The documentary Being Eddie isn’t a totally exhaustive portrait of Eddie Murphy, but for the generations who have been entertained by him since he exploded into stardom, it offers a lot of fascinating insight into who he is as a person. Says Murphy, at one point, “My biggest blessing is not my comedic talent — my biggest blessing is that I love myself and I knew what I wanted to do really, really early. That’s why I didn’t fall into any traps or anything. Because at the root of it all, I loved myself.”
In extended interviews with Murphy as well as collaborators including Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Arsenio Hall, Pete Davidson, and more, director Angus Wall explores a lot of fascinating topics with the multi-hyphenate, including the wild stories he has after spending 40 years in the spotlight. There’s also, appropriately enough given the title, a lot of musing on how he sees himself as a performer: “I’m not a stand-up comedian. I’m funny, but I don’t go, ‘I’m a comedian,’ like I don’t go ‘I’m an actor’ or ‘I’m a musician.’ I’m an artist that can express himself a bunch of different ways. Sensitivity is the gauge, not how much talent you have. The most sensitive one will be the artist that’s most in tune.”
He then laughs. “I don’t want to get too artsy. I could get really artsy if you let me.”
Below, find 15 of the biggest revelations to come from Being Eddie about Murphy’s career and life, from his earliest days to his current outlook on family, death, and cats. There’s also a wild Yul Brynner story, and some shockingly highbrow context for his love of MTV’s Ridiculousness.
Eddie Murphy’s First “Showbiz Thing” Was a Ventriloquist’s Dummy
Being Eddie (Netflix)
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The Willie Talk dummy he says he received at a young age was a relatively basic puppet: “Willie Talk’s eyes didn’t move. His mouth just moved.” However, Murphy points out, it reveals that even at a young age, he was very interested in exploring the possibilities of playing multiple characters at once.
Later in the documentary, he reveals an idea for a stand-up bit where he’d have Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor marionettes having a conversation, with him sitting between them. “I’d get at least 10 good minutes of jokes out of it,” he adds, and at the end of the movie we actually do get to see that in action: Murphy playing with his Cosby and Pryor puppets, having a laugh.
Eddie Murphy’s Birth Father Was Murdered When He Was Young
Murphy doesn’t share a lot of happy recollections about the time when his parents were together, sharing that “my very first memory is my mother and father fighting — she threw the Virgin Mary at him.” His father died when he was eight years old, and while Murphy doesn’t know all the details, he believes his father was killed by another woman in a “lover’s quarrel.”
Despite the early loss of his father, Murphy does speak fondly about his stepfather Vernon Lynch, “a solid father figure for the rest of my life.”
Eddie Murphy Has a Photo of Himself Punching Muhammad Ali in the Face
Early into the documentary, Murphy’s going through some memorabilia, which leads him to share the memory of punching the iconic boxer in the face one night. “Ali could talk some shit, and every now and then, Ali be talking too much shit,” is what he shares about that incident.
He does go on to call Ali “my hero,” noting that there was “nobody like Muhammad Ali in American history. He looked like he was plugged into the wall — he had this light. He stood up to the government, stood up for what he felt was right.”
The Co-Founder of Quibi Is Responsible for Eddie Murphy’s Movie Stardom
Yes, it was famed producer and studio exec Jeffrey Katzenberg who, while president of production at Paramount, took a chance on Murphy as the star of 48 Hours, his first major role. “The first two weeks of 48 Hours, they wanted to fire me because they were like ‘this isn’t working,’” Murphy says. “And [Katzenberg] came to them like ‘No, don’t fire him, there’s something there’ and they didn’t fire me. and we’ve just been cool since.”
At that point, Murphy says, he “wasn’t thinking I was going to be a movie star.” His belief is that “my stuff took off the way it took off because they’d never seen a young Black person go take charge in the white world.”
Katzenberg made a multi-picture deal with Murphy when he was just 19, and one unexpected benefit of becoming a huge star at that time: Murphy found himself meeting a slew of major Hollywood legends, who were curious enough about him to ask him to lunch. “I met Brando and Charlton Heston, Sinatra — I met all those guys through them calling my agent,” Murphy says.
Everyone Has Been Misinterpreting This One Moment in Beverly Hills Cop for Decades
In an interview, film critic Elvis Mitchell talks about the moment from the 1984 movie where Murphy’s character, Axel Foley, walks by two men wearing leather outfits very similar to his infamous Raw jumpsuit. As Axel passes, he’s seen laughing at them, something Mitchell calls out as a “complex moment in pop culture” — Murphy laughing at himself.
Murphy, meanwhile, would like to re-contextualize that scene now: “Eddie Murphy’s laughing at Eddie Murphy? No, one of those guys… as he walked past, he made a weird face. I was laughing at the face he made.” The way the shot is set up, you can’t see the faces of the men walking away, so we only have Murphy’s word to go on here, but he seems reliable enough.
Eddie Murphy Is Straight-Edge
Murphy reveals that as hard as he might have partied in his youth — “nobody had as much fun as we had in the ’80s” — none of that fun was substance-based. “I’ve never even tried cocaine or touched cocaine or shit like that. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke cigarettes. I was 30 years old when I first smoked a joint.”
And of course he had opportunities to indulge. One story he shares involves him going to a blues bar at the age of 19 with John Belushi and Robin Williams. “They put some blow on a table, and I’m standing there with, you know, two heroes. And I wasn’t even curious. I was just not with it.”
Says Jamie Foxx in an interview, “He’s very introverted. [At a party], he’ll sit in the back of the room with a Coca-Cola.”
Eddie Murphy Has Yul Brynner-Related Regrets
Murphy held his 21st birthday party at the famous New York club Studio 54, and Yul Brynner, star of movies including The King and I, The Magnificent Seven, and Westworld, was also at the club that night with his wife. Brynner, at one point in the evening, asked Murphy, “How would you like to go back to my apartment with my wife and I and party?”
Only later did Murphy realize… “Did he want me to go fuck his wife? Now, I wish I would have went. The story would end better if, you know, ‘Yeah, I went back to Yul Brynner’s spot and fucked his wife and he was watching me fucking, going “et cetera et cetera”…’” The documentary punctuates that moment with a clip of Brynner from The King and I, repeating that famous line.