Twenty-five years ago, Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall took a momentous trip from the fictional African nation of Zamunda to the foreign land of Queens, New York, and the result was a larger-than-life comedy film called Coming to America.
An all-star cast and crew united to produce the movie, which became a box office hit and enduring classic.
On its milestone anniversary, the people behind the feature are reflecting on its imprint in cinematic history.
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“It feels like it just happened,” executive producer Leslie Belzberg tells theGrio. “I love the idea that Coming to America is still successful, that people still remember it and want to see it. Often, in my peer group and when I meet in the entertainment industry, they’ll still refer to that movie.”
“We were doing something that was slightly unprecedented,” she continues. “It’s very gratifying to know people enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed making it.”
For his Highness, Eddie Murphy
Making Coming to America was no easy feat, primarily due to its ambitious shooting schedule and set of continental proportions.
Belzberg got involved when she joined with director John Landis (Trading Places, Animal House) and his producing partner George Folsey Jr., and the three jumped from project to project as a unit.
The story was created by Murphy, for Murphy, and as Belzberg points out, it couldn’t have become a reality any other way.
“This was a very unusual, different piece of material than anything that was being made,” she recalls. “Eddie was the perfect guy to do it because he just had a gift for this kind of interesting character. And John had an unbelievably creative eye. All the pieces fit really well together.”
She adds, “It met a lot of crossover [success] because it had a lot of African-American actors in it, which I think was unusual for the time. It just, on so many levels, was precedent establishing.”
Murphy’s former manager and the film’s co-producer Robert Wachs remembers Murphy conceptualizing the idea while on the road during his stand-up tour.
The comedian, then 26, hand wrote the story on a “yellow pad,” and fought the studio to maintain creative control. A lawsuit later erupted when a writer claimed rights to the story.
Wachs notes that, while there may have been similar ideas, there was only one way to go about Coming to America.
“Paramount had a story about a king who was a despot, and I told Paramount we weren’t interested in making that movie,” Wachs remarks. “We wanted Eddie to be the good guy. To look good. To have morals and ethics and whatnot, and this other thing that was written about a king was not. He was a despot. He was a dictator.”
Conversely, Murphy’s character, Prince Akeem, was loosely based on his own persona, and the conflicts he faced as he quickly rose to fame in Hollywood.
At the time, the comedian was already a bonafide superstar, having already released his classic comedy specials Delirious and Raw, as well as several blockbuster films like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hours. The script was layered with Murphy’s musings on the life of a young, successful man, real or imagined.
“He questioned the real value of family, friendship and everything,” Wachs explains. “Did people really like him for what he was as a person, or was it because he was this young, successful, fabulous, flamboyant movie star?”
‘No journey is too great’
After the story was conceived, the next step was establishing a believable world for it to take place in, which in this case meant constructing an African country within a Hollywood sound stage.
Time was limited; money even more so. Yet energy and determination made up for logistical deficits.
The crew shot first in New York, then went to California, where Zamunda was built behind Paramount’s legendary gates.
“It’s basically like a fantasy right?” Belzberg recalls. “No country like that existed. Everything from the opening scene where you see the elephants walking past the castle, the palace and all of Zamunda were created…In those days, they didn’t even use computers to create mattes, so it had to be hand-painted.”
With a kingdom at her disposal, Paula Abdul, by then a music video choreographer and pop sensation, choreographed the wedding scene in the film.
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Abdul says, “I was among royalty: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Madge Sinclair and director John Landis…and that’s just naming a few of the heavyweights working on this incredible film. I really wanted to create something that was regal, unique and exhilarating all at the same time. John Landis wanted an unforgettable performance that captured the joy and spirit of Prince Akeem’s wedding celebration. One of the biggest compliments I could ever receive as a choreographer is when I’m told that it’s one of the most recognizable and recreated dance scenes in our pop culture history. Working on this project was one of the most extraordinary experiences that has truly enriched my life.”
Music producer and Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers was brought on to score the film, and was challenged to create music that blended African roots with New York City grit.
He describes the film as an “evergreen African-American fairytale,” and the music as “massively diverse.”
From the “King’s Motorcade” to the classic 80’s commercial spoof “Soul-Glo,” the score included songs written by Rodgers along with tracks by Dr. Dre, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, and Jackie Wilson.
“At this period in Eddie’s career, he was extremely popular for his street-smart urban American roles,” Rodgers recalls. “It was important to make his character believable from the first moment we see him. So, I brought in Ladysmith Black Mambazo to perform ‘Mbube’ in the Zulu language for the film’s opening music.”
‘His mamma name him Clay, I’mma call him Clay’
Many fans of Coming to America regard the barbershop scenes as the film’s most iconic moments.
Proving his comic virtuosity, Murphy played three characters at once, one of which was old, Jewish, and as pale as the snow falling on the New York avenue.
“My first day on the lot, John Landis and Eddie Murphy greeted me,” Rodgers recalls. “Eddie was made-up as the old Jewish man from the barbershop scenes. We all had a long conversation, and I had no idea it was Eddie until he screamed out, ‘Yo Nile, it’s Eddie, man!”
Photographer Bruce McBroom, who shot on the set of 16 Murphy movies, likewise describes the comedian’s methodology.
“Once Eddie looked in the mirror and owned this character and inhabited it, he was that way the whole time,” says McBroom. “The day that he came in as the grouchy old white man Saul, with this Yiddish accent from New York, if you bumped into him near craft service, he was an old grouchy white guy. He never breaks character. I’ve been there and heard people say, ‘Oh well, he seems to be in a bad mood.’ I’d say, ‘No, he’s not in a bad mood, he’s playing that man who’s in a bad mood.’”
Not only did Murphy have to pull additional weight for the scene (Hall also played two characters), he veered off script with his improvisations, making each take more difficult.
“Eddie doesn’t rehearse and Eddie doesn’t do a lot of takes,” McBroom comments. “He would take the lines, and change them or adlib knowing that the next day he would play the grouchy old white man or the other character. He would then have to think about how to respond to these lines that aren’t in the script that he had ad-libbed the day before. Then you multiply that again by the next day and the third character, and its mindboggling.”
A surprise sensation
While Murphy had already made it big, Coming to America provided a launching pad for other performers in the film. Hall was only beginning to gain attention as a talk show host, and actors Cuba Gooding Jr. and Garcelle Beauvais both made their big screen debuts.
“I was modeling at the time, and didn’t think about doing movies,” said Beauvais, who played a rose bearer in Zamunda. “It was a fun experience and I learned a lot by being on set and working with Eddie Murphy…It started my love for filmmaking.”
Few can forget James Earl Jones as the oblivious King Jaffe; John Amos as Cleo McDowell, a devoted but self-centered dad running a McDonald’s poser chain; Samuel L. Jackson, as a gun-toting thief at the restaurant; or Eriq La Salle as Darryl Jenks, the jheri-curl-sporting villain and Murphy’s romantic rival.
“I had a great experience and I’m proud to have been a part of such an iconic film,” La Salle said in a recent statement.
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Producer George Folsey Jr. says one of his favorite aspects of the film was the return of the Duke Brothers (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche), two commodities-brokers-turned-bankrupt fools from Trading Places. They made a surprise cameo appearance as homeless hustlers.
“They came in and shot that scene with the two of them underneath the newspapers and in the boxes under the Brooklyn Bridge, where it was like seven degrees,” Folsey recalls. “We just thought it would be a cute idea if they came back, and were the bums that Eddie Murphy gives money to. And then it turned out to be a really big deal.”
What may come a surprise, according to Belzberg, the movie was in post-production up until the day of its release; it was shot into May of that year and premiered six weeks later.
Consequently, the film wasn’t screened for critics, though none of the producers recall that being an intentional decision.
Regardless, it became one of the biggest hits of the year, opening in theaters on June 29, 1988, and grossing over $288 million worldwide in its run in theaters. It was a pay-off as grandiose as its little known kingdom in the Motherland.
“In my mind, if the audience comes to see your movie, then you’ve created something people can appreciate and really enjoy,” Belzberg points out.
Once and future king
As for The Nutty Professor himself, Coming to America gave Murphy an unprecedented amount of creative freedom and power in the entertainment business before he’d even hit age 30.
It established a standard where the actor could not only pilot a moneymaking picture, but experiment with comedic storytelling. He’s made over 30 films since.
Observes Folsey, “Really what it did was it cement his role as one of the top five movie stars in the business, and showed his versatility and his charm.”
Follow Courtney Garcia on Twitter at @courtgarcia