Don Murray
Personal Info
Known For Actor
Gender Male
Birthday 1929-07-31
Deathday 2024-02-02 (94 years old)
Place of Birth Hollywood, California, USA
Also Known As Donald Patrick Murray
Don Murray
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.
Known For
Actor
as Zacharias
as Self
as Self
as Self
as Self
as Parker Gaits
as Self
as Self
as Self
as Reporter
as Self
as Lloyd Raines
as Chip Bremley
as Self
as Bing Hammersmith
as Dad
as Bushnell Mullins
as Winston
as Jack Karpinsky
as Self
as Ben Chandler
as Steven Harding
as Sam Kingsley
as Self
as Tom Fiske
as Gifford Lease
as Theo Fontana
as Jack Kelcher
as Dash Hammer
as Senator Stuart Grayle
as Albert Gordon
as Benjamin Gilvey
as Wally Hampton
as Ralph Maida
as David Farmer
as Parker Alden
as Sonny Morgan
as Hugh
as Peter Ritchie
as Sergeant Jack Leland
as Ken Saunders
as Robert Langford
as Adam Travis
as Sid Fairgate
as Frank Gumm
as Anderson
as Edward A. Lacy
as Sheriff Phil Rotteman
as Sen. Grant O'Neal
as William Martin
as Cotter
as Breck
as Justin Morgan
as Jack Karpinsky
as Herb Shuttle
as Sam Garrison
as Dr. Alex Lauder
as Tom Harris
as Justinian
as Tom Harrison
as David Hillary
as Wild Bill Hickok
as Kid Rodelo
as Deputy Sheriff Slim
as Norman Vincent Peale
as Self ("Bus Stop") (archive footage) (uncredited)
as Kurt Schröder
as Senator Brigham Anderson
as Father Charles Dismas Clark
as Self
as Dan Keats
as Self
as Mio
as Kerry O'Shea
as Albert Gallatin 'Lat' Evans
as Tod Lohman
as Johnny Pope
as Charlie Samson
as Beauregard 'Bo' Decker
as Randy Bragg
as Axel Nordman
as Justin Morgan
as Mio
as Parker Alden
as Jimmy
as Self - Mystery Guest
as Biondello
as Axel Nordman
as Self
as Booth
as George
Director
Writer
as Writer
as Screenplay