by Don Murray, the actor next door who made his film debut as the cowboy in love with Marilyn Monroe in “Bus Stop” in 1956 and played a priest, a drug addict, a gay senator and many other roles in movies, television and theater. more than six decades, he died Friday at his home near Santa Barbara, California. He was 94 years old.
His son Christopher confirmed the death.
In the 1950s, when being sensitive, responsible, and a “good guy” were important attributes in a young man, Murray was a church-going pacifist who became a conscientious objector during the Korean War. He fulfilled his service obligation by working for two and a half years in German and Italian refugee camps for $10 a month, helping orphans, wounded and displaced people.
Returning from Europe in 1954, he decided on a career as an actor focused on issues of social responsibility. He appeared in a television drama about lawyers serving poor clients and was in the 1955 Broadway production of “The Skin of Our Teeth,” Thornton Wilder’s comic vote of confidence in humanity’s limited ability to survive, starring Helen Hayes and Mary. Martin.
Director Joshua Logan saw that production and cast Mr. Murray in “Bus Stop,” his adaptation of William Inge’s play about a singer who is chased by a cowboy from a Phoenix venue to a snowy bus stop in Arizona. where a spark of dignity arises. and the character is kindled in a touching and humiliating love. The film established Marilyn Monroe as a legitimate actress and Mr. Murray as a promising star.
“With a wonderful new actor named Don Murray playing the stupid, stubborn idiot and with the mess of broncos, blondes and busters beautifully entangled, Mr. Logan has a booming comedy before he gets to the romance,” Bosley Crowther wrote in a review . for The New York Times. “And the fact that she intermittently but steadily summons the will and strength to humiliate him, to make him say ‘please,’ which is the point of the whole thing, attests to his newfound acting ability.” .
Mr. Murray’s performance in “Bus Stop” earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. He earned numerous other honors for a body of work that included more than 35 Hollywood films, some 25 television films, and numerous other credits for starring in television and stage productions, as well as for writing, directing, or producing films and television. But he was never nominated for an Academy Award again.
His best-known early films also included “A Hatful of Rain” (1957), the story of a tormented drug addict who hides his secret from his wife, played by Eva Marie Saint; “Shake Hands With the Devil” (1959), a story of the Irish rebellion of 1921, which also starred James Cagney; and “The Hoodlum Priest” (1961), in which Murray, who co-wrote the screenplay, played a Jesuit who counsels ex-convicts.
“Don has identified himself with what might be called film dramas of social importance and ‘appeal to reason,’” Cue magazine noted in 1961. “He will not act in a drama that exalts evil or glorifies violence. “I’m not crazy about it,” he says, “my photographs don’t have to carry a message, but they do. do I have to say something'”.
Murray played a memorable role in “Advise and Consent” (1962), Otto Preminger’s hit film based on Allen Drury’s Pulitzer Prize-winning political novel set in the halls of the Capitol. It starred Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton and Walter Pidgeon; Murray played a married U.S. senator with a gay encounter in his past, who is blackmailed for his vote in a Senate confirmation fight over a secretary of state nominee.
Murray’s Hollywood roles diminished in the late 1960s and he turned increasingly to television. His most notable role was in “The Outcasts,” an ABC series in which he and Otis Young played a team of post-Civil War bounty hunters: Mr. Young as a former slave and Union soldier, and the Mr. Murray as a former slave. slave owner and Confederate officer.
One of the first television shows with white and black co-stars, “The Outcasts” aired for 26 weeks in the 1968-69 season. Aired after the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, it was widely criticized at the time for its depictions of racial tensions and violence. But in later years, seen in reruns and on home video, it was hailed as a forgotten classic.
Murray co-wrote and directed “The Cross and the Razor” (1970), a film starring Pat Boone as a street pastor who leads two city street gangs to Christ, a character based on the work of a real New York preacher. . . “Is it convincing?” Howard Thompson asked in a review for The Times. “And with what force does he hit him? Answers: convincing and quite tough. I liked.”
From 1979 to 1981, Murray played Sid Fairgate, husband and father, on the long-running CBS primetime soap opera, “Knots Landing.” He then returned to the big screen, appearing with Brooke Shields in “Endless Love” (1981), Denzel Washington in “License to Kill” (1984) and Barbara Eden in “The Stepford Children” (1987).
Murray and Eden also co-starred in “Brand New Life” (1989-90), an NBC series about a wealthy widowed lawyer and a divorced waitress, each the father of three teenagers, who marry and make a new life. together in Bel Air, the affluent enclave of Los Angeles, with the intermingling of two families from contrasting social backgrounds leading to conflict and comedy.
Thin and youthful-looking most of his life, Murray was still appearing in films in his 70s, including “Internet Love” (2000) and “Elvis Is Alive” (2001). After a 16-year hiatus, he resurfaced in 2017 in eight episodes of “Twin Peaks: The Return,” Showtime’s follow-up to David Lynch’s 1990-91 ABC series. His character, Bushnell Mullins, was a Las Vegas insurer in endless disagreements with clients and authorities.
Donald Patrick Murray was born in Hollywood on July 31, 1929, one of three children of Dennis and Ethel (Cook) Murray. His father, a singer and dancer, and his mother, a former Ziegfeld girl, had moved from New York to work in talkies, but returned to Broadway when the Great Depression set in.
Don and his siblings, William and Ethelyn, grew up in the town of East Rockaway on Long Island. He was a football and track star at East Rockaway High School, graduating in 1946. After graduating in 1948 from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan, he worked as a waiter and house painter, performed in summer stock and He had small parts on television.
His first break on Broadway was the role of a sailor in “The Rose Tattoo” (1951), Tennessee Williams’ play about a widow (Maureen Stapleton) returning to life and love.
Mr. Murray was drafted into the Marine Corps in 1952, but refused admission as a conscientious objector, citing his affiliation first with the Congregational Christian Church and then with the pacifist Church of the Brethren. He was allowed to fulfill his service obligation by helping European refugees.
While filming “Bus Stop” in 1956, he married actress Hope Lange, another cast member. They had two children, Christopher and Patricia, and divorced in 1961. In 1962 he married actress Elizabeth Johnson, known as Betty. They had three children, Colleen, Sean and Michael.
In addition to his son Christopher, he is survived by two other sons, Michael and Sean; two daughters, Colleen Otcasek and Patricia Murray; a sister, Ethelyn Allison; and four grandchildren.
In an interview for this obituary in 2017, Murray said that, inspired by his work with post-war refugees in barbed wire camps in Italy, he and Lange founded the European Homeless Land Program and purchased 150 acres on the island from Sardinia. in 1956. With financial help from international agencies and Protestant charities, he said, they took more than 100 refugees from the Italian camps (people from communist countries in Europe and from Franco’s Spain) to Sardinia, to settle in what became in permanent self-government. supportive community.
“They planted crops and built houses,” he said. “The city is still there, with the children and grandchildren of the original refugees.”
Early in his career, Murray refused to sign a permanent contract with 20th Century Fox. “They could put you in any movie they wanted,” he said at a UCLA film evening celebrating his work in 2014. He agreed to make two movies a year if he wanted to. It gave him free time to perform on Broadway, and he bought out his contract to produce “The Bully Priest” independently.
“He didn’t play the game in the studio era,” author and film authority Foster Hirsch said at the meeting. “He was never pigeonholed and had great versatility.”
