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Sat 19 April 2025 21:15, UK
‘Sentimental’ isn’t the first word that comes to mind when Bill Murray comes up in conversation. He is neither sentimental in his movies nor, if many of his co-stars are any indication, is he sentimental off camera. His characters tend to be deadpan man-children who have a habit of destroying the lives of those around them. He’s loveable despite his actions, but he rarely projects a whole lot of tenderness.
In more recent years, he’s leaned into the melancholy side of this character type. Movies like Lost in Translation and Broken Flowers see him playing deadpan man-children who resort to humour to distract from their gloom and regret. It’s proven to be a winning formula. He earned an Oscar nomination for Lost in Translation and has cited his work in Broken Flowers as his favourite of his performances.
Throughout his decades in Hollywood, he’s had the opportunity to work with many great actors who have brought audiences to tears in one film or another, including Cate Blanchett, Scarlett Johansson, Ralph Fiennes, and Adrien Brody. He’s even been in the same film as Meryl Streep (Fantastic Mr Fox), though since they were only doing voice acting, it’s unlikely they worked opposite each other.
Of all the co-stars he’s appeared with, however, Murray has one clear favourite: Tai. If you’ve never heard of Tai, it’s probably because she was an elephant and therefore not a household name, even if she deserved to be. She starred with Murray in the 1996 film Larger Than Life, in which he plays a motivational speaker whose father leaves behind an elephant as his only form of inheritance. It was not well-received. In fact, it was panned and failed to make back even one-third of its budget at the box office. Still, it was one of the most moving experiences of Murray’s professional life.
“The elephant I had an extraordinary time with,” he said in an interview with The New York Times. “I always say it’s the only co-star I ever cried over when I left. I gave her a bath with a hose, and I cried like a baby because she was the most beautiful co-star I ever had, the smartest co-star I ever had, and the only one I miss. She was extraordinary.”
It’s a lovely image to think of Bill Murray sobbing as he bathes a 3,600-kilogram elephant. There is something unexpectedly wholesome about it. Anyone who loves animals can probably relate to the deep bond you can form with creatures you can’t speak with, and it seems that even Murray is susceptible.
Larger Than Life wasn’t Tai’s first time in front of the camera. She appeared briefly in the 1994 live-action version of The Jungle Book, as well as in George of the Jungle, Water for Elephants, and the television series Westworld. Sadly, it is impossible to talk about her without discussing the many allegations of animal cruelty that her handlers received over the years. One of the first accusations came when she and several other animals, including lions, appeared in Britney Spears’s ‘Circus’ music video. Further allegations arose after a video showed her handlers using stun guns and beating her behind the scenes on Water for Elephants.
She was owned by a facility in Texas called Have Trunk Will Travel (renamed The Preserve) which rents out elephants for rides and movie and television appearances. The owners of the company vehemently denied mistreating their animals, even after they faced increased scrutiny when two of their elephants, including Tai, died suddenly in the same year.
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