Overview
Mary Murphy (January 26, 1931 – May 4, 2011) was an American film and television actress of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Early years
Murphy was born in Washington, D.C., and was the second of three children. She spent part of her early childhood in Rocky River, Ohio, a westside Cleveland, Ohio suburb. Her father, James Victor Murphy, died in 1940. Shortly afterwards, she and her mother moved to Southern California. She attended University High School in West Los Angeles.
While working as a package wrapper at Saks Fifth Avenue, Beverly Hills, she was signed to app…
Film
She first gained attention in 1953, when she played a good-hearted girl who is intrigued by Marlon Brando in The Wild One. The following year, she appeared opposite Tony Curtis in Beachhead, and with Dale Robertson in Sitting Bull, and the year after that as Fredric March's daughter in the thriller The Desperate Hours, which also starred Humphrey Bogart. She co-starred with actor-director Ray Milland in his Western A Man Alone. That was one of her best roles; another was in the film she …
Television
Murphy co-starred with James Franciscus and James Philbrook in the 1961 CBS crime adventure-drama series The Investigators. Among her other television appearances, she was featured in the title role of defendant Eleanor Corbin in the 1962 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Glamorous Ghost." She also appeared in dozens of other television series including The Lloyd Bridges Show, The Tab Hunter Show, I Spy, The Outer Limits , The Fugitive, and Ironside. She wa…
Personal life
On June 3, 1956, Murphy married actor Dale Robertson in Yuma, Arizona. The marriage was annulled after six months. She had a daughter. She married Alan Specht in 1962 and divorced in 1967.
Death
On May 4, 2011, Murphy died of heart disease at her home in Beverly Hills, California, aged 80.
Filmography
• The Lemon Drop Kid (1951) - Girl (uncredited)
• Darling, How Could You! (1951) - Sylvia
• When Worlds Collide (1951) - Student (uncredited)
• Westward the Women (1951) - Pioneer Woman (uncredited)
Bibliography
• Parla, Paul; Mitchell, Charles P. (2000). "Mary Murphy: Wild One's Sweetheart". Screen Sirens Scream! Interviews with 20 Actresses from Science Fiction, Horror, Film Noir and Mystery Movies, 1930s to 1960s. Jefferson, N.C. and London: McFarland & Company. pp. 159–174. ISBN 0-7864-0701-8.