Growing Up Laughing With Eddie Murphy

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO MONEY

Eddie had many legal problems and pressures to overcome; starting with the previously mentioned King Broder situation. While King Broder did nothing to further Eddie's career he wanted a piece of the pie when Eddie was worth an estimated $50 million dollars. He sued Eddie for breach of contract but Eddie prevailed.

There was the now infamous Art Buchwald situation arising from the movie Coming to America. Some years earlier, Art Buchwald had approached Paramount Pictures with the idea for Coming to America. As happens so many times to so many artists who are unknown and undiscovered at that time, his material was rejected, but the information was retained by Paramount. They liked Buchwald's idea but did not see fit to pay him and saved it for use later down the road. Some years later, they Paramount presented the idea of Coming to America to Eddie and gave him the contract. Eddie wrote a screenplay that came to light exactly as we saw it in the final version. Art Buchwald sued Eddie Murphy and Paramount Pictures, but Eddie was not found liable because Paramount had received the material and plagiarized it before giving it to Eddie. He did not know the origins of he piece, he just took the idea and expounded on it to bring about the final version of the movie.

I knew the allegations against Eddie were false because Eddie always has a million ideas of his own. His wit and intelligence are strong enough that he doesn't have to steal from others.

The best part of Eddie's success is that he had built an empire and foundation which was virtually impossible for him to topple from. He purchased his own management company, Panda, and was the president and owner. He also formed his own production company, Eddie Murphy Enterprises & Productions, as well as a joint venture between Paramount Pictures and Eddie Murphy Pictures.

Through all the difficult times Eddie continued to stack the bricks of success that would enable him to retain his accomplishments no matter what controversies would arise in his career. These are the things that made Eddie Murphy great.