RIP The career of Eddie Murphy

It was shocking news to hear about the untimely demise of Eddie Murphy's career (Dec 8th 1982–Mar 9th 2012), even though he had been ill for a long time. Murphy's career was a major draw in the 1980's, producing some of the most quotable comedies and action-comedies of all time. Murphy's career often led him to play smart, motor-mouthed hustler-type characters, whether it was a Cop or a Robber. These classic films include 48 Hours (1982), Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Coming to America (1988). There were some signs with trouble ahead with some hints at racism (The Golden Child, 1986), or homophobia (Raw, 1987) in his films. But the audience didn't much notice those things, and flocked to see his movies. Murphy's brother and Career entourage member Charlie reminisces how they used to hang out with the likes of Prince and Rick James at the time.

But the hard partying ways of Career led him to wrong paths and much of the 90's were a big blur to him as well as the audience, where it seemed nothing much mattered any more. At the shooting of 1996's The Nutty Professor, he caught a number of dangerous diseases, such as a draw to fat suits, multiple personality disorder and a draw to lowest-common-denominator kid's films. Nevertheless, once in a while Career still did manage to deliver such well-received or reasonably good films as Metro (1997), Bowfinger (1999) and Shrek (2001).

But in 2002, Career was in a near-fatal accident that nearly cost his life. He almost sinked to rock bottom, when the outrageous cash flow attached to the film Adventures of Pluto Nash almost drew him with them. He barely made out alive, and was diagnosed withseveral terminal illnesses. By the early 2000's, his films were often critically maligned, but produced enough money for Career to treat his illnesses. Exhausted, Career still decided to show the world just what he was made of. In 2006's Dreamgirls, he played definitely-not-James-Brown sleazy soul singer James "Thunder" Early, and got an Oscar nomination for his troubles. But he didn't win, and soon resorted back to selling his body to any passing fat suit comedies.

Also, his head began to inflate so much it had to use a truck to get around.

Just this spring, there was some hope for Career's comeback, what with him being chosen to host the Oscars. But Career took a turn for the worse, and decided to stick with a homophobic greaseball, and turned down the offer to return to stand up. He did bring up rumours of planning to do a tour, yet with all his illnesses he couldn't come up with good enough material. Finally, the illnesses took him over, and a magical elf gave him only A Thousand Words to say before death. They were all used up by that day's afternoon. The demise of Eddie Murphy's career has been taken hard by the entertainment business altogether. Ivan Reitman has declared that he's fetching his long lost 1991 film Triplets: A Sequel to Twins from the vaults of Universal Pictures. Universal executives didn't trust the film's quality at the time, and teaming Murphy with such then-nobodies as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny De Vito was thought too hazardous for movie-going crowds. Also controversial was to set the film in the future and put all it's lead actors in old-man makeup. But since Murphy's career is now gone, perhaps it is high time to finally see this lost film as it was meant to. Presumably high as a kite, or drunk as an Irishman at a Bachelor Party.

★ or ★★★★★