Proof that Bill Murray is the coolest celebrity ever

HE SNEAKS up behind people, covers their eyes with his hands and when they realise it’s him, he says, “No one will ever believe you”. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

TIME and time again, Bill Murray manages to prove that he’s the coolest celebrity going around.

The 63-year-old actor and comedian made headlines again this week for another down to earth encounter when he stopped to pose with a couple who were having professional photos taken to celebrate their engagement.

The photographer recently wrote on Facebook that she was annoyed that the couple weren’t looking at the camera, so she turned around to see what they were staring at.

“I see Bill Murray with his shirt up, belly out and patting it, his attempt to make the couple laugh,” Raheel Gauba of Fia Forever Photography wrote.

Bill Murray allegedly improvised all of his lines in Caddyshack.

“I joined the couple in the shock and surprise of the moment. At that point, I invited him to join the couple for a quick shot and he did. So genuine and nice of him to make the couple’s day!”

This is just the latest example of Bill Murray’s bizarre (and awesome) behaviour that has earned him a cult following.

Here is more evidence to back up the irrefutable claim that Bill is the best:

— Last month Murray crashed a bachelor party at a steakhouse in Charleston, offering partygoers a funny impromptu speech about finding “The One.”

Bill Murray is a keen golfer.

“If you have someone that you think is ‘The One,’ don’t just sort of think in your ordinary mind, ‘OK, let’s pick a date. Let’s plan this and make a party and get married,’” Murray said to the crowd.

“Take that person and travel around the world. Buy a plane ticket for the two of you to travel all around the world … and go to places that are hard to go to and hard to get out of.

“And if when you come back to JFK, when you land in JFK, and you’re still in love with that person — get married at the airport.”

Bill Murray starred in Groundhog Day in 1993.

— Bill Murray likes to tease his good friend Mitch Glazer about the fact that his wife (actor Kelly Lynch) once filmed a love scene with Patrick Swayze in a movie.

“Every time Road House is on and he (Bill Murray) or one of his idiot brothers are watching TV — and they’re always watching TV — one of them calls my husband and says, ‘Kelly’s having sex with Patrick Swayze right now,’” Lynch said to the AV Club. “Bill once called him from Russia.”

- For years there have been rumours that Murray likes to go up to people, cover their eyes from behind and when they turn around and realise it’s him, he says, “No one will ever believe you,” and walks away.

Bill Murray played ocean explorer Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic.

When the Ghostbusters star was asked by GQ in 2010 to confirm the rumour, he smiled and said, “By God, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Just so crazy and unlikely and unusual?”

- In 2006 Murray was walking through St Andrews in Scotland when he was invited to a house party by a 22-year-old uni student. He went and spent the night drinking vodka out of a coffee mug before helping to do the dishes.

“Nobody could believe it when I arrived at the party with Bill Murray,” the student said at the time. “He was just like the character in Lost in Translation.”

- In 2010 Murray randomly jumped behind the bar and started serving drinks at a club in Austin, Texas. No matter what people ordered, he gave them tequila shots.

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— Murray is part owner of a baseball team called the Charleston RiverDogs. In 2012, he took it upon himself to entertain the crowd during a rain delay by using the tarp as a slip ‘n’ slide.

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— Murray is notoriously hard to get in contact with because he doesn’t have a manager or a publicist.

“You know, when you have an agent, the phone rings all the time, because there’s someone there whose job it is to get so-and-so on the phone, and so they dial the number, and they’ll let it ring 75 times,” Murray said to Entertainment Weekly.

“That’s all they’re supposed to do right then: Get that guy on the phone. So you can be in your house and be like, I’m not answering that phone. But it will ring 75 times, and all you can think is, I really don’t want to meet the person that lets a phone ring like that.”

Bill Murray has worn a number of outrageous outfits during celebrity golf tournaments.

Sometimes this can lead to communication problems when Murray has signed on to appear in a movie. For example, when filming Groundhog Day in 1993, the film’s producers asked Murray to hire a personal assistant so that they could relay messages to him. Murray agreed ... kind of. He hired a deaf mute who could only communicate with sign language.

— In 2010 Bill Murray dropped by a construction site to entertain the workers who were building New York’s Poets House. Fittingly, he read them poetry.

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There are so many tales about bizarre interactions with Bill Murray that a website, Bill Murray Stories, has been set up.