Don Murray

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.

Twin Peaks

8.3

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

6.2

Peggy Sue Got Married

6.1

Murder, She Wrote

7.5

Endless Love

5.7

Bus Stop

6.1

Wings

6.9

Matlock

7.1

Advise & Consent

7.2

Made in Heaven

6.6

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

7.4

Tab Hunter Confidential

7.4

Radioactive Dreams

5.2

License to Kill

5.8

Baby, the Rain Must Fall

6.2

Knots Landing

6.7

Ghosts Can't Do It

2.7

From Hell to Texas

5.9

Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen

5.3

How the West Was Won

6.9

The Wonderful World of Disney

6.8

What's My Line?

6.8

A Hatful of Rain

6.8

Hotel

6.8

Shake Hands with the Devil

6.5

The Ed Sullivan Show

6.6

These Thousand Hills

6.3

One Foot in Hell

5.3

The Viking Queen

4.9

Escape from East Berlin

5.9

Police Story

6.9

Golden Globe Awards

6.8

Deadly Hero

5.7

The Stepford Children

5.0

ABC Afterschool Special

6.4

Quarterback Princess

6.9

Studio One

4.7

Soldier of Fortune, Inc.

6.0

Daughter of the Mind

6.4

Hollywood Uncensored

5.5

Justin Morgan Had a Horse

7.8

The Bachelor Party

6.6

The Mike Douglas Show

5.1

The Hoodlum Priest

6.0

I Am The Cheese

7.0

Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend

7.5

Sweet Love, Bitter

5.5

Marilyn Monroe: The Mortal Goddess

6.8

Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker

7.7

Hallmark Hall of Fame

8.7

The Philco Television Playhouse

6.0

Playhouse 90

7.5

Scorpion

4.3

Lux Video Theatre

6.0

The Girl on the Late, Late Show

5.5

The Plainsman

4.8

A Girl Named Sooner

4.2

Return of the Rebels

6.6

Twentieth Century Fox: The First 50 Years

7.2

The Intruders

5.7

Stillwatch

6.5

The Single Guy

6.3

The Outcasts

5.3

Kraft Television Theatre

7.3

Orson Welles' Great Mysteries

6.7

Producers' Showcase

6.3

The Borgia Stick

7.8

Happy Birthday, Wanda June

5.5

The Sex Symbol

3.0

Island Prey

5.5

One Man's Way

4.0

Promise

1.5

Mr. Headmistress

2.7

Mistress

3.5

Danger

8.0

Hollywood Legenden

2.0

Hearts Adrift

6.0

Crisis in Mid-Air

6.0

The Boy Who Drank Too Much

2.0

Childish Things

1.0

Alan Ladd: The True Quiet Man

7.0

Internet Love

10.0

Police Story: Confessions of a Lady Cop

1.0

Hedda Hopper's Hollywood

6.0

Marilyn

6.0

Something in Common

6.0

Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers

5.0

Amy Prentiss

5.0

Brand New Life

5.0

Besuch bei Don Murray

0.0

Winterset

0.0

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

0.0

Marilyn Monroe: I Want to Be Loved

0.0

Marilyn Monroe: Death of an Icon

0.0

Kid Rodelo

0.0

Shurtleff on Acting

0.0

A Man Is Ten Feet Tall

0.0

Rainbow

0.0

Marilyn, divine et fragile

0.0

Hollywood's Hidden Secrets

0.0

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

0.0

Riots & Revolutions: Confronting the Times

0.0

Thursday's Child

0.0

A Touch of Scandal

0.0

Fugitive Family

0.0

Cotter

0.0

If Things Were Different

0.0

T.J. Hooker - Blood Sport

0.0

Gold of Rio Bravo: Sheriff Kelly's Story

0.0

Sons and Daughters

0.0