One of America's funniest comedians has finally admitted he is a cigar fanatic.
December's edition of Cigar Aficionado features actor/comedian Bill Murray on its cover.
Murray is clearly an anti-Hollywood type. Bill is among the hippest stars, yet he still lives with his wife and sons in upstate New York in a house overlooking the Hudson River.
He apparently likes sticking to his Midwestern values and tries to keep his family the mainstay of his life. Young Murray grew up in the suburbs outside Chicago, the fifth of nine children.
He had an interest in becoming a doctor and even began pre-med studies. He eventually dropped out to take up his real passion, acting.
After he became famous on "Saturday Night Live" and through a spate of blockbuster movies including "Caddyshack" and "Ghostbusters," Murray's career careened to the top of the charts.
Now Murray's finally letting his hair down a little and admitting to some not-so-p.c. habits – including being a cigar aficionado.
How did he get hooked on the cigar habit?
He reveals that his first taste of a cigar could have been a scene from "Caddyshack."
Murray recalls his days as a real-life caddy outside Chicago: "It was a broken cigar, thrown into a trash bin at the golf course where I caddied. I remember seeing the cigar that hadn't been smoked, but it was broken in two pieces. And I thought, 'When I finish this round of caddying, I'm gonna walk back here and smoke it.' And I did. I don't remember the brand name, but I do remember it's hard to smoke a cigar that's broken. And it was only when I got past the break," he says with a laugh, "that I found out what a cigar tastes like. But I like that feeling. I was probably 13 and I was going to work to make enough money to pay my way through high school. Which I did."
He adds, "I was already working for a living, paying my own way – being a man. And one of the perks of being a man is smoking a cigar."
Murray recently had some cigar fun with actor/director Andy Garcia in the Dominican Republic. The pair was down in the Caribbean island shooting Andy Garcia's autobiographical film about his life as a young man in 1950s Cuba.
Murray isn't taking many film gigs these days, but he decided to make the exception for Garcia.
"He's a gent, Andy, a real gentlemen who's devoted to his family, though he's one of the slowest golfers on God's green earth," Murray recalls. "He called after "Aquatic" when I didn't think I ever wanted to work again. What made the Andy movie happen is my wife likes Andy: 'That's o.k. Go work with him. He's a gentleman.'"
Apparently Murray is a gentleman too.
Cigar Aficianado says he's "the kind of fellow who actually stands when a woman joins him at a dinner table."
