He followed up his writing skills with Doug Kenny and Chris Miller and penned the whoppingly hilarious Caddyshack and teamed up with them later for the successful and most memorable Animal House. Actually, of all, Ramis wrote several great movies including Analyze That, Caddyshack and Bedazzled. Ramis put himself in the director’s chair for one of Americas much loved comedies, The National Lampoon’s Vacation and carried on that success of directing with Multiplicity (a very underated movie,) Bedazzled and even into television with The Office making a moderately successful British television show an American smash hit.
Acting, Ramis appeared in many including with appearances most recently in Knocked Up as Rogen’s father and lastly Year One (of which he also wrote.)
But Ramis will be most remembered as Egon Splenger in Ghostbusters, Ramis brought a fantastic exuberance to the intelligent and more often than not, too scientific character. However, it was Ramis who brought a flare to the role and as the founding member of the team, he was quickly one of the favourites; caring on the almost dead pan humour into the sequel and some had hoped the third instalment. As Egon, he truly carved a place of all of us. Not just because Ghostbusters was one of the best movies from the eighties but the man with the giant brain, Egon, gave Ramis a chance to show the world that brainy can be mainstream and appealed to those not only just like him, but everyone else. Managing to have as much chemistry as Murray and Akroyd.
Harold Ramis brought heart and intelligence to everything he worked on and he will be sorely missed in the film industry, not only as an actor, but as a writer and a director.