📍Roosevelt, Long Island, NY 11575, USA
1970 – 1979“Eddie Murphy was born in Brooklyn, New York, in April 1961. His father, Charles, a transit police officer and amateur comedian, separated from his mother, Lillian, a telephone operator, when Eddie was small, and his father died when Eddie was eight. When his mother fell ill, Eddie and his older brother, Charlie, spent about a year in foster care, with a strict caregiver; he has said that experience was probably why he became a comedian. In 1970, when he was nine, his mother married Vernon Lynch, a foreman at a Breyers ice cream plant and a former boxer, and the family moved to a two-storey house in Roosevelt, a largely Black, middle-class suburb on Long Island. It was a world of front lawns, local sports and big families, and Eddie spent hours watching television, imitating Elvis Presley, Bruce Lee and cartoon characters, and doing impressions for his friends. He idolised Richard Pryor, and in tenth grade he announced that he would be bigger than Bob Hope. At fifteen he hosted a talent show at the Roosevelt Youth Center, doing an impression of Al Green, and the response was so strong that he began performing in bars and comedy clubs across Long Island. He stayed out so late that he had to repeat a year at Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School. In 1980, at nineteen, he joined Saturday Night Live, and films like 48 Hrs., Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop made him one of the biggest stars of the 1980s. Roosevelt remains proud of its most famous son.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today