 from complications of diabetes when Bill was 17 years old.^[3][4] Murray, along with his eight siblings, was raised in an Irish American family.^[5] Three of his siblings are actors: John Murray, Joel Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray. A sister, Nancy, is an Adrian Dominican nun in Michigan, who has traveled the United States in a one-woman programme, portraying St. Catherine of Siena.^[6]

As a youth, Murray read children's biographies of American heroes like Kit Carson, Wild Bill Hickok and Davy Crockett.^[7] He attended St. Joseph grade school and Loyola Academy. During his teen years, he worked as a golf caddy to fund his education at the Jesuit high school.^[7][8] One of his sisters had polio and his mother suffered several miscarriages.^[7] During his teen years he was the lead singer of a rock band called the Dutch Masters and took part in high school and community theatre.

After graduating, Murray attended Regis University in Denver, Colorado, taking premedical courses. However, he quickly dropped out, returning to Illinois.^[9] In 2007, however, Regis awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree.^[10]

Around 1971, police arrested Murray at Chicago's O'Hare Airport for trying to smuggle 9 pounds of marijuana which he had allegedly intended to sell.^[8][9]

Career[link]

Second City[link]

With an invitation from his older brother, Brian, Murray got his start at The Second City in Chicago, an improvisational comedy troupe, studying under Del Close.^[11] In 1974, he moved to New York City and was recruited by John Belushi^[12] as a featured player on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.

[edit] Saturday Night Live

In 1975, an Off Broadway version of a Lampoon show led to his first television role as a cast member of the ABC variety show Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell that featured animal acts and little kids with loud voices.^[11] That same season, another variety show titled NBC's Saturday Night premiered. Cosell's show lasted just one season, canceled in early 1976.

After working in Los Angeles with the "guerrilla video" commune TVTV on a number of projects, Murray rose to prominence in 1976. He joined the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live for the show's second season, following the departure of Chevy Chase.^[13]

A Rutland Weekend Television sketch Eric Idle brought for his appearance on SNL developed into the 1978 mockumentary All You Need Is Cash with Murray (alongside other SNL cast members) appearing as "Bill Murray the K", a send-up of New York radio host Murray the K, in a segment of the film that is an obvious parody of the Maysles Brothers's documentary The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit.

During the first few seasons of SNL, Murray was in a romantic relationship with fellow cast member Gilda Radner.^[14]

Film career[link]

Murray at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival

Murray landed his first starring role with the film Meatballs in 1979. He followed this up with his portrayal of famed writer Hunter S. Thompson in 1980's Where the Buffalo Roam. In the early 1980s, he starred in a string of box-office hits including Caddyshack, Stripes, and Tootsie.

Murray became the first guest on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman on February 1, 1982. He would later appear on the first episode of The Late Show with David Letterman in August 1993, when the show moved to CBS. On January 31, 2012 – 30 years after his first appearance with Letterman, Murray appeared again on his talk show.

Murray began work on a film adaptation of the novel The Razor's Edge. The film, which Murray also co-wrote, was his first starring role in a dramatic film. He later agreed to star in Ghostbusters, in a role originally written for John Belushi. This was a deal Murray made with Columbia Pictures in order to gain financing for his film.^[15] Ghostbusters became the highest-grossing film of 1984. But The Razor's Edge, which was filmed before Ghostbusters but not released until after, was a box-office flop.

Upset over the failure of Razor's Edge, Murray took four years off from acting to study philosophy and history at the Sorbonne, frequent the Cinematheque in Paris, and spend time with his family in their Hudson River Valley home.^[12] During that time, his second son, Luke, was born.^[7] With the exception of a cameo appearance in the 1986 movie Little Shop of Horrors, he did not make any appearances in films, though he did participate in several public readings in Manhattan organized by playwright/director Timothy Mayer and in a production of Bertolt Brecht's A Man's A Man.^[7]

Murray returned to films in 1988 with Scrooged and the sequel Ghostbusters II in 1989. In 1990, Murray made his first and only attempt at directing when he co-directed Quick Change with producer Howard Franklin. His subsequent films What About Bob? (1991) and Groundhog Day (1993) were box-office hits and critically acclaimed.

After a string of films that did not do well with audiences (one of the exceptions being his role in the 1996 comedy Kingpin), he received much critical acclaim for Wes Anderson's Rushmore for which he won Best Supporting Actor awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (tying with Billy Bob Thornton). Murray decided to take a turn towards more dramatic roles. Murray then experienced a resurgence in his career as a dramatic actor, taking on roles in Wild Things, Cradle Will Rock, Hamlet (as Polonius), and The Royal Tenenbaums.

In 2003, he garnered considerable acclaim for Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, and went on to earn a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and an Independent Spirit Award, as well as Best Actor awards from a number of film critic organizations.^[16] He was considered a favorite to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, although Sean Penn ultimately won the award for his performance in Mystic River. In an interview included on the Lost in Translation DVD, Murray states that this is his favorite movie in which he has appeared. Also in 2003, he appeared in a short cameo for the movie Coffee and Cigarettes, in which he played himself "hiding out" in a local coffee shop.

During this time, Murray still appeared in comedic roles such as Charlie's Angels and Osmosis Jones. In 2004, he provided the voice of Garfield in Garfield: The Movie, and again in 2006 for Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. (Later, Murray claimed that he only took part because he was under the misguided impression the screenplay, actually co-written by Joel Cohen, was the work of Joel Coen). In 2004, he made his third collaboration with Wes Anderson in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. His dramatic role in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers was also well received.

In 2005, Murray announced that he would take a break from acting,^[17] as he had not had the time to relax since his new breakthrough in the late 1990s. He did return to the big screen, however, for brief cameos in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited and in Get Smart as Agent 13, the agent in the tree. In 2008, he played an important role in the post-apocalyptic film City of Ember, and in 2009, played himself in a cameo role in the zombie comedy Zombieland.

Murray provided the voice for the character Mr. Badger for the 2009 animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox. Though there was speculation that he might return to the Ghostbusters franchise^[18] for the rumored Ghostbusters 3,^[19] he dispelled such speculation in a recent interview with GQ. In March 2010, Bill Murray appeared on Late Show with David Letterman and talked about his return to Ghostbusters III, stating "I'd do it only if my character was killed off in the first reel".^[20] In an interview with GQ, Murray said: "You know, maybe I should just do it. Maybe it'd be fun to do." In the interview, when asked "Is the third Ghostbusters movie happening? What's the story with that?", Bill Murray replied, "It's all a bunch of crock."^[21] Despite this comment, later reports by Dan Aykroyd^[22] and Stefano Paginini^[23] suggest the movie is well underway, and the script has already been approved.

Golf-related work[link]

Bill Murray golfing

Murray is an avid golfer who often plays in celebrity tournaments. His 1999 book Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf, part autobiography and part essay, expounds on his love of the game. In 2002, he and his brothers starred in the Comedy Central series, The Sweet Spot, which chronicled their adventures playing golf. Caddyshack, one of Murray's earliest film roles, has him playing assistant greens-keeper Carl Spackler who lives in the golf course's tool shed. The title of his book is derived from a scene he played in Caddyshack, narrating his own golf fantasy (which was listed as #92 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list).

Murray's love for golf is also displayed in Space Jam, Lost in Translation, and Zombieland.

On February 13, 2011, Murray, playing with tournament champion D. A. Points, won the Pro-Am championship at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Outside of show business[link]

He is a partner with his brothers in Murray Bros. Caddy Shack, a restaurant located near St. Augustine.^[24]

He is a part-owner of the St. Paul Saints independent minor-league baseball team and occasionally travels to Saint Paul, Minnesota to watch the team's games.^[25] He also owns part of the Charleston RiverDogs, Hudson Valley Renegades, and the Brockton Rox. He invested in a number of other minor league teams in the past, including the Utica Blue Sox, Fort Myers Miracle, Salt Lake Sting (APSL) and Salt Lake City Trappers. He was also a part-owner of the Auburn Astros (now the Auburn Doubledays) in Auburn, New York.^{[citation needed]}

Being very detached from the Hollywood scene, Murray does not have an agent or manager and reportedly only fields offers for scripts and roles using a personal telephone number with a voice mailbox that he checks infrequently.^[26] This practice has the downside of sometimes preventing him from taking parts that he had auditioned for and was interested in, such as that of Sulley in Monsters, Inc., Bernard Berkman in The Squid and the Whale, Frank Ginsburg in Little Miss Sunshine and Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.^[27] He also regretted losing the chance to play Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when he heard that he was considered for the role, which he says he would have definitely accepted.^[28]

Personal life[link]

Eric Clapton and Murray kicking off the Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2007

During the filming of Stripes, Murray married Margaret Kelly on Super Bowl Sunday in Las Vegas on January 25, 1981.^[7][11] Later, they re-married in Chicago for their families.^[11] Margaret gave birth to two sons, Homer (born 1982) and Luke (born 1985). Luke is an assistant basketball coach at Towson University, located outside of Baltimore, MD. Following Murray's affair with Jennifer Butler, the couple divorced in 1996. In 1997, he married Butler. Together, they have four sons: Caleb (born January 11, 1993), Jackson (born October 6, 1995), Cooper (born January 27, 1997), and Lincoln (born May 30, 2001). Butler filed for divorce on May 12, 2008, accusing Murray of domestic violence, infidelity, and sex, drug and alcohol addiction.^[29] Their divorce was finalized on June 13, 2008.

Murray has homes in Los Angeles, California; Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts;^[30] Charleston, South Carolina; and Rockland County, New York, just outside of New York City.^[31]

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Murray supported Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.^[32]

Murray is a fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago pro sports teams, especially the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bears and the Chicago Bulls. (He was once a guest color commentator for a Cubs game during the 1980s.)^[33] Murray is an avid Quinnipiac University basketball fan, where his son served as head of basketball operations. Murray is a regular fixture at home games. He cheered courtside for the Illinois Fighting Illini's game against the University of North Carolina in the NCAA Basketball Tournament's championship game in 2005. He is a fixture at home games of those teams when in his native Chicago. After traveling to Florida during the Cubs playoff run to help "inspire" the team (Murray told Cubs slugger Aramis Ramírez he was very ill and needed two home runs to give him the hope to live),^[34] he was invited to the champagne party in the Cubs' clubhouse when the team clinched the NL Central in late September 2007, along with fellow actors John Cusack, Bernie Mac, James Belushi, and former Cubs legend Ron Santo. Murray appeared in Santo's documentary, This Old Cub.

As a Chicago native, Murray appeared at the 50th annual Chicago Air & Water Show in August 2008. He performed a tandem jump with the U.S. Army Parachute Team Golden Knights.^[35] He was the M.C. for Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival on July 28, 2007, where he dressed in various guises of Clapton as he appeared through the years. He was MC again in 2010. Also because of his roots in the Chicago area, the founders of Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly (H.O.M.E.) Michael and Lilo Salmon, were able to contact him through his former sister-in-law for support. In 1987 he made a sizeable donation to assist in the development and building of the Nathalie Salmon House. This home has been able to provide affordable housing for low-income seniors. Michael and Lilo Salmon credited him as performing "miracles" for them.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (March 2012)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bill Murray

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bill Murray

• Bill Murray at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill Murray at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Bill Murray at AllRovi
• Streaming audio interview from 1988 (18 minutes)