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"If you sit in a room with Bill, it's obvious there's some darkness in his soul. And if you work with him the way we did, you find that it bubbles up every once in a while. I think Bill was hungry for a serious role. He likes to project a persona that he just rolls out of bed and does these things. But I found out he was doing dance-movement exercises to get himself in shape."
An actor prepares. Thanks, Steve. Now folks, let me ask you: What becomes a legend most? That's right. Disappearing. You remember, after Ghostbusters and The Razor's Edge, Bill vamoosed to Paris with his family. Took courses at the Sorbonne -- that's French for Harvard and Yale put together. He did a great cameo in Little Shop of Horrors, but otherwise, for four years Bill was J.D. Showbiz Salinger. And we're sorry to say that Bill couldn't be here tonight. Maybe he thought this was a roast and not a toast. He can be a suspicious guy. As Harold told me, "Bill has one of the most overworked bulls detectors of anyone I know."
But Bill, wherever you are, I just wanted to tell you that -- after Steve Martin, and just ahead of Billy Crystal, and until Eddie Murphy and Bette Midler regain their strides -- you are screen comedy, pal. And I mean that, even if when Bill says, "I mean that," you're pretty sure he doesn't mean that. I do mean that. Really. I mean that.