Fred MacMurray

Posted by Aldo Pusey on Sunday, August 18, 2024

Fred MacMurray, 83, the popular and enduring star of more than 50 films and the long-running TV series “My Three Sons,” died Nov. 5 in Santa Monica, Calif., of pneumonia.

The versatile actor, who parlayed his low-pressure portrayal of the average – if somewhat bewildered – nice guy into light comedy, also appeared in Westerns, dramas and musicals.

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He played memorable heavies in “Double Indemnity,” “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Apartment,” but also enjoyed success in a string of whimsical Disney comedies like “The Shaggy Dog,” “The Absent-Minded Professor” and “Son of Flubber” in the early ’60s.

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MacMurray was born Aug. 30,1908, in Kankakee, 111., where his mother and concert violinist father stopped over during a tour. His parents separated when he was 5, and he spent most of his youth in Beaver Dam, Wis., where he graduated from high school with 10 letters in athletics.

A saxophonist and singer, during high school and for a year at Carroll College in Waukesha he led his own three-piece band, Mac’s Melody Boys. For the next several years he played in Hollywood nightclub orchestras while working as a film extra between gigs.

After joining a vaudeville band called the California Collegians, he made his Broadway debut in 1930 as a singer-saxophonist-comedian in “Three’s a Crowd” and three years later performed with the group in the Broadway musical “Roberta.”

A screen test led to a film contract at Paramount, where he was immediately put to work in lead roles in a large variety of pics. He eventually found his mark as an affable lead in sophisticated comedies and farces.

His film debut was in “Friends of Mr. Sweeney” in 1934. He was loaned out to RKO in 1935 for “Grand Old Girl,” but it was his next pictures, “The Gilded Lily,” a comedy in which he starred opposite Claudette Colbert, that made him a star.

He was in five more films in 1935: “Car 99,” “Men Without Names,” “Alice Adams” (opposite Katharine Hepburn), “Hands Across the Table” and “The Bride Comes Home.”

MacMurray continued to make four or five films a year for the rest of the decade. Titles include “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,” “13 Hours by Air,” “The Texas Rangers,” “Champagne Waltz,” “Maid of Salem” (which reunited him with Colbert), “Swing High – Swing Low,” “True Confession,” “Cocoanut Grove,” “Men With Wings,” “Cafe Society,” “Invitation to Happiness” and “Honeymoon in Bali.”

His busy schedule continued in the ’40s with such films as “Remember the Night,” “Like Old New York,” “Virginia,” “Dive Bomber,” “The Lady Is Willing,” “Take a Letter Darling,” “Star Spangled Rhythm,” “Above Suspicion,” “No Time for Love” and “Standing Room Only.”

But it was “Double Indemnity” in 1944 that won MacMurray his greatest acclaim. He played a heel opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the classic about an insurance salesman coerced into murder. Pic won Academy Award nominations for best picture, best script (by director Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler) and best director.

He starred in 15 more films in the ’40s, including “Murder He Says,” “Captain Eddie” (as Eddie Rickenbacker), “Pardon My Past,” “Suddenly, It’s Spring,” “The Egg and I,” “On Our Merry Way,” “The Miracle of the Bells” (which co-starred Frank Sinatra), “Don’t Trust Your Husband,” “Family Honeymoon” and “Father Was a Fullback.”

In the early 1950s MacMurray made several Westerns, including “Callaway Went Thataway,” “Day of the Badman,” “Good Day for a Hanging” and “The Oregon Trail.” His career slowing down, he made only one or two films a year for most of the decade, notably “The Caine Mutiny,” in which he played Lt. Keefer, “The Far Horizons,” “The Rains of Ranchipur” and “There’s Always Tomorrow.”

But the actor resurged in 1959 when Walt Disney invited him to do the family comedy “The Shaggy Dog.” He went against expectations the following year, playing a heel again in a supporting role in “The Apartment” – directed by his “Double Indemnity” boss, Billy Wilder.

MacMurray followed with a string of Disney pix: “The Absent- Minded Professor,” “Son of Flubber,” “Follow Me, Boys!” (with child actor Kurt Russell), the musical “The Happiest Millionaire” and, in 1973, “Charley and the Angel” (again with Russell).

With his 1960s resurgence came a new generation of TV viewers who little knew of MacMurray’s leading-man past. On “My Three Sons,” MacMurray played pipe-smoking Steve Douglas, an aerodynamics engineer and wise but harried widower trying to raise three sons in surburbia.

The show went on the air in 1960 on ABC and five years later switched to CBS, where it remained, despite many cast and character changes, a hit through 1972. The show was second only to “Ozzie & Harriet” as network TV’s longest-running sitcom. It continues to run in syndication.

MacMurray made only one more film after “Charley and the Angel,” the 1978 all-star disaster film “The Swarm” – directed by Irwin Allen, who died Nov. 2.

In 1943, MacMurray earned nearly $420,000, making him the highest-paid actor and fourth-highest-paid American that year. Wise investments over the years eventually made him one of Los Angeles’ wealthiest citizens.

During his Broadway days, MacMurray met actress-model Lillian LaMonte, whom he married in 1936. She died after 17 years of marriage. In 1954 he married actress June Haver.

Survived by Haver; three daughters, Laurie Sipma, Kate MacMurray and Susan Pool; a son, Robert; seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

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