March 24th was the birthday of well-known, well-liked, and immensely talented actor Murray Hamilton, who was born on the date in 1923.  Thanks to at least a couple of completely iconic roles, Hamilton may be one of the most recognizable of supporting actors to a certain movie-going public, even the younger ones out there.  Capable of doing service in both lighter roles and of course in serious drama, often as a sort of cynical, practical man of the modern world, Murray Hamilton always a treat to watch. 

Born in South Carolina, Murray was intrigued by acting while still in school, and after he was unable to enlist in the armed forces during World War II because of a hearing problem, he decided to pursue an acting career full on.  While still only in his teens, he moved to New York and went after his dream.  By November of 1945 he was onstage on Broadway, in a supporting role in the stage version of author Lillian Smith’s controversial bestseller about racial politics in the South, Strange Fruit.  In 1944 he had a small screen role in Reckless Age starring teen actress Gloria Jean, but returning to the stage in 1948 brought Murray an important role in the Henry Fonda-starring hit Mister Roberts.  Hamilton was officially on his way now, treading the path followed by many of his immensely talented late 1940s – 1950s acting contemporaries, and there were lots of them.  The flourishing crop skipped easily from stage roles, to screen appearances, to the accurately named Golden Age of Television, specifically golden for the proliferation of live drama productions starring the crop of NYC acting pros who made these small screen programs so memorable.

Murray Hamilton was a terrific example of a guy who easily slipped from one medium to the next.  Starting in 1951, he’d do, for instance, a couple episodes of a TV anthology like The Billy Rose Show, venture to the West Coast to make a movie or two (Bright Victory), spend a little time working on the groundbreaking sitcom Mister Peepers (starring Wally Cox, great pal of fellow NYC actor Marlon Brando), start rehearsals for a major co-starring role in Jose Ferrer’s Broadway production of  Horton Foote’s The Chase, and then do it all again the next year.  Murray Hamilton’s resume from those years is filled with the titles of the most respected TV programs of the time — Suspense, You Are There, Inner Sanctum, Studio One, Kraft Television Theatre (which was anything but cheesy!), Playhouse 90, and, keeping his comic chops in good shape, a few appearances on The Phil Silvers Show with Sergeant Bilko himself.

The movies began to call upon Mr. Hamilton more regularly in the late 1950s, and he started to pop up in more frequent and larger roles, including titles like The Girl He Left Behind in 1956, The Spirit of St. Louis in 1957, Jeanne Eagels in 1957, and Darby’s Rangers in 1958, and it was about this time that his career really began to take off in a major way, with his services being sought after in every venue.  In addition to continuing work in television, this time in shows produced in Hollywood, such as Have Gun – Will Travel, Gunsmoke, Perry Mason and The Real McCoys (keeping those comedy muscles going!), his movie credits became more prestigious.  1958 found him in three major titles — Too Much, Too Soon, No Time for Sergeants, and Houseboat – and the next year brought two important dramatic roles in Anatomy of a Murder and an almost rare heroic role in The FBI Story, both movies starring James Stewart.  In 1960 he went light again opposite Jane Fonda in The Tall Story.  And don’t forget that he was also on Broadway during this time, with big roles in hits Critic’s Choice, Mary, Mary, and he was nominated for a Tony for his role in 1965's Absence of a Cello.  Murray Hamilton was amazing.    

And then, like so many actors of his time, he went back and did some more TV, the best out there, like The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Naked City, several episodes of The Untouchables, several The Defenders (one of TV’s most respected early legal dramas), then more movies, such as 1961’s critically acclaimed pool room drama The Hustler with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, the Gleason comedy Papa’s Delicate Condition, The Cardinal, and of course more TV, like Dr. Kildare, Run for Your Life, The Fugitive, the short-lived but much adored The Trials of O’Brien starring Peter Falk, and more.  It’s almost hard to imagine a time when the guest star roles in TV were so plentiful and so rewarding; nowadays the huge ensemble casts of series pretty much have laid waste to the guest star.  TV viewers would be regularly treated to a wide variety of talented performers popping up in episodes of their favorite shows.  (That’s part of what has kept these older shows so popular today, and why it’s so exciting that a lot of them are now coming online — oh, boy, all those juicy guest star roles that we get to see again!)

The roles just kept coming, with Murray Hamilton essaying brilliant performances in each of them and never quite playing the same character twice, not exactly.  He appeared in director John Frankenheimer’s terrifying and brilliant Seconds starring Rock Hudson in one of his most accomplished acting roles, and then got a role a movie that became a part of popular culture forever, partly because of just one word — “Plastics”.  Hamilton's terrific performance as Mr. Robinson — husband to the sultry Mrs. Robinson, played by Anne Bancroft – in 1967’s iconic The Graduate, directed by Mike Nichols, was a result of Hamilton’s longstanding excellence and his ability to portray the slick confidence and bravado of the modern businessman with a nuanced touch.  Roles in the Lee Marvin military drama Sergeant Ryker followed, the murder/comedy No Way to Treat a Lady, The Boston Strangler with Tony Curtis, the Kirk Douglas Mafia drama The Brotherhood, the broad comedy If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium as a harried tourist, and then more TV, in popular shows like The F.B.I., The Bold Ones, N.Y.P.D., Night Gallery, Cannon, Longstreet, Mission: Impossible, Love, American Style, Barnaby Jones, Hawkins (opposite James Stewart), Medical Center, The Streets of San Francisco, Police Story, and back to movies with the Robert Redford/Barbara Streisand romance The Way We Were. 

In 1975, as if appearing in the movie that defined an entire generation’s angst and longing hadn’t been enough, Murray Hamilton stepped into the role of fictional sleepy beach resort town Amity’s brisk and politically-expedient Major Larry Vaughn in fledgling director Steven Spielberg’s production of Jaws, and once and for all claimed his niche in pop culture.  As the mayor you love to hate, Hamilton was perfect, and he reprised his role in the 1978 sequel to the mega-blockbuster.  (Producer David Brown so wanted him to return that he re-worked the Jaws 2 schedule so that Hamilton could finish his part early and return to his wife, Terri, who was very ill with cancer.  Terri DeMarco had been one of the singing DeMarco Sisters who were a very popular musical act during the 1950s).  Hamilton also had a lot of other great movie roles around this time — like The Drowning Pool with Paul Newman, the inspirational horse racing story Casey’s Shadow – but then he’d be back on the little screen, appearing in your favorite TV series like McMillan and Wife, McCloud, Alice, Kojak, and several pilots and TV movies.  And he’d pop up in big screen movies — The Amityville Horror as a priest, Spielberg’s massive comedy 1941,  Brubaker with Redford — and then slide back into TV with B.J. and the Bear, or Matt Houston, or Mama’s Family, and Murder, She Wrote.

Murray Hamilton was a working actor — a hard-working actor — for whom no role was too small, each part was an opportunity to ply his trade and hone his craft, and have a great time doing it.  One of his very last roles was a humdinger of a comedy turn, playing actress Rue McClanahan’s father on an episode on The Golden Girls in 1986.  At the far too young age of sixty-three, Murray Hamilton died of a heart attack on September 1, 1986, and do we ever miss him.  As I’ve said here so many times before, wonderful actors and personalities like Murray Hamilton are always with us in their vast array of memorable performances, but boy, they sure leave a big void when they go.

Murray Hamilton, March 24, 1923 – September 1, 1986.