The Making Of a Stand-Up Guy by Charlie Murphy

Author:Charlie Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Eddie and me at the Norbit premier in 2007. (Getty Images)

CHAPTER SIX

A FRONT-ROW SEAT

I was discharged from the military in 1984, and I arrived home when Eddie was in the final season of his five-year stretch as a cast member on Saturday Night Live. That year also saw the release of Beverly Hills Cop, featuring Eddie in his breakout role, Detective Axel Foley. That film (which grossed more than two hundred million dollars at the box office, beating out Ghostbusters as the biggest hit of the year) catapulted Eddie to international stardom. The movie, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, won the People’s Choice Award for Best Picture, was nominated for a Golden Globe, and made Eddie one of the most sought-after lead performers in Hollywood.

Which is just another way of saying that when I got home after six years in the Navy, everything was different.

For instance, we could roll up to any club we wanted and just walk right inside, without paying a cent. After toiling away for so long as a thermodynamic engineer in the U.S Navy, that was a very foreign concept to me.

Inside the clubs, we had our choice of women. That’s when Studio 54 was at its zenith. That place was so singular and unique, so specific to its time, it’s almost impossible to describe. Nothing could mess with what was going on in that place. It’s one thing to watch the documentaries and be aware of what was happening in Studio 54, but it’s another thing entirely when you’re living it. I feel fortunate that, at that moment in time, I was young and had incredible access to that whole scene.

You could be standing in Studio 54 talking to a girl for fifteen minutes before you realized she was buck naked and covered in body paint. Cocaine was piled high on the bar like little ski slopes. And, of course, people were having sex everywhere, constantly. That club was more like I imagined things would be at a nude beach than when I actually went to a nude beach.

I saw people from all segments of society in there, bumping and grinding. It was nothing like our society is today, with cell phone cameras and the whole run-and-tell mentality that’s poisoned the culture. Ooh, look what so-and-so is doing. Let’s take a picture and sell it to a magazine. Let’s post it on my blog.

Now everybody’s got an iPhone or a BlackBerry or a laptop and they’re all hoping they’ll see something sensational so they can upload it to YouTube for everyone to see. We’re living in the era of the snitch. People ask, “Why aren’t there any Studio 54s anymore?” Because Studio 54 could never exist today. We’re all surrounded by a bunch of fucking babies who just want to tattle. Look at her! Look what she’s doing! I always ask, “Why are you so shocked? It’s not like a giraffe is doing it. That’s a human being, doing shit that human beings do.” Oh my God, so-and-so is having sex with so-and-so.

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