‘SNL’ Alums Recall Details of Tense Fight Between Bill Murray and Chevy Chase

Former Saturday Night Live castmates Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman were guests on Watch What Happens Live and spoke about what it was like being on the variety show during the 1970s. Curtin and Newman filled host Andy Cohen in on what it was like behind the scenes, especially the infamous feud between Bill Murray and Chevy Chase. According to the alums, the whole ordeal was “very sad and painful.”

“I think Jane and I, and Gilda [Radner] both witnessed it,” Newman explained. “But, ya know, it was very sad and painful and awful.” The fight, which eventually came to physical blows, felt like “that sad kind of tension that you would get in a family,” Curtin added.

“And everybody goes to their corners because they don’t want to have to deal with the tension, and it was uncomfortable,” Curtin said. “You could understand, you know, there were these two bull mooses (sic) going at each other, so the testosterone was surging and stuff happens.” The fight between Murray and Chase took place in John Belushi’s dressing room in 1978 when Chase returned as a host after a contentious exit from Saturday Night Live in 1976. The fight allegedly broke out when Murray made a joke about Chase’s marriage to Jacqueline Carlin, which prompted Chase to mock Murray’s appearance.

“I think they both knew the one thing that they could say to one another that would hurt the most and that’s what I think incited it,” Newman concluded. Cohen pointed out that Chase and Murray went on to make Caddyshack in 1980, which seemed to put an end to their feud. In the 2018 book Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story, both Murray and Chase addressed the disagreements. “I’d never really done anything with Chevy. We’d always had sort of a… funny relationship,” Murray said in the book, reports Outsider. “But it was like, ‘O.K., I liked that when you did that. Let’s just keep going.’ We kept going and it was funny because Ty Webb’s not far from who Chevy is. So he was pretty comfortable in his space. And I was comfortable as Carl. So he could be free to laugh at me. And if Ty laughed, Carl thought it meant, ‘Hey, he’s my friend!’ It’s a really fun, self-aware example of whatever the heck [director Harold Ramis] maintains the movie is about – status.”

“We got over everything. The tension was short-lived,” Chase explained about their feud. “I have nothing but admiration and affection for Bill. He still can be a surly character, to say the least. But ultimately he’s a good guy. Even though I’m the number one star in the movie under the title, I’ll always think of Caddyshack as Billy’s movie.”