Oscar Profile #373: Fred MacMurray

Born Fredrick Martin MacMurray on August 30, 1908 in Kankakee, Illinois, Young Fred was raised in Wisconsin from the age of five. A saxophone player in college, he later became a singer and as such had featured roles in the 1930’s Three’s a Crowd and 1933’s Roberta on Broadway. He became a life-long friend with that show’s male lead, Bob Hope, and married Lillian Lamont, a chorus girl with the show.

MacMurray made his screen debut as an extra in 1929’s Girls Gone Wild, and by 1935 was already a star in such films as Grand Old Girl opposite May Robson, The Gilded Lily opposite Claudette Colbert, Alice Adams opposite Katharine Hepburn and Hands Across the Table opposite Carole Lombard. Later in the decade he starred in such well-remembered films as The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, the first outdoor color film opposite Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda, Maid of Salem opposite Colbert, True Confession opposite Lombard and Sing You Sinners in which his older brother was Bing Crosby and his younger brother was Donald O’Connor.

The early 1940s saw MacMurray star opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the Christmas perennial, Remember the Night; Rosalind Russell in Take a Letter, Darling and Joan Crawford in Above Suspicion. Comfortably established as one of the screen’s premier nice guys, he took a chance at playing a heel opposite Stanwyck in Billy Wilder’s 1944 classic, Double Indemnity, which became both his personal favorite and the film in which critics liked him best.

MacMurray’s late 1940s successes included Captain Eddie; Murder, He Says; The Egg and I opposite Colbert and Marjorie Main as Ma Kettle and Father Was a Fullback opposite Maureen O’Hara. The early 1950s saw a decline in his work with such films as Never a Dull Moment opposite Irene Dunne and Callaway Went Thataway opposite Dorothy McGuire, as well as the death of his wife, Lillian Lamont, from cancer. 1954, however, brought a career re-emergence with The Caine Mutiny, Pushover and A Woman’s World, as well as a second marriage to former Fox star, June Haver, who had quit show business to become a nun the year before. She left after just a few months, and their storybook romance ushered in one of Hollywood’s longest and most successful marriages.

MacMurray had become wealthy from a combination of high earnings, wise real estate investments and legendary frugality. MacMurray and Haver adopted twin baby girls in 1956 and raised them, along with two older children MacMurray had Lamont had adopted, on a vineyard in Sonoma, now part of the Gallo wineries, run by one of the twins.

Now alternating between film and TV work, MacMurray began a long relationship on film with Walt Disney beginning with 1959’s The Shaggy Dog, followed by 1961’s The Absent-Minded Professor, 1967’s The Happiest Millionaire and more, with occasional time out for such non-Disney films as The Apartment and Kisses for My President. He also starred in the legendary TV series, My Three Sons, in which his scenes were always filmed first, leaving his fellow actors to talk to an empty chair as he worked only 65 days a year on the show that lasted from 1960-1972.

A life-long smoker, MacMurray suffered from emphysema in his later years, dying of pneumonia and other complications on November 5, 1981 at 83. June Haver did on July 4, 2005 at 79.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), directed by Billy Wilder

Four years after their romantic pairing in Remember the Night, Barbara Stanwyck and MacMurray were reunited as a scheming cold-blooded murderess and the insurance salesman she talks into helping her kill her husband for his insurance money. The film was nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture, Actress and Director, but there was no nomination for either MacMurray or Robinson as the insurance investigator who uncovers the scheme. Barry Fitzgerald’s double Oscar nod for lead and supporting actor for the same performance in Going My Way is generally blamed for MacMurray losing out.

THE CAINE MUTINY (1954), directed by Edward Dmytryk

Generally regarded by critics as Murray’s second greatest screen performance, his portrayal of the conniving Naval Lieutenant, a writer, who continually tries to convince second-in-command Van Johnson that the ship’s captain, Humphrey Bogart, is insane, leading to the titled mutiny. Oscar rules at the time would have prevented MacMurray from receiving a supporting actor nomination for a film in which he had a starring role, but revisionist critics insist that Tom Tully, nominated for his glorified cameo at the beginning and end of the film, got what should have been MacMurray’s nomination. True, perhaps, but rules are rules.

THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW (1956), directed by Douglas Sirk

Made between Sirk’s two famous Jane Wyman-Rock Hudson romances, Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows, but not released in the U.S. until after both had become hits, it was finally released earlier in the year in which Sirk’s Written on the Wind would bring Dorothy Malone an Oscar. Not as fashionable as any of those films, but just as compelling, this remake of a 1933 weepie put MacMurray in the middle of a rekindled romance with Barbara Stanwyck and his marriage to Joan Bennet. It remains one of Sirk’s most fascinating films for those who take the time to see it.

THE APARTMENT (1960), directed by Billy Wilder

MacMurray stepped in after the death of Paul Douglas to take over Douglas’ intended role as the philandering head of personnel in Wilder’s classic black comedy. One of the best-loved films of all time, the beguiling performances of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine are impeccable, but is MacMurray’s portrayal of the film’s principal heel. Again, it was star billing that keep him from receiving what should have been an easy supporting actor nomination, with character actor getting what many would argue should have been MacMurray’s nomination for his portrayal of Lemmon’s folksy doctor neighbor.

THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE (1967), directed by Norman Tokar

A hit comedy on Broadway with Walter Pidgeon as Anthony Drexel Biddle became Walt Disney’s last personally supervised film with music and lyrics supplied by the Sherman Brothers, who provided a score as jubilant as their Mary Poppins. The role fit MacMurray like a glove. Prominently featured were Greer Garson, Gladys Cooper, Geraldine Page, Tommy Steele, John Davison, Lesley Ann Warren, Paul Petersen, Eddie Hodges, Joyce Bulifant and Hermione Baddley. The film’s only minus was the cutting of the Christmas duet sung by Garson and MacMurray from the film’s general release. What were they thinking?