
The LP’s companion HBO special, Eddie Murphy: Delirious, established what has come to be the lasting visual image of Murphy in his early-period pomp: a slim, handsome young man in a red-leather suit effortlessly commanding the huge stage of the 3,700-seat DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.Ĭheck out more from this issue and find your next story to read. It didn’t take much longer for a leading-man film career to gather momentum, with 48 Hrs., Trading Places, and Beverly Hills Cop coming out in rapid succession-’82, ’83, ’84-and for Murphy to concurrently ascend to the pinnacle of stand-up, with his 1983 album, Eddie Murphy: Comedian, going gold in less than a year and winning a Grammy. Over the course of mere months in 1981, the year he turned 20, Murphy debuted soon-to-be-iconic recurring characters: Buckwheat, Mister Robinson, Velvet Jones, and the prison poet Tyrone Green (“Dark and lonely on a summer night / Kill my landlord, kill my landlord / Watchdog barkin’-do he bite? / Kill my landlord, kill my landlord …”). He was a force, incandescent with live-wire energy from the moment he was given his first speaking part on SNL. Murphy, who will turn 60 next year, was more than a star in the 1980s, the decade in which he emerged. Winona Ryder, forgive us for forever pinning the transgressions of your 20s and 30s upon you-after all, you long ago moved on to better things and Stranger Things. Keanu Reeves, how cruel we were to mock you back when you toured with your band, Dogstar you are an honorable and decorous man.

We’ve witnessed this phenomenon a fair amount in recent times.

Ah, the warm wave of renewed appreciation.
