Robin Williams Was Unnerved By Eddie Murphy’s Success

Robin Williams, who would have turned 73 over the weekend, loved making “strange films.” Out-of-the-box early choices like The World According to Garp and Moscow on the Hudson let Williams stretch his acting wings. But did their middling box-office success lower his status in the comedy hierarchy? 

He was especially freaked out by the success of Trading Places, according to Dave Itzkoff’s biography, Robin. The odd couple/buddy comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy went gangbusters in the summer of 1983, and by Williams’ math, that was a problem. In his eyes, one comedian coming up meant another had to come down. 

While Williams had a hard time translating his Mork & Mindy TV success into a film career, at least at first, Murphy was making the SNL-to-the-movies transition look easy. “Eddie is ideal. He knows exactly what he does and how to get it out on film perfectly,” Robin said. “I don’t — I keep trying different things.”

Williams called collaborator and friend Bennett Tramer to ask if he’d seen Trading Places. Tramer had enjoyed the movie, telling Williams that Aykroyd was good, but it was hard to compete with Murphy, who was even better. “(Robin) was very happy for them and really liked them,” Tramer recalled. “But it was like, When’s my turn coming? When’s my turn going to come to have a hit movie?”

To add to Williams’s insecurities, his second comedy album, Throbbing Python of Love, was released that year and met with indifference from comedy fans. His first record, Reality… What A Concept was a top-ten hit, but Throbbing Python never got higher on the charts than 119. Murphy also released his second record, Eddie Murphy: Comedian, that year, and it was a smash. Both were nominated for Grammys, but Murphy took home the prize. 

Two weeks before the awards, Williams hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time. He got to go one-on-one with Murphy in a sketch where he played scholarly pundit William F. Buckley Jr. Murphy played an academic discussing why Black entertainers were suddenly so hot in a bit that explored uncomfortable race politics. Both comics play off each other well, but as Tramer observed about Aykroyd, it was hard to compete with Murphy at the peak of his powers. 

How did Williams deal with Murphy’s ascendence? As the 1980s moved forward, Williams recognized that his Hollywood star was dimming in comparison to Murphy’s — and maybe that was okay. After losing out to Charles Grodin for a part in Midnight Run, Williams saw the writing on the wall. “You simply slip down the comedy food chain, that list of people who get scripts. It exists,” he said. “From the top, there’s Eddie Murphy and Bill (Murray) and Steve (Martin). I guess on the next level there’s Tom Hanks, myself, John Candy — there’s a lot of us.” 

Williams knew he could sink further still. In that case, “you have to work your way back up again or do character parts — or you fall back and punt.” 

Williams knew what it was like to have a red-hot career like Murphy’s. “That was nice,” he said. “But this is nice, too, not being hot. Now I prefer the quiet.”