“There is no return, you never leave,” Eddie Murphy told an interviewer earlier this year, when the discussion turned to his perceived comeback. Murphy had never gone anywhere, he said. True, he is still a constant presence in terms of his old movies playing, and his influence runs through subsequent generations of black comedians, but there has been a strong sense recently that the old Murphy is back: the Murphy with the smart tongue and the glint in the eye, and the appetite for bawdy, subversive grown-up comedy rather than children’s entertainment. That Eddie Murphy.
The main fuel for all this talk is Dolemite Is My Name, Netflix’s likable recreation of self-made 1970s star Rudy Ray Moore. It is a perfect role for Murphy: Moore was a failing wannabe until he created a foul-mouthed pimp persona, whose outrageous verse led to success in standup then in hilariously amateurish movies. People are now talking about Murphy in terms of Oscar nominations – when they’re not wondering where the hell he’s been.
Murphy’s path to stardom was almost the opposite of Moore’s. The gates of Hollywood were wide open for him after success in standup, then Saturday Night Live (SNL). Murphy sauntered through a run of 1980s movie hits: 48 Hours, Trading Places, Coming to America and especially Beverly Hills Cop – then the highest-grossing comedy of all time.
He had it all, but Murphy’s career began to suffer from overexposure onscreen and dodgy behaviour off it. The sequels got lazier, and the multiple roles started to look like needy exhibitionism. The flops (Pluto Nash, Vampire in Brooklyn) outweighed the hits (Bowfinger, Dreamgirls, for which he received an Oscar nomination). Meanwhile, Murphy’s callous treatment of Mel B, who gave birth to his child in 2007, earned him the wrong sort of headlines. In recent years, his best role has been the off-screen voice of Donkey in Shrek. Before Dolemite, he was last seen as a servile cook to two white women in the bizarre Mr Church. “I don’t usually get offered stuff,” Murphy explained at the time.
All appears to have been forgiven now. There are more signs that the old Murphy is back. He has already wrapped a sequel to Coming to America, while it was recently announced that Murphy is on for making Beverly Hills Cop 4. In December, he returns to hosting SNL for the first time in 35 years. Beyond that, he has spoken of doing standup again. It is starting to look as if Murphy is redoing his whole career in reverse. Not so much a comeback as a go-back. He can’t wipe the slate entirely clean, but if he can get back to just being a straight-up comic genius, that’s surely a better place.
