Don Murray

Acting · 1.2 popularity

Age

Movies

Born: July 31, 1929 – February 2, 2024
From: Hollywood, California, USA

Biography

Donald Patrick "Don" Murray (July 31, 1929-February 2, 2024) was an American actor. Murray was born in Hollywood, California. He attended East Rockaway High School (class of 1947) in East Rockaway, New York where he played football and track, was a member of the student government and glee club and joined the Alpha Phi Chapter of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity. From high school he went on to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Murray had a long and varied career in films and television, including his role as Sid Fairgate in the long-running prime-time soap opera Knots Landing from 1979 to 1981. He was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor in Bus Stop (1956) in which he co-starred with Marilyn Monroe. He starred as a blackmailed United States senator in Advise & Consent (1961), a film version of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Allen Drury that was directed by Otto Preminger and cast Murray opposite Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton. He also co-starred with Steve McQueen in the film Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) and played the ape-hating Governor Breck in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972). In addition to acting, Murray directed a film based on the book The Cross and the Switchblade (1970) starring Pat Boone and Erik Estrada, and he scripted two episodes of Knots Landing ("Hitchhike" parts 1 & 2) in 1980. Murray starred with Otis Young in the ground breaking ABC western television series The Outcasts (1968-69) featuring an interracial bounty hunter team in the post-Civil War West. Murray decided to leave Knots Landing after two years to concentrate on other projects, although some sources say he left 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 up on season two's cliffhanger in which Sid's car careered off a cliff. To make viewers off doubt the character would actually die, Murray was listed in the newly created credit sequence for season three; the character survived the plunge off the cliff (thus temporarily reassuring viewers), but died shortly afterwards in hospital. Although he effectively distanced himself from the series after his exit in 1981, Murray later contributed an interview segment for Knots Landing: Together Again, a non-fiction reunion special made in 2005. Murray was the first husband of actress Hope Lange. They had two children, including actor Christopher Murray.

Works

86 films

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

19726.2

Endless Love

19815.7

The Girl on the Late, Late Show

19745.5

Peggy Sue Got Married

19866.1

Bus Stop

19566.1

Made in Heaven

19876.5

Tab Hunter Confidential

20157.3

Advise & Consent

19627.2

Island Prey

20014.8

Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker

19918.0

Mr. Headmistress

19985.5

Hollywood Uncensored

19875.4

Stillwatch

19876.6

Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen

19815.2

Justin Morgan Had a Horse

19728.0

These Thousand Hills

19596.5

Shake Hands with the Devil

19596.5

Mistress

19874.3

Promise

20213.0

License to Kill

19865.7

Baby the Rain Must Fall

19656.0

I Am the Cheese

19837.4

Cotter

19734.5

Ghosts Can't Do It

19892.7

Marilyn, Her Final Secret

20226.8

From Hell to Texas

19586.0

The Viking Queen

19674.7

Thursday's Child

19835.5

Deadly Hero

19755.8

Radioactive Dreams

19865.4

Return of the Rebels

19815.9

T.J. Hooker: Blood Sport

19865.0

The Plainsman

19665.6

Hedda Hopper's Hollywood

19606.0

Police Story: Confessions of a Lady Cop

19803.0

Quarterback Princess

19836.9

The Boy Who Drank Too Much

19804.7

Remembering Marilyn

19889.0

Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend

19867.4

Marilyn, divine et fragile

1996

A Hatful of Rain

19576.8

Happy Birthday, Wanda June

19716.0

Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers

20175.0

Shurtleff on Acting

1994

If Things Were Different

19809.0

My Dad Can't Be Crazy... Can He?

1989

Twentieth Century Fox: The First 50 Years

19977.2

Marilyn

19637.5

A Girl Named Sooner

19755.3

Something in Common

19866.0

The Stepford Children

19875.0

Marilyn Monroe: In The Movies

20127.0

Rainbow

197810.0

Norma Jean Alias Marilyn Monroe

19879.0

Hollywood Legenden

20044.5

The Intruders

19705.0

Marilyn despite herself

20128.0

One Man's Way

19644.3

Alan Ladd: The True Quiet Man

19998.0

Crisis in Mid-Air

19798.0

One Foot in Hell

19605.3

Winterset

19599.0

A Touch of Scandal

19848.0

Marilyn Monroe: The Mortal Goddess

19946.9

The Sex Symbol

19744.0

The Borgia Stick

19678.5

The Bachelor Party

19576.8

Sweet Love, Bitter

19675.5

Scorpion

19864.6

The Hoodlum Priest

19615.9

The Taming of the Shrew

1950

Kid Rodelo

19668.0

Riots & Revolutions: Confronting the Times

2008

Hearts Adrift

19967.5

Fugitive Family

19808.0

Fred Zinnemann - Der Mann, der 'High Noon' machte

2007

Escape from East Berlin

19625.9

Internet Love

199810.0

Gold of Rio Bravo: Sheriff Kelly's Story

2025

Childish Things

19693.0

Marilyn Monroe: I Want to Be Loved

2010

Daughter of the Mind

19696.7

A Man Is Ten Feet Tall

1955

Hollywood's Hidden Secrets

1987

Montana Crossroads

1993

Besuch bei Don Murray

2000