Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy: The Life and Times of a Comic on the Edge details a complicated, dramatic, and remarkable life: . Born in the Brooklyn projects, Murphy learned suffering at an early age when his father was stabbed to death by a jealous lover. He lived in poverty with his mother until he was a teenager - occasionally being shuffled through foster homes as his mother was frequently ill. As a cocky fifteen-year-old, Murphy predicted that he'd be famous by age twenty-one. At nineteen, he was discovered performing in an obscure Fort Lauderdale comedy club by the producer of Saturday Night Live. By twenty-one, he was indeed a major star, with back-to-back movie hits - 48 HRS., Trading Places, and Beverly Hills Cop. Beverly Hills Cop 2 was number one three years later and made Murphy the biggest box-office draw of the decade. Murphy's meteoric career plummeted at the end of the eighties with a succession of flops, beginning with his vanity production Harlem Nights. In 1996 Murphy seemed to be back on track with another number-one box-office comedy, The Nutty Professor. His future was looking bright. But his follow-up films, Metro and Doctor Dolittle, have critics wondering if The Nutty Professor was a comeback or a fluke. He had also overcome his fear of commitment and married fashion model Nicole Mitchell, the mother of his three children. But an embarrassing incident that made national headlines marred his image as a family man. For the growing legion of Eddie Murphy fans, here is the biography that shows the popular actor in all his incarnations.