RIP Harold Ramis, 69...

Harold Ramis, Chicago actor, writer and director, dead at 69

Harold Ramis was one of Hollywood’s most successful comedy filmmakers when he moved his family
from Los Angeles back to the Chicago area in 1996. His career was still thriving, with "Groundhog Day"
acquiring almost instant classic status upon its 1993 release and 1984's "Ghostbusters" ranking among
the highest-grossing comedies of all time, but the writer-director wanted to return to the city where
he’d launched his career as a Second City performer.

"There's a pride in what I do that other people share because I'm local, which in L.A. is meaningless;
no one's local," Ramis said upon the launch of the first movie he directed after his move, the 1999
mobster-in-therapy comedy "Analyze This," another hit. "It's a good thing. I feel like I represent the
city in a certain way."

Ramis, a longtime North Shore resident, was surrounded by family when he died at 12:53 a.m. from
complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a rare disease that involves swelling of the blood
vessels, his wife Erica Mann Ramis said. He was 69.