Violet Ramis Stiel’s memoir of her famous dad, Harold Ramis, isn’t an exposé. It’s a Father’s Day card.
It’s full of fond memories from a happy Hollywood child. When dad was on the set, he made sure she was there, too. When Ramis was home, he happily played dolls with her for hours.
That he was usually stoned may have helped.
Still, “Ghostbuster’s Daughter” shows Stiel knows the difference between affection and amnesia.
She shares stories about great films and fun family trips. But there are also tales of movies that flopped and a 20-year feud with Bill Murray, along with details from a complicated life that included drugs, divorce and a secret daughter.
Born in 1944 into a middle-class Chicago family, Ramis “started college looking like John Kennedy and ended looking like John Lennon.” He also graduated with a passion for performance. That sure helped at the draft board, where he ducked induction with a one-man show playing a gay drug addict.
He married an aspiring artist and worked as an asylum attendant – good preparation for his eventual comedy career. Finally, he landed a gig with the infamous improv group Second City, leading to a second job at Playboy, picking the magazine’s “Party Jokes.”
He later reminisced about working in Playboy boss Hugh Hefner’s original Chicago mansion. “The entire cast of ‘Hair’ was naked in the swimming pool singing ‘Let the Sunshine In,’” he said. “I was like, ‘All right, it’s not going to get better than this.’”
It did, though.
In 1974, the loyal Midwesterner finally went to New York to help put on “The National Lampoon Radio Hour,” an Off-Broadway revue. When stars John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner later landed jobs on “Saturday Night Live,” Ramis was asked to come, too.
He passed.
“ ‘SNL’ was completely fueled by cocaine,” recalled Ramis. “The show was being written literally overnight. I didn’t want to stay up all night writing. And the show had a sense of New York sophistication – very snide and superior. I thought, It’s just not me.”
Besides, Ramis already had a job — writing for Canadian television’s “SCTV.” And he was working on a movie script with some “Lampoon” friends. “Laser Orgy Girls” featured space aliens, out-of-control students and a teenage Charles Manson.
Even after several rewrites, and a title change to “Animal House,” the studio still didn’t get it.
“Wait a minute,” one stunned executive asked. “These guys are the heroes?”
The movie can feel out of touch today, with jokes about 13-year-olds having drunken blackouts, but it was a smash in 1978, and changed Ramis’ life.
Also changing his life – he had just become a father.
Stiehl remembers her childhood mostly full of fun and games. It certainly wasn’t filled with rules and discipline. When Ramis combed out her curls after a bath, he pretended to be a flamboyant gay hairdresser, Mr. Charles. Sometimes he was Mr. Schmendrick, a shoe salesman.
Dinner was either frozen pizza or a trip to a Chinese restaurant. Had one of Dad’s friends brought over a plate of cookies? She had to ask if they were grownup cookies.
The atmosphere was definitely loose, a necessity for Ramis to create. The next six years were busy and happy.
He directed his first film, “Caddyshack,” a slow-building cult hit. “Stripes,” an Army comedy originally intended for Cheech and Chong, turned into Murray’s hit — and gave Ramis a co-starring role. “National Lampoon’s Vacation” handed Chevy Chase a great part, while the blockbuster comedy “Ghostbusters” reunited Ramis with Murray and brought in old pal Dan Aykroyd as a bonus.
Privately, things weren’t going so well. Although Ramis and his wife had an open marriage, by 1986 he decided it wasn’t open enough and divorced her. Later, Ramis would marry his young assistant, who knew the actor-director was a pushover with his daughter. She assumed the role of disciplinarian.
Suddenly there were rules, giving Violet something to break. She did so with abandon, hanging with gangbangers, getting pregnant and having an abortion at 16. But she also had her father’s continued emotional and, long after she turned 18, financial support.
Ramis could afford it. Sure, he started a new family. He also had a daughter by Amy Heckerling, the director of “Clueless.” But he still had plenty of disposable income. A sequel to “Ghostbusters” made him more money, even if he didn’t like the final cut.
“I wanted the Statue of Liberty to be inhabited by the evil spirit, so that they’d have to destroy it,” he said. “My image – how socialist is this? – was that the Statue of Liberty ends up lying on Wall Street with her skirt up over her knees. A Marxist comedy!”
He had better luck with “Groundhog Day.” The movie he directed, about a weatherman doomed to repeat the same 24 hours, was smart and silly. But that mixed-up mood – rooted in Ramis’ newfound Buddhism and Murray’s slacker anarchy – turned into on-set fights. At one point, the 6-foot-2 Ramis grabbed Murray by the collar and shoved him up against a wall.
Ramis got the movie he wanted, but lost a friend. Although Murray made a brief, deathbed peace with the director, he refused to speak to him for more than 20 years. Ramis said it was painful, but not out of character.
“Bill would give you his kidney if you needed it,” he said, “but he wouldn’t necessarily return your phone calls.”
The movie ended up being the pair’s last collaboration. Few of the Ramis movies that followed – “Stuart Saves His Family,” “Multiplicity,” “Bedazzled,” “Analyze This,” “Year One” – struck the same chord with audiences.
Yet he kept working, and kept his daughter afloat. She wanted to move to New York? He bought her a condo. She wanted to go to grad school? He wrote a check. She wanted to have a kid? He wrote more checks.
“You’re a spoiled brat,” Violet’s ex yelled at her when she dumped him after eight years and two children. Her book doesn’t offer much of a defense.
Eventually, Violet settled down happily. And her close relationship with her famous father became even closer in 2010, when a bout of vasculitis led to a serious infection. The big-appetite guy began to fade. He died, in 2014, leaving Violet only with her memories.
But what memories.
Of Gilda Radner bouncing Violet on her knee. Of her dad tenderly tending the tiny pot plant in their backyard. Of him giving her so much freedom she had to work really hard to rebel.
Her father had some regrets, she admits. He knew he behaved badly with Heckerling. He confided that the character who knocks up Kirstie Alley in Heckerling’s “Look Who’s Talking,” then disappears, was based on him. He always regretted that his acting career had never taken off. And he continued to try, auditioning for a part in the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man.” He didn’t get it.
But Ramis had a lot of fun making movies, and fully enjoyed being famous.
“It’s the Golden Rule, baby,” he liked to tell his daughter. “Treat people with respect, and they will kiss your butt forever.”
“I’m joking!” he would add quickly.
But then he always was.
