Don Murray obit

Don Murray, Oscar-Nominated Star of ‘Bus Stop,’ Dies at 94

His specialty was playing conflicted characters, which he did in such dramas as 'A Hatful of Rain,' 'The Hoodlum Priest' and 'Advise & Consent.' 

He was not on the list.

Don Murray, the venturesome actor who earned an Oscar nomination for playing a rodeo cowboy smitten by Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop, then spurned Hollywood’s attempts to mold him, has died. He was 94.

Murray’s son Christopher announced his dad’s death to The New York Times without providing details.

The actor was also known for the interesting parts he went after in such serious films as A Hatful of Rain (1957), The Hoodlum Priest (1961) and Advise & Consent (1962).

Fresh off a starring role in a 1955 Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, Murray was sought by director Joshua Logan to portray Bo Decker, the naive Montana man who falls for the chanteuse Chérie (Monroe), in Bus Stop (1956). It was his first movie, and he was 26 at the time. 

“No one could have been less equipped for the job,” he once said. “I was a New Yorker who’d never ridden a real horse and had tackled football players but never a 500-pound steer.”

(Also in the film and making her movie debut was Hope Lange, his soon-to-be wife. Murray once said that Monroe wanted Lange’s hair dyed light brown, not wanting to share the screen with another blonde.)

Fox execs insisted Murray sign a long-term contract before giving him the role, but he resisted and got the studio to agree to a clause giving him time off if he wanted to return to Broadway.

The restless Murray ended up getting out of his contract early to do The Hoodlum Priest — which he wrote, produced and starred in. In the film, he played a Jesuit priest who dedicated his life to helping delinquents in St. Louis. He got Haskell Wexler to shoot it and Irvin Kershner to direct it.

In Fred Zinnemann’s A Hatful of Rain, based on the emotional Broadway play by Michael V. Gazzo, Murray portrayed Johnny Pope, a Korean War veteran who returns home to his pregnant wife (Eva Marie Saint) with a secret addiction to morphine. (Ben Gazzara had the role on the stage.)

Murray later took on an even more delicate role — that of an in-the-closet Utah lawmaker who is being blackmailed by a fellow senator — in Otto Preminger’s taut political drama Advise & Consent.

In From Hell to Texas (1958), directed by Henry Hathaway, Murray played a Bible-reading cowboy who goes on the run after he accidentally kills the son of a powerful rancher. Religion was a key element in many of his films.

It was Murray’s choice to steer clear of the path to typical A-list stardom. “I came to Hollywood, and they said I needed to establish a persona that the audience could relate to and would be a reliable thing for them to get behind,” he once said. “I did the exact opposite.”

Television audiences will best remember Murray as Sid Fairgate, the husband of Michele Lee’s character, on the CBS primetime soap Knots Landing. His character drove off the side of a cliff in the (literal) cliffhanger that ended season two in March 1981.

The son of a former Ziegfeld girl and a Broadway dance director, Murray was born on July 31, 1929, and raised on the outskirts of New York City, where he graduated from East Rockaway High School.

When he was 19, he worked as an usher at CBS for $17 a week and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He then made it into the cast of the original 1951 Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ Tony Award-winning The Rose Tattoo.

Universal offered him a contract for $150 a week, but he turned it down. “They could put you in whatever picture they wanted,” he said, and he wanted none of that, choosing to work in live TV.

Murray was a conscientious objector during the Korean War, but he spent nearly three years working in German and Italian refugee camps in the Brethren Volunteer Service, a forerunner to the Peace Corps. He came back to the U.S. in 1955.

Later, Murray went toe-to-toe with James Cagney in Shake Hands With the Devil (1959) and played the positive-thinking Norman Vincent Peale in One Man’s Way (1964).

He also stood out as an alcoholic college professor in Sweet Love, Bitter (1967) opposite Dick Gregory; as a criminal-turned-prison-chaplain in Confessions of Tom Harris (1969); as a vacuum cleaner salesman in Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971); and as the villainous Governor Breck in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972).

Murray starred as a Civil War-era bounty hunter on the 1968-69 ABC series The Outcasts and co-wrote and directed The Cross and the Switchblade (1970), a true-life drama about a crusading New York minister (Pat Boone) that also featured Erik Estrada in his screen debut.

After years away from acting, he played insurance man Bushnell Mullins on the Twin Peaks reboot in 2017 and starred in the 2021 movie Promise.

Murray was married to Lange from 1956 until their divorce in 1961.

He lived on a ranch in Goleta, California.

 

Murray wed former model Bettie Johnson in 1962, and he had five children: Christopher (an actor); Sean (a composer); Patricia; Mick; and Colleen, who married artist and musician Chris Otcasek, the son of Ric Ocasek of The Cars.

 

Feature films

 

Year     Title            Role

1956    Bus Stop            Beauregard "Bo" Decker

1957    The Bachelor Party            Charlie Samson

A Hatful of Rain     Johnny Pope

1958    From Hell to Texas            Tod Lohman

1959    These Thousand Hills            Albert Gallatin "Lat" Evans

Shake Hands with the Devil            Kerry O'Shea

1960    One Foot in Hell            Dan Keats

1961    The Hoodlum Priest            Father Charles Dismas Clark

1962    Advise & Consent            Senator Brigham Anderson

Escape from East Berlin            Kurt Schröder

1964    One Man's Way            Norman Vincent Peale

1965    Baby the Rain Must Fall       "Slim"

1966    Kid Rodelo "Kid" Rodelo

The Plainsman            Bill "Wild Bill" Hickok

1967    Sweet Love, Bitter            David Hillary

The Viking Queen            Justinian

1969    Childish Things  Tom Harris

1971    Happy Birthday, Wanda June            Herb Shuttle

1972    Call Me by My Rightful Name            Doug

Justin Morgan Had a Horse            Justin Morgan

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes            Governor Breck

1973    Cotter            Cotter

1975    Deadly Hero    Lacy

1981    Endless Love    Hugh Butterfield

1983    I Am the Cheese            David Farmer

1985            Radioactive Dreams            Dash Hammer

1986    Peggy Sue Got Married            Jack Kelcher

Scorpion            Gifford Leese

1987    Made in Heaven            Ben Chandler

1990    Ghosts Can't Do It            Winston

2000    Internet Love            Unknown

2001    Island Prey     Parker Gaits

Elvis Is Alive            Unknown

2021            Promise            Zacharias

 

Television films

Year     Title            Role

1959            Winterset         Mio

1967    The Borgia Stick            Tom Harrison

1969            Daughter of the Mind            Dr. Alex Lauder

1970    The Intruders            Sam Garrison

1973    The Girl on the Late, Late Show   William Martin

1974    The Sex Symbol            Senator Grant O'Neal

1975    A Girl Named Sooner            Sheriff Phil Rotteman

1978            Rainbow         Frank Gumm

1979    Crisis in Mid-Air            Adam Travis

1980    If Things Were Different            Robert Langford

The Boy Who Drank Too Much   Ken Saunders

Police Story: Confessions of a Lady Cop            Sergeant Jack Leland

Fugitive Family            Peter Ritchie

1981    Return of the Rebels            Sonny Morgan

1983            Thursday's Child            Parker Alden

Branagan and Mapes  Dan Branagan

Quarterback Princess            Ralph Maida

1984    License to Kill   Tom Fiske

A Touch of Scandal            Benjamin Gilvey

1986            Something in Common            Theo Fontana

1987            Stillwatch         Sam Kingsley

The Stepford Children            Steven Harding

Mistress            Wyn

1996    Hearts Adrift   Lloyd Raines

1998    Mr. Headmistress            Reporter

 

Television

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1950    Studio One            Biondello            Episode: "The Taming of the Shrew"

Kraft Television Theatre George            Episode: "January Thaw"

1952    Booth            Episode: "Mr. Lazarus"

Lux Video Theatre Jimmy            Episode: "Welcome Home, Lefty"

1955            Producers' Showcase            Henry Antrobus            Episode: "The Skin of Our Teeth"

The Philco Television Playhouse            Alex Nordman            Episode: "A Man Is Ten Feet Tall"

The Jane Wyman Show            Ken            Episode: "One Last September"

1956    The United States Steel Hour            Don            Episode: "Moment of Courage"

1957            Playhouse 90    Bob Munson            Episode: "For I Have Loved Strangers"

1959    The DuPont Show of the Month            Billy Budd            Episode: "Billy Budd"

1960            Playhouse 90    Randy Bragg            Episode: "Alas, Babylon"

1968–1969            The Outcasts            Earl Corey   26 episodes

1972            Disneyland       Justin Morgan            2 episodes

1973    Police Story    Jack Bonner            Episode: "The Big Walk"

Orson Welles Great Mysteries            Jack Stanley            Episode: "The Power of Fear"

Love Story            Neil Kaplan            Episode: "The Roller Coaster Stops Here"

1974    Amy Prentiss            Connor            Episode: "The Desperate World of Jane Doe"

1975    Police Story            Sergeant Stiles            Episode: "Headhunter"

1977    How the West Was Won            Anderson        3 episodes

1979–1981            Knots Landing            Sid Fairgate            34 episodes

1986    T.J. Hooker            Senator Stuart Grayle            Episode: "Blood Sport"

1987            Matlock          Albert Gordon            Episode: "The Billionaire"

Hotel    Sam Burton            Episode: "Controlling Interests"

1989    ABC Afterschool Special Jack Karpinsky            Episode: "My Dad Can't Be Crazy... Can He?"

1989–1990            Brand New Life            Roger Gibbons            6 episodes

1991    Sons and Daughters            Bing Hammersmith            6 episodes

1993    ABC Afterschool Special Frank Morrow            Episode: "Montan Crossroads"

Murder, She Wrote  Wally Hampton            Episode: "Bloodlines"

1995    Wings            Dad            Episode: "Burnin' Down the House: Part 2"

1996    The Single Guy            Chip Bremley            Episode: "Distance"

1998    The Wonderful World of Disney            Reporter            Episode: "Mr. Headmistress"

1999    Soldier of Fortune, Inc.            John James / Colonel Quentin Shepherd            Episode: "White Dragon"

2017    Twin Peaks            Bushnell Mullins            8 episodes