Every Disney Hero Has a Voice
The Absent Minded Professor
Fred McMurray ~ Professor Ned Brainard
August 30th, 1908 – November 5, 1991
Over the years, Fred McMurray told interviewers he
was “a personality that actor.” While Bill Wilder, who directed the affable
Fred in such films as “Double Indemnity” with Barbara Stanwyck and “The
Apartment” with Shirley McClain, summed up his personality well, when he called
him “everybody’s nice fellow.”
“Fred McMurray,” Wilder said, “gives people the feeling that he’s
kind two dogs, children, mothers and widows.”
A versatile actor, Fred could play every kind of role ranging
from screwball comedy to romance to film noir. Yet, he is probably best
remembered for the befuddled characters he made famous in such Disney films as “The
absent – minded professor” and “Son of Flubber,” in which he plays Professor
Ned Brainard of Medfield College. Seven new Fred say his bewilderment on,
actually reflected his innate shyness off camera.
Born August 30, 1908, in Kankakee, Illinois, and raised in
beaver Dam, Wisconsin, Fred was assigned of a concert violinist. After high
school, he worked as a band saxophonist and vocalist to pay his way through
Carroll College in Wisconsin.
In the late 1920s, Fred moved to Los Angeles, where he joined
the California: regions with vocal ensemble. He traveled with the group to
appear on Broadway in such shows as “Three’ s a Crowd” with Fred Allen, and
later was cast as Bob Hope’s understudy in “Roberta.” A Paramount talent scout
spotted the blue – I’d Fred and arrange for a screen test, which won him a
studio contract. In 1935, he became a movie star, virtually overnight, when he
played opposite Claudette Colbert in “The Gilded Lily.”
Walt Disney personally cast Fred in the Studios first live –action
comedy, “The Shaggy Dog,” released in 1959, which was one of the biggest and
most unexpected film milestones in Disney history. In all, Fred appeared in
seven Disney feature films including, “Bon Voyage” with Jane Wyman, “Follow Me,
Boys!” With the era Miles and Kurt Russell, and “The Happiest Millionaire” with
the Greer Garson, which was the last live –action movie supervised by Walt
before his untimely death in 1966. Fred’s last Disney film was “Charlie and the
Angel” with Harry Morgan released in 1973.
In all, Fred played leading roles in more than 80 movies during
his prestigious career and one a faithful television following, as well when he
played the widower father Steve Douglas in a durable series “My Three’s Sons,”
which ran from 1960 to 1972.
Fred MacMurray died in Los Angeles in November 1991.
Frederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an American actor who
appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series during a
career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s.
MacMurray is well known for his role in the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder, which he starred in with Barbara Stanwyck. Later in his career,
he became better known worldwide as the paternal Steve Douglas, the widowed patriarch on My
Three Sons, which ran on ABC from 1960–1965 and then on CBS from 1965–1972.
Early life
MacMurray was born in Kankakee, Illinois, to
Frederick MacMurray and Maleta Martin, both natives of Wisconsin. When
MacMurray was two years old the family moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and several years
later settled in Beaver Dam,
Wisconsin, where his mother had been born in 1880. He earned a full scholarship
to attend Carroll College (now Carroll
University), in Waukesha,
Wisconsin. While there, MacMurray participated in numerous local bands, playing
the saxophone. He didn't graduate
from the school.
Career
In 1930, MacMurray recorded a tune for
the Gus Arnheim Orchestra as a featured vocalist on All I Want Is Just One Girl on the Victor 78label. Before he signed on with Paramount Pictures in 1934, he appeared on Broadway in Three's
a Crowd (1930–31) and
alongside Sydney Greenstreet and Bob Hope in Roberta (1933–34).
MacMurray worked with directors Billy Wilder and Preston
Sturges and actors Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich and, in seven films, Claudette Colbert, beginning with The Gilded Lily (1935). He co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in Alice
Adams (1935), with Joan Crawford in Above
Suspicion (1943), and with Carole Lombard in four films, Hands Across the Table (1935), The Princess Comes Across (1936), Swing High, Swing Low (1937), and True Confession (1937).
Usually cast in light comedies as a decent, thoughtful character (The
Trail of the Lonesome Pine 1936)
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; for 1943, when his salary
reached $420,000, he was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, and the fourth
highest-paid American.
Despite being typecast as a "nice
guy," MacMurray often said his best roles were when he was cast against
type by 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 (1944). Sixteen years later, MacMurray
played Jeff Sheldrake, a two-timing corporate executive in Wilder's Oscar-winning comedy The Apartment, (1960) 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.
In 1958, he guest starred in the
premiere episode of NBC's Cimarron City western series, with George Montgomery and John
Smith.
MacMurray's career was revitalized in
1959, when he was cast as the father in the popular Disney Studios comedy, The Shaggy Dog. From 1960 to 1972, he starred in My Three Sons, one of the longest-running television
series in the United States. Concurrent with My
Three Sons,MacMurray stayed busy in films, starring as Professor Ned
Brainard in Disney's The Absent-Minded
Professor (1961) and in the
sequel, Son of Flubber (1963). Using his star clout,
MacMurray had a provision in his "Sons" contract that all his scenes
be shot first. This freed him to pursue his film work and golf hobby. It's also
interesting to note that two character names on "My Three Sons" were
obviously nods to his real life children, that of Rob (as in Rob Douglas) and
Katherine (Kate); he often referred to his TV son Robbie as 'Rob' and later TV
daughter-in-law Katie Douglas as 'Kate.'
MacMurray was one of the wealthiest and, at the same time, most
frugal actors in the business. Studio co-workers noticed that even as a
successful actor, MacMurray usually brought a brown bag lunch to work, often
with a hard-boiled 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. Friends and
business associates jokingly referred to him as "the thrifty
multimillionaire." Over the years, MacMurray had proven to be a very
skillful investor, particularly in California real estate. After the
cancellation of My Three Sons in 1972, MacMurray made only a few
more film appearances before retiring in 1978.
In the 1970s, MacMurray did commercials
for the Greyhound Lines bus company. Towards the end of the
decade, he also did a series of commercials for the Korean chisenbop math calculation program.
Personal
life
MacMurray was married twice. He married
Lillian Lamont, his first wife, on June 20, 1936, and the couple adopted two
children, Susan (b. 1940) and Robert (b. 1946). After Lamont died on June 22,
1953, he married actress June
Haver the following year; he and
Haver adopted two more children, twins Katherine and Laurie (b. 1966).
In 1941 MacMurray purchased land in the Russian River Valley in Northern California and established
MacMurray Ranch. He spent time there when not making films, engaging in, among
other things, the raising of prize-winning Aberdeen
Angus cattle. MacMurray wanted the property's agricultural heritage preserved,
and it was thus sold in 1996 to Gallo,
which planted vineyards on it for wines that bear the MacMurray Ranch label. Kate
MacMurray, daughter of Haver and MacMurray, now lives on the property (in a
cabin built by her father), and is "actively engaged in Sonoma's thriving
wine community, carrying on her family's legacy and the heritage of MacMurray
Ranch."
He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party. He joined Bob Hope and James
Stewart to campaign for Richard Nixon in 1968.
Death
MacMurray suffered from throat
cancer in the late 1970s and it
reappeared in 1987; he also suffered a severe stroke at Christmas 1988 which
left his right side paralyzed and his speech affected, although with therapy he
was able to make a 90% recovery.
After suffering from leukemia for more than a decade, MacMurray died
from pneumonia in November 1991, aged 83 in Santa Monica. He was entombed in Holy Cross Cemetery. Actor John Candy was entombed in the same mausoleum,
two crypts above Fred MacMurray. In 2005, his second wife June Haver, aged 79, was entombed with
him.
Awards
and influence
In 1939, artist C.C. Beck used MacMurray as the initial model
for the superhero character who became Fawcett
Comics' Captain Marvel.
MacMurray was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor –
Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for The Absent-Minded Professor (1961).
MacMurray was the first person honored as a Disney Legend, in 1987.
Filmography
Features
|
·
Girls Gone Wild (1929)(*extra)
·
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)
|
Short 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)
Television
·
My Three Sons as Steven "Steve" Douglas in 380 episodes(1960-1972)
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