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Fred MacMurray

Personal Profile

Fred MacMurray
  • Birth Name:
    Fredrick Martin MacMurray
  • Nickname:
    Bud
  • Date of Birth:
    August 30, 1908
  • Zodiac Sign:
    Virgo
  • Place of Birth:
    Kankakee, Illinois, USA
  • Place of Death:
    Santa Monica, California, USA
  • Date of Death:
    November 5, 1991
  • Height:
    6' 2"
  • Sex:
    Male
  • Nationality:
    American
  • Religion:
    Christianity

Family

Fred MacMurray
  • Spouse:
    June Haver, Lillian Lamont
  • Son:
    Robert
  • Daughter:
    Kathryn, Laurie, Susan

Career

Fred MacMurray

Awards

Fred MacMurray

1945 : Sour Apple Award For Least Cooperative Actor

 

Trivia

Fred MacMurray
  • He never took an acting lesson.
  • Was in consideration for the role of Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd. (1950) but William Holden, who received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance, was cast instead.
  • Made his debut on stage playing the violin alongside his father, but the experience left him with a terrible case of stage fright. Later he overcame it and learned the piano, guitar and saxophone, which he played in his high school band.
  • Quite the high school athlete. He won ten letters for athletics and a scholarship to Carroll College in Wisconsin to play football. He played the saxophone for extra money while there.
  • When offered the job as the dad on "My Three Sons" (1960), he was given a dream contract in which he only had to work 65 days a year on the series. The supporting cast, as a result, often had to shoot their scenes opposite a prop person off camera instead of Fred. The popular series ran 12 seasons.
  • Best remembered by the public for starring as father figures in Walt Disney movies.
  • He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party who joined Bob Hope and James Stewart in campaigning for Richard Nixon in 1968.
  • 1970s: He was most often seen doing commercials for a video teaching "Chisenbop," a Korean method of doing math on your fingers.
  • 1987: First person to be named a Disney Legend.
  • Steve Douglas, MacMurray's character on "My Three Sons" (1960), was ranked #7 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" [20 June 2004 issue].

Quotes

Fred MacMurray
  • "I was lucky enough to make four pictures with Barbara. In the first I turned her in, in the second I killed her, in the third I left her for another woman and in the fourth I pushed her over a waterfall. The one thing all these pictures had in common was that I fell in love with Barbara Stanwyck -- and I did, too."
  • "At the end of this shoot, he said, "It's been a pleasure working with you" and I said, "I wish I could say the same about you." I don't like to be that way, but he was terrible, very cruel."
  • "The two films I did with Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity (1944) and the The Apartment (1960), are the only two parts I did in my entire career that required any acting."
  • "Carole Lombard was a wonderful girl. Swore like a man. Other women try, but she really did."
  • "I once asked Barbara Stanwyck the secret of acting. She said, "Just be truthful - and if you can fake that you've got it made".
View all Quotes: Fred MacMurray

Biography

Fred MacMurray
Last Updated: Friday, July 31, 2009

fredFrederick Martin MacMurray was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and a highly successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, starting in 1930 and extending into the 1970s. MacMurray began his career at the age of 18, performing in dance bands andvaudeville shows as a singer, saxophonist, and comedian. In 1930, he debuted on Broadway in Three's A Crowd, and on the silver screen in GrandOld Girl (1935). It was his third film, however, The Gilded Lily (1935),with Claudette Colbert that brought him to the forefront of stardom and led to leadingroles in dozens of films. With his quick wit and excellent delivery, MacMurray found great success in comedies, suchas The Lady is Willing (1942), Take a Letter, Darling (1943), No Time forLove (1943), and The Egg and I (1947).

He was just as successful indramatic roles, including Billy Wilder's film noir classic Double Indemnity (1943), with Barbara Stanwyck, and The CaineMutiny(1954), with Humphrey Bogart. The 1960s saw him excel in comedic roles, with notableperformances in The Shaggy Dog (1959), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961),and Son of Flubber(1963). The popularity of his loveable character ontelevision's My Three Sons helped the show to a twelve year run, from1960 to 1972. Following complications from pneumonia, MacMurray died on November 5, 1991, in Santa Monica, California.

Filmography

Fred MacMurray

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