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Critics' Opinion:
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First Published:
May 1999, 224 pages
Paperback:
May 2000, 224 pages
One of the funniest, most beloved, and most often quoted entertainers in the world tells his tale of Life and Golf and somehow surviving both.
One of the funniest, most beloved, and most often quoted entertainers in the world tells his tale of Life and Golf and somehow surviving both--one pilgrim's bemused path through the doglegs.
With his brilliant creation, groundskeeper Carl Spackler, and the outrageous success of the film Caddyshack firmly etched into the American consciousness, Bill Murray and golf have become synonymous. Now Bill tells the hilarious tale behind the tale.
The love of the game was with Bill long before Carl uttered the now famous words, "Cinderella story outta nowhere. Former greenskeeper and now about to become the Masters champion." Born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois, Bill felt the lure of the links at a tender age. Following his older brothers Ed and Brian into the rarified world of private country club golf as a caddy, Bill learned life lessons at the caddyshack. "How to smoke, curse, play cards. But more important, when to."
And long before he caught the acting and writing bug, Bill protected the Evanston Community Golf Course from gophers and golfers as a greenskeeper: "There must be a bent chromosome somewhere in man that urges him to wound that which he cannot conquer--" And throughout his career, the pull of the links has been constant. A summa cum laude graduate of golf school, specializing in the flop shot, Bill's escapades on the Pro-Am golf circuit, at Augusta National, and as a fan at the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the Western Open make for an irresistible read.
Filled with the kind of deadpan and dead-on hilarity that only Bill Murray could create, Cinderella Story is an up-by-the-bootstraps chronicle of a man, his muse, and his critical examination of our society's fascination with a little white ball.
My father was a very difficult laugh. Adults found him very funny. But his children had a tough time cracking him up. One of my strongest childhood impressions is falling off of my chair at the dinner table while doing a Jimmy Cagney impression. I hit my head very hard on the metal foot of the table leg, and it hurt terribly. But when I saw my father laughing, I laughed while crying at the same time. I guess that was some kind of beginning.
My father, Edward, had nine kids: Edward; one year later, Brian; two years later, Nancy; two years after that, Peggy; one year later, Billy; two years later, Laura; four years later, Andrew; two years later, John; four years later, Joel. In those gaps were three children lost in pregnancy, including a set of twins. Rest in peace, little Murrays.
My mother, Lucille, bore the nine children, had those eleven pregnancies, and outlived my father by twenty-one years. Late in her life she told me that having babies into her middle age had kept her ...
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