Writer, director and actor Harold Ramis dies after several years of battling vascular disease. An SCTV comedy veteran who went on to co-write Stripes, Animal House and Caddyshack, Ramis gained genre fame in 1984 for co-writing Ghostbusters, and starring in it as Dr. Egon Spengler, the brains of the ghostbusting operation. He did both again for the less successful Ghostbusters II in 1989, but went on to write and direct such films as Groundhog Day and Analyze This. Ramis was 69.
