American actor and soldier who was the most decorated soldier of WW II with 23 awards, including the Congressional Medal of Honor. As a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Murphy was credited with killing some 240 enemy soldiers in Italy and France. Murphy became a symbol of America’s darling young WW II soldier-hero. His handsome face served as an image of the American GI. After his publicity in Life magazine, Murphy turned his war heroics into a film career in B-movie Westerns in Hollywood. He tried his acting ability in television with “Whispering Smith” but the western detective show bombed quickly in 1960. Twenty years after his WW II experiences, Murphy suffered from combat nightmares and slept with a loaded .45 by his bed. Murphy found life too mundane after his adventures in war.
Murphy grew up an uneducated, dirt-poor Texas sharecropper’s kid. His father Emmett Berry Murphy was an overweight Irish drinker. Audie was the seventh of twelve Murphy kids. He enlisted in WW II as an infantryman in 1942. He would soon become a legend in the 3rd Infantry Division. He was wounded three times and fought in nine major campaigns across the European Theater. The 5′ 5 1/2″ (1.65 m) and 112 lb (51 kg) Murphy saw three years of active service as a combat soldier. He was extremely resourceful, brave and lucky during the war. He was photographed for the cover of Life Magazine on their 16 July 1945 issue as the Most Decorated Soldier.
His fame made him a national hero and star of many WW II parades and banquets. He was awarded five decorations from France and Belgium. On 21 September 1945, Murphy was released from the U.S. Army. Actor James Cagney, always looking for new Hollywood talent. invited the youth to Hollywood. Cagney was shocked when he saw the scrawny 21-year-old war hero. With a small stature and boyish appearance, Murphy walked like a rube and acted like a farmhand. He was so unsophisticated that Cagney vowed to work with him to turn him from a hayseed to a Hollywood actor, signing him to $150-a-week salary and giving him acting lessons. Murphy roomed at Cagney’s house where he studied dancing, judo and voice projection. Judo was to give Murphy better physical carriage. Murphy landed his first film debut in “Beyond Glory” with Alan Ladd and Donna Reed in 1946. When Cagney gave up on helping him, he moved to a gym located on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles in August 1947. He lived on $113-a-month from his army pension and slept on an army cot at the gym. He borrowed five dollars to attend a Purple Heart dinner in which he was the guest of honor. In 1948, he worked on his autobiography, “To Hell and Back” which was published in February 1949; on 27 March 1949 it made the New York Times Book Review. The book revived interest in Murphy at the film studios. His fame as a warrior was his entry into the studios.
He played the lead role in the film, “Bad Boy” in 1949. Film critics were impressed with his youthful appeal. Universal Studios signed Murphy to a seven-year contract of $2,500-per-week for 40 weeks a year. He played the lead in John Huston’s “Red Badge of Courage” which became a film flop for MGM in 1951. Audie Murphy received good reviews from critics but the studio hated the movie. In 1953, theater exhibitors predicted that Murphy would be the top male film star of the future. In 1954, Universal filmed his autobiography, “To Hell and Back.” Murphy was reticent about the glorification of his life in WW II but he received excellent reviews that called him “magnetic” on the screen. The film made his a modern folk hero of the 1950s. He reached his film career peak in 1956-1957. Murphy played in B-movie westerns from 1960 to 1965. By the late 1960s, there were no more movie roles for the former soldier. By the end of his career he had made 44 films.
Murphy was a compulsive skirt-chaser. In his early years in Hollywood, starlets were put off by uncouth farmhand persona. In 1949, he married Dixie Wanda Hendrix, a starlet with dark hair and green-eyes. The marriage ended within a couple of months. In 1951, he met Braniff flight attendant, Pamela Archer while she was on vacation in Hollywood. They married on 23 April 1951 in Dallas at the Cox Chapel of the Highland Park Methodist Church. She moved to Hollywood and they lived in a four-room bungalow. In 1952 the couple had their first child, Terry Michael. Their second son, James Shannon, was born in 1954 and they hoped his birth would alleviate their marital problems. Home life in the Murphy household was intense with Murphy’s frequent mood swings and stony silence. He continued to chase women such as Natalie Wood. Pamela retreated into her religious faith. They purchased a $75,000 house in North Hollywood and two ranches in Tucson, Arizona and Perris, California in 1954.
Murphy was a serious, heavy gambler who bet on poker, gin, and craps to pass the time on the movie set. He lost big money at the racetrack while buying, selling, breeding, racing, and betting on horses. His finances were in terrible shape and he never kept track of his money. He developed a reputation for being a compulsive gambler who had a lots of scrapes and run-ins with the law, car accidents and brawls. In 1957, he suffered from nosebleeds and a delicate stomach. He became an insomniac from 1959-1966. He was hypersensitive to sound and took the prescription drug Placidyl to help him sleep. Realizing his addiction to the drug, he locked himself in a hotel to quit his habit “cold turkey” in 1966.
Murphy died of massive body injuries on 28 May 1971 in an accidental plane crash 12 miles north of Roanoke, Virginia. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on 7 June 1971, his casket drawn by six black horses and given full military honors. That evening, his funeral was not mentioned on the CBS or NBC news.
Link to Wikipedia biography