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Harold Ramis' early grounding in live comedy led to blockbuster movies such as National Lampoon's Animal House, Caddyshack and Groundhog Day.
But he will perhaps be best remembered as one of the three bungling main combatants - alongside Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd - in the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters.

The bespectacled Ramis, who suffered for several years from an autoimmune disease, died at his Chicago home. He was 69.
The writer-director-actor quietly and often off-screen created an unparalleled and hugely influential body of laughs in a filmography that includes some of the most beloved and widely quoted comedy classics of the last 30 years. His death rattled a modern comedy world Ramis helped build.
His legacy as a father figure to generations of comedians was appropriately captured in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, in which Ramis was cast as Seth Rogen's father, he said, "because we all saw him as the dream dad".

	Maybe he now can get the answers he was always seeking

	DAN AYKROYD
"Harold Ramis made almost every movie which made me want to become a comedy director," Apatow said. "These films are the touchstones of our lives."
Chevy Chase, whom Ramis directed in Caddyshack and National Lampoon's Vacation, called him "a great man who shunned unnecessary Hollywood-type publicity".
"It was Harold who acted out and gave me the inspiration for the character of Clark Griswold" in the National Lampoon Vacation movies, Chase said. "I was really copying Harold's impression of Clark."
Admittedly lacking the dashing leading-man looks of some of his peers, Ramis was memorably nebbishy: curly haired, gangly and bespectacled. He played Ghostbuster scientist Egon Spengler (naturally, the one with all the ideas), and Murray's army recruit buddy in Stripes.
But the Chicago native and early member of the improv comedy troupe Second City was a far larger force behind the camera. The intellectual Ramis was the Zen master to a wild, improvising comic storm that included Murray, John Belushi, Chase and Aykroyd.
Ramis could reasonably be credited with making more people roll in the aisles from the late '70s to the early '90s than almost anyone else. "He earned his keep on this planet," Murray said.
Ramis, who became a Buddhist in midlife, was known to have a spiritual pull, on full display in the wry but earnest existentialism of Groundhog Day (1993), in which Murray re-lives a day until he finally gets it right. His Second City mate Aykroyd said: "Maybe he now can get the answers he was always seeking."
Associated Press


Serious actor-director Harold Ramis leaves a legacy of laughs

Harold Ramis (centre) with his co-stars Dan Aykroyd (left) and Bill Murray in a scene from the hit 1984 film Ghostbusters. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Harold Ramis, here promoting the release of his final film as director, Year One, in 2009, has died aged 69. Photo: MCT. 

Harold Ramis (left, with Steve Carell at an NBA basketball match in 2007) directed Carell in episodes of the American television series,The Office. Photo: AP

Philip Seymour Hoffman may live on with aid of digital technology

Mimi O'Donnell and her children Willa, Tallulah and Cooper Hoffman outside the church. Photo: AFP

Stars from stage and screen gather for Philip Seymour Hoffman's wake

Mimi O'Donnell, actor Philip Seymour Hoffman's ex-partner, arrives at the actor's wake. Photo: AFP

Actress Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton arrive for the wake

Police officers patrol the entrance as the press lines up at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home for the wake of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman Photo: AP

Actress Ellen Burstyn arrives at the wake. Photo: Reuters

Actor Ben Stiller makes his way into the funeral home. Photo: Reuters

Actress Amy Adams. Photo: AP

Philip Seymour Hoffman in what is believed to be one of his last publicity photos. Photo: AP

Four arrested in drug probe of Philip Seymour Hoffman's death

A photo of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman sits on a makeshift memorial in front of his apartment building in the Manhattan borough of New York. Photo: Reuters

A makeshift memorial for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman stands at the entrance to the apartment building where he died. Photo: AFP 

Shock, grief and tributes follow death of Philip Seymour Hoffman

A makeshift memorial outside the New York apartment building where the body of Philip Seymour Hoffman was found. Photo: EPA

Hoffman with the best actor Oscar he won for his portrayal of the writer Truman Capote in the 2005 movie Capote. Photo: AP

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Actor-director inspired generation of comedians with hits like Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day


Harold Ramis' early grounding in live comedy led to blockbuster movies such as National Lampoon's Animal House, Caddyshack and Groundhog Day. But he will perhaps be best remembered as one of the three bungling main combatants - alongside Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd - in the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters.


Serious actor-director Harold Ramis leaves a legacy of laughs

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Actor-director inspired generation of comedians with hits like Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day

Actor-director inspired generation of comedians with hits like Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day