Fred MacMurray

Infobox actor
bgcolour = silver
name = Fred MacMurray


caption = Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity" (1944)
birthname = Fredrick Martin MacMurray
birthdate = birth date|1908|8|30|mf=y
location = Kankakee, Illinois, U.S.
deathdate = death date and age|1991|11|5|1908|8|30|mf=y
deathplace = Santa Monica, California, U.S.
yearsactive = 1929 - 1978
spouse = Lillian Lamont (1936–1953)
June Haver (1954–1991)

Frederick Martin MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an American actor who appeared in over one hundred movies and in a highly successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, starting in 1930 and extending into 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 avuncular Steve Douglas, widowed patriarch on "My Three Sons", which ran on ABC from 1960–1965 and then on CBS from 1965-1972.

Career

MacMurray was born in Kankakee, Illinois to Frederick MacMurray and Maleta Martin. When MacMurray was five years old, the family finally settled in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. 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. [ [http://www.answers.com/topic/gus-arnheim Gus Arnheim: Information and Much More from Answers.com ] ] Before he signed on with Paramount Pictures in 1934, he appeared on Broadway in "Three's a Crowd" (1930–1931) with Sidney Greenstreet and Bob Hope and in the original production of "Roberta" (1933–1934). [ [http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=50837 IBDB] ]

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, beginning with "The Gilded Lily"; he also co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in the classic, "Alice Adams," and with Carole Lombard in "Hands Across the Table", "The Princess Comes Across", and "True Confession".

Usually cast in light comedies as a decent, thoughtful character ("The Trail of the Lonesome Pine") and in 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. [ [http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=119195 TCM Movie Database] ]

Despite being typecast as a "nice guy", MacMurray often said that his best roles were when he was cast against type by Billy Wilder. In 1944, he played the role of Walter Neff, an insurance salesman (numerous other actors had turned the role down) who plots with a greedy wife Barbara Stanwyck to murder her husband in "Double Indemnity". Sixteen years later, he played Jeff Sheldrake, a 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" (also in 1954). [ [http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=119195 TCM Movie Database] ]

MacMurray's career got its second wind beginning in 1959, when he was cast as the father figure in a popular Disney comedy, "The Shaggy Dog". [ [http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=119195 TCM Movie Database] ] The 1960s saw him star in "My Three Sons," which ran for 12 seasons, making it one of America's longest-running television series. Concurrent with "My Three Sons", MacMurray stayed busy in films, starring in 1961 as Professor Ned Brainerd in Disney's "The Absent-Minded Professor" and in its sequel, "Son of Flubber", in 1964. Having the clout of a major star, MacMurray was able to have it in his "Sons" contract that all the scenes requiring him be shot first. This freed him to pursue his film work, and his golf hobby.

He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party; he joined Bob Hope and James Stewart in campaigning for Richard Nixon in 1968. He was also 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 including 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 so as not to waste them.

After the cancellation of "My Three Sons" in 1972, MacMurray made only a few more film appearances before retiring in 1978.

Personal life

MacMurray was married twice. He and his first wife, Lillian Lamont, were married on June 20, 1936, and they adopted two children. After Lamont died on June 22, 1953, he married actress June Haver the following year; the couple adopted two more children.

In 1939, artist C. C. Beck used MacMurray as the initial model for the superhero character who would become Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel. [ [http://www.marvelfamily.com/faq/mfinspiration.asp The Marvel Family Web » FAQ » Marvel Family Inspiration ] ] In the 1940s MacMurray established MacMurray Ranch, now a popular winery.

After a longstanding bout with leukemia, MacMurray died of pneumonia in 1991 in Santa Monica and was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.

In 2007 Bearmanor Media published the first full-length biography of Fred MacMurray, by author Charles Tranberg.

Filmography

Features

*"Girls Gone Wild" (1929)
*"Why Leave Home?" (1929)
*"Tiger Rose" (1929)
*"Grand Old Girl" (1935)
*"The Gilded Lily" (1935)
*"Car 99" (1935)
*"Men Without Names" (1935)
*"Alice Adams" (1935)
*"Hands Across the Table" (1935)
*"The Bride Comes Home" (1935)
*"The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" (1936)
*"Thirteen Hours by Air" (1936)
*"The Princess Comes Across" (1936)
*"The Texas Rangers" (1936)
*"Champagne Waltz" (1937)
*"Maid of Salem" (1937)
*"Swing High, Swing Low" (1937)
*"Exclusive" (1937)
*"True Confession" (1937)
*"Cocoanut Grove" (1938)
*"Men with Wings" (1938)
*"Sing You Sinners" (1938)
*"Cafe Society" (1939)
*"Invitation to Happiness" (1939)
*"Honeymoon in Bali" (1939)
*"Remember the Night" (1940)
*"Little Old New York" (1940)
*"Too Many Husbands" (1940)
*"Rangers of Fortune" (1940)
*"Virginia" (1941)
*"One Night in Lisbon" (1941)
*"Dive Bomber" (1941)
*"New York Town" (1941)
*"The Lady Is Willing" (1942)
*"Take a Letter, Darling" (1942)
*"The Forest Rangers" (1942)
*"Star Spangled Rhythm" (1942)
*"Flight for Freedom" (1943)
*"No Time for Love" (1943)
*"Above Suspicion" (1943)
*"Standing Room Only" (1944)
*"And the Angels Sing" (1944)
*"Double Indemnity" (1944)
*"Practically Yours" (1944)
*"Where We Go from Here?" (1945) - Bill Morgan
*"Captain Eddie" (1945)
*"Murder, He Says" (1945)
*"Pardon My Past" (1945)
*"Smoky" (1946)
*"Suddenly, It's Spring" (1947)
*"The Egg and I" (1947)
*"Singapore" (1947)
*"On Our Merry Way" (1948)
*"The Miracle of the Bells" (1948)
*"An Innocent Affair" (1948)
*"Family Honeymoon" (1949)
*"Father Was a Fullback" (1949)
*"Borderline" (1950)
*"Never a Dull Moment" (1950)
*"A Millionaire for Christy" (1951)
*"Callaway Went Thataway" (1951)
*"Fair Wind to Java" (1953)
*"The Moonlighter" (1953)
*"The Caine Mutiny" (1954)
*"Pushover" (1954)
*"Woman's World" (1954)
*"The Far Horizons" (1955)
*"The Rains of Ranchipur" (1955)
*"At Gunpoint" (1955)
*"There's Always Tomorrow" (1956)
*"Gun for a Coward" (1957)
*"Quantez" (1957)
*"Day of the Bad Man" (1958)
*"Good Day for a Hanging" (1959)
*"The Shaggy Dog" (1959)
*"Face of a Fugitive" (1959)
*"The Oregon Trail" (1959)
*"The Apartment" (1960)
*"The Absent-Minded Professor" (1961)
*"Bon Voyage!" (1962)
*"Son of Flubber" (1963)
*"Kisses for My President" (1964)
*"Follow Me, Boys!" (1966)
*"The Happiest Millionaire" (1967)
*"Charley and the Angel" (1973)
*"The Swarm" (1978)

hort subjects

*"Screen Snapshots: Art and Artists" (1940)
*"Popular Science" (1941)
*"Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 1" (1941)
*"Show Business at War" (1943)
*"The Last Will and Testament of Tom Smith" (1943) (narrator)
*"Screen Snapshots: Motion Picture Mothers, Inc." (1949)

References

External links

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* [http://legends.disney.go.com/legends/detail?key=Fred+MacMurray Fred MacMurray] at Disney Legends