FRED MACMURRAY
Name: Fredrick Martin MacMurray
Born: 30 August 1908 Kankakee, Illinois, U.S.
Died: 5 November 1991 Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Fredrick Martin MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an actor who
appeared in over one hundred movies and a highly successful television series
during a career that lasted from the 1930s to the 1970s.
MacMurray is well known for his role in the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity, in
which he starred with Barbara Stanwyck. Later in life, he became better known as
the slightly stammering Steve Douglas, the widowed patriarch on the CBS TV
series, My Three Sons. The show ran from 1960 until 1972.
MacMurray was born in Kankakee, Illinois to Frederick MacMurray and Maleta
Martin. The family finally settled in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. MacMurray was five
years old during the year that they settled in Beaver Dam.
He earned a full scholarship to attend Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
In college, MacMurray participated in numerous local bands, playing the
saxophone. In 1930, he recorded a tune for the Gus Arnheim Orchestra as a
featured vocalist on All I Want Is Just One Girl on the Victor 78 label.
Early in his acting career, before signing with Paramount Pictures in 1934, he
also appeared on Broadway in Three's a Crowd (1930-1931), and in the original
production of Roberta (1933-1934), on which the movie Roberta (1935) was based.
In addition to MacMurray, the Roberta cast included Sydney Greenstreet and Bob
Hope.
MacMurray's early film work is largely overlooked by many film historians and
critics, but in his heyday, he worked with some of Hollywood's greatest talents,
including director Preston Sturges and actors Humphrey Bogart and Marlene
Dietrich. He played opposite Claudette Colbert in seven films, the first of
which was The Gilded Lily; he also co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in Alice
Adams and Carole Lombard in Hands Across the Table, The Princess Comes Across,
and True Confession.
Mostly cast as decent, amiable characters in a succession of light comedies,
dramas (The Trail of the Lonesome Pine), melodramas (Above Suspicion 1943) and
musicals (Where Do We Go from Here? 1945), MacMurray had become one of Hollywood's
highest-paid actors by 1943, when his salary reached $420,000.
Despite his "nice guy" image, MacMurray often stated that the best film roles he
ever played were two in which he was cast against type by Billy Wilder. He
played the role of Walter Neff, an insurance salesman (numerous other actors had
turned the role down) who plots with a wealthy heiress Barbara Stanwyck to
murder her husband in Double Indemnity. In 1960, he played Jeff Sheldrake, a
slimy, two-timing corporate executive in Wilder's Oscar-winning comedy The
Apartment, with Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. In another turn in the "not so
nice" category , MacMurray played the cynical, duplicitous Lieutenant Thomas
Keefer in 1954's The Caine Mutiny. He gave his finest dramatic performances,
though, when cast against type as counterfeit nice-guys or hard-boiled heels: a
crooked cop in Pushover.
MacMurray revived his career in the 1960s as the star of My Three Sons which ran
for 12 seasons, making it one of the longest-running American sitcoms ever
produced. Concurrent with My Three Sons, MacMurray also maintained a busy film
career, which included playing the unlikeable Jeff Sheldrake in The Apartment,
though he also played off his My Three Sons image by starring as good-natured
father figures in the Disney comedies 'The Absent-Minded Professor and its
sequel, Son of Flubber. (He also played a similar father figure character in an
earlier Disney comedy, 1959's The Shaggy Dog.
He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party who joined Bob Hope and James
Stewart in campaigning for Richard Nixon in 1968. He was also, generally,
considered one of the most frugal actors in the business. Studio co-workers
noticed that even as a successful actor, MacMurray would usually bring a brown
bag lunch to work, often containing a hardboiled egg. According to his co-star
on My Three Sons, William Demarest, MacMurray continued to bring dyed Easter
eggs for lunch several months after Easter.
MacMurray continued to act after the cancellation of My Three Sons in 1972, but
only made a few more film appearances before retiring from acting in 1978.
Name: Fredrick Martin MacMurray
Born: 30 August 1908 Kankakee, Illinois, U.S.
Died: 5 November 1991 Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Fredrick Martin MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an actor who
appeared in over one hundred movies and a highly successful television series
during a career that lasted from the 1930s to the 1970s.
MacMurray is well known for his role in the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity, in
which he starred with Barbara Stanwyck. Later in life, he became better known as
the slightly stammering Steve Douglas, the widowed patriarch on the CBS TV
series, My Three Sons. The show ran from 1960 until 1972.
MacMurray was born in Kankakee, Illinois to Frederick MacMurray and Maleta
Martin. The family finally settled in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. MacMurray was five
years old during the year that they settled in Beaver Dam.
He earned a full scholarship to attend Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
In college, MacMurray participated in numerous local bands, playing the
saxophone. In 1930, he recorded a tune for the Gus Arnheim Orchestra as a
featured vocalist on All I Want Is Just One Girl on the Victor 78 label.
Early in his acting career, before signing with Paramount Pictures in 1934, he
also appeared on Broadway in Three's a Crowd (1930-1931), and in the original
production of Roberta (1933-1934), on which the movie Roberta (1935) was based.
In addition to MacMurray, the Roberta cast included Sydney Greenstreet and Bob
Hope.
MacMurray's early film work is largely overlooked by many film historians and
critics, but in his heyday, he worked with some of Hollywood's greatest talents,
including director Preston Sturges and actors Humphrey Bogart and Marlene
Dietrich. He played opposite Claudette Colbert in seven films, the first of
which was The Gilded Lily; he also co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in Alice
Adams and Carole Lombard in Hands Across the Table, The Princess Comes Across,
and True Confession.
Mostly cast as decent, amiable characters in a succession of light comedies,
dramas (The Trail of the Lonesome Pine), melodramas (Above Suspicion 1943) and
musicals (Where Do We Go from Here? 1945), MacMurray had become one of Hollywood's
highest-paid actors by 1943, when his salary reached $420,000.
Despite his "nice guy" image, MacMurray often stated that the best film roles he
ever played were two in which he was cast against type by Billy Wilder. He
played the role of Walter Neff, an insurance salesman (numerous other actors had
turned the role down) who plots with a wealthy heiress Barbara Stanwyck to
murder her husband in Double Indemnity. In 1960, he played Jeff Sheldrake, a
slimy, two-timing corporate executive in Wilder's Oscar-winning comedy The
Apartment, with Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. In another turn in the "not so
nice" category , MacMurray played the cynical, duplicitous Lieutenant Thomas
Keefer in 1954's The Caine Mutiny. He gave his finest dramatic performances,
though, when cast against type as counterfeit nice-guys or hard-boiled heels: a
crooked cop in Pushover.
MacMurray revived his career in the 1960s as the star of My Three Sons which ran
for 12 seasons, making it one of the longest-running American sitcoms ever
produced. Concurrent with My Three Sons, MacMurray also maintained a busy film
career, which included playing the unlikeable Jeff Sheldrake in The Apartment,
though he also played off his My Three Sons image by starring as good-natured
father figures in the Disney comedies 'The Absent-Minded Professor and its
sequel, Son of Flubber. (He also played a similar father figure character in an
earlier Disney comedy, 1959's The Shaggy Dog.
He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party who joined Bob Hope and James
Stewart in campaigning for Richard Nixon in 1968. He was also, generally,
considered one of the most frugal actors in the business. Studio co-workers
noticed that even as a successful actor, MacMurray would usually bring a brown
bag lunch to work, often containing a hardboiled egg. According to his co-star
on My Three Sons, William Demarest, MacMurray continued to bring dyed Easter
eggs for lunch several months after Easter.
MacMurray continued to act after the cancellation of My Three Sons in 1972, but
only made a few more film appearances before retiring from acting in 1978.