Don Murray (actor)

Donald Patrick Murray was born in Los Angeles on July 31, 1929, the second of three children, to Dennis Aloisius Murray, a Broadway dance director and stage manager, and Ethel Murray (née Cook), a former Ziegfeld Follies performer.{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/movies/don-murray-dead.html|title = Don Murray, a Star in Films That Took on Social Issues, Dies at 94|last = McFadden|first = Robert D.|authorlink = Robert D. McFadden|date = February 2, 2024|accessdate = February 2, 2024|newspaper = The New York Times|url-access = limited}}

Murray attended East Rockaway High School (class of 1947) in East Rockaway, New York, where he played football and was on the track team. He was a member of the student government and glee club, and joined the Alpha Phi chapter of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity. After graduating, he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Soon after graduating from the AADA, he made his Broadway debut as Jack Hunter in The Rose Tattoo (1951).

A member of the Church of the Brethren, Murray registered as a conscientious objector during the Korean War, when many young American men were being drafted into the armed forces. Murray was assigned to alternative service in Europe, where he helped orphans and war casualties.{{Cite web|title=Alternatives, Narrated by Don Murray|url=https://www.afsc.org/video/alternatives-narrated-don-murray|website=afsc.org|date=January 27, 2016 |publisher=American Friends Service Committee|access-date=May 31, 2017}}{{Cite book|last1=Monush|first1=Barry|title=Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors|date=2003|publisher=Applause Theatre and Cinema Books|location=New York|page=535|isbn=9781557835512|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=toTIb1Ek2WwC&pg=PA535|access-date=May 31, 2017}}

In 1954, Murray returned from Europe to the U.S. and acting. He starred alongside Mary Martin in the stage version of The Skin of Our Teeth. Upon seeing his performance in the play, director Joshua Logan cast him in 20th Century Fox's film adaptation of William Inge's play Bus Stop.

File:Don Murray and Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop trailer crop.jpg in Bus Stop (1956)]]

Murray's role as Beauregard "Beau" Decker in Bus Stop (1956) marked his film debut. He starred alongside Marilyn Monroe, who played Cherie, the object of his desire. His performance as the innocent cowboy determined to get Cherie was well received, and he was nominated for a BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer and for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

In 1957, Murray starred as reserved, married bookkeeper Charlie Sampson in The Bachelor Party.{{Cite web|work=SF Weekly|url=http://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/discovering-don/Content?oid=2988934|title=Discovering Don|first=Jonathan|last=Kiefer|date=July 2, 2014}} That same year he had one of his most successful roles, the morphine-addicted Korean War veteran Johnny Pope in the drama A Hatful of Rain. Despite director Fred Zinnemann's intention to cast Murray as the comical brother Polo, Murray insisted on playing the lead. The film was one of the first to show the effects of drug abuse on addicts and the people around them.

Murray starred as a blackmailed United States senator in Advise & Consent (1962), a film version of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Allen Drury. The movie was directed by Otto Preminger and co-starred Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton. Murray co-starred with Steve McQueen in Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) and played the ape-hating Governor Breck in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972).

In 1976, Murray starred in the film Deadly Hero. In addition to acting, he directed a film based on the book The Cross and the Switchblade (1970). He starred with Otis Young in the ABC western television series The Outcasts (1968–69), featuring an interracial bounty hunter team in the post-Civil War West.

In 1979, Murray starred as Sid Fairgate on the prime-time soap opera Knots Landing. He also scripted two episodes of the show in 1980. In 1981, Murray left the series after two seasons either to concentrate on other projects, or, according to some sources, over a salary dispute. The character's death was notable at the time because it was considered rare to kill off a star character. The death came in the second episode of season three, following season two's cliffhanger in which Sid's car careened off a cliff. To make viewers doubt the character had actually died, Murray was listed in the credit sequence for season three; in fact, season three revealed that Fairgate had survived the plunge off the cliff (thus temporarily reassuring the viewers), but died shortly afterward in a hospital. Although he effectively distanced himself from the series after that, Murray contributed an interview segment for the 2005 reunion special Knots Landing: Together Again.

File:Don Murray by Gage Skidmore.jpg]]

In July 2014, a retrospective of Murray's films was held at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.

In 1956, Murray married Hope Lange, with whom he co-starred in Bus Stop. They had two children, Christopher and Patricia. They divorced in 1961. In 1962, he married Elizabeth Johnson. They had three children, Colleen, Sean, and Michael.

Murray lived in Goleta, California.{{cite news|url = https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/don-murray-dead-bus-stop-1235813848/|title = Don Murray, Oscar-Nominated Star of 'Bus Stop,' Dies at 94|last = Barnes|first = Mike|date = February 2, 2024|accessdate = February 4, 2024|work = The Hollywood Reporter}} He died at his home on February 2, 2024, at the age of 94.

File:Don Murray - Marilyn Monroe - 1956.jpg in Bus Stop (1956)]]

File:Don Murray - Eva Marie Saint - 1957.jpg in A Hatful of Rain (1957)]]

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Category:1929 births

Category:2024 deaths

Category:American male television actors

Category:American male stage actors

Category:American male film actors

Category:Male actors from California

Category:People from East Rockaway, New York

Category:American Academy of Dramatic Arts alumni

Category:20th-century American male actors

Category:21st-century American male actors

Category:East Rockaway High School alumni

Category:People from Goleta, California