Ken Murray
Also Known As: Kenneth Abner Doncourt
Biography: Ken Murray (born Kenneth Abner Doncourt, July 14, 1903 – October 12, 1988) was an American comedian, actor, radio and television personality and author. After finding success on the vaudeville stage, Murray moved to Hollywood and made his film debut in the 1929 romantic drama Half Marriage, followed by a role in Leathernecking in 1930. Murray was the host of a weekly radio variety show (The Ken Murray Show) on NBC 1932-33 and on CBS 1936–37. He later was the original host (1945-57) of Queen for a Day, on the Mutual Broadcasting System radio show, which was simulcast on KTSL (now KCBS-TV), Channel 2 in Los Angeles. During World War II, Murray was one of the many celebrities to volunteer at the Hollywood Canteen. In 1947, he produced Bill and Coo, a feature film using trained birds and other animals as actors. Bill and Coo won a special Academy Award for "novel and entertaining use of the medium of motion picture" and "artistry and patience" . He was also the host of The Ken Murray Show, a weekly music and comedy show on CBS Television that ran from 1950 to 1953. The show was the first to win a Freedom Foundation Award. Murray also guest starred on several television series, including The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford and The Bing Crosby Show. Murray produced and co-starred as "Smiling Billy Murray" in a 1953 film, The Marshal's Daughter, a western that featured his protege Laurie Anders in the title role, her sole film performance. In 1962, Murray portrayed the top hat wearing, cigar chewing, drunken Doc Willoughby in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance starring John Wayne and James Stewart, arguably his most memorable screen role. Paired off for most of the picture with Edmond O'Brien as an alcoholic newspaper editor, he drunkenly rolls over the gunshot corpse of villain Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) with his boot, looks around off-handedly, and says "Dead" to the surrounding crowd of euphoric Mexicans. In 1964, Murray played Whipsaw, the operator of a stagecoach depot in the episode "Little Cayuse" of the television series Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. He and his partner take in a Cayuse orphan (Larry Domasin), who demonstrates his loyalty to the men during an Indian attack. In 1965, Murray played a THRUSH financier and owner of a caribbean casino in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. In 1966, Murray was cast as Melody Murphy in the Walt Disney film Follow Me, Boys! starring Fred MacMurray, Vera Miles and Kurt Russell.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: New York City, New York, USA
Adult: No
Birthday: July 14, 1903
Age: 121 years old
Gender: Male
Deathday: October 12, 1988
Popularity:
Known For:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Overview: Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1962-04-13
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Red Light
Overview: Nick Cherney, in prison for embezzling from Torno Freight Co., sees a chance to get back at Johnny Torno through his young priest brother Jess. He pays fellow prisoner Rocky, who gets out a week before Nick, to murder Jess... who, dying, tells revenge-minded Johnny that he'd written a clue "in the Bible." Frustrated, Johnny obsessively searches for the missing Gideon Bible from Jess's hotel room.
Genres: Thriller Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-09-30
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Follow Me, Boys!
Overview: Lem Siddons is part of a traveling band who has a dream of becoming a lawyer. Deciding to settle down, he finds a job as a stockboy in the general store of a small town. Trying to fit in, he volunteers to become scoutmaster of the newly formed Troop 1. Becoming more and more involved with the scout troop, he finds his plans to become a lawyer being put on the back burner, until he realizes that his life has been fulfilled helping the youth of the small town.
Genres: Drama Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1966-12-01
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The Power
Overview: One by one members of a special project team are being killed by telekinesis - the ability to move things with the power of the mind alone. The race is on to determine which of the remaining team members is the murderer and to stop them.
Genres: Thriller Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1968-02-21
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Bill and Coo
Overview: The feathered residents of Chirpendale are terrorized by an evil black crow by the name of "The Black Menace". But to the citizen's rescue comes a brave young taxi puller named Bill! In other words, every single role in this film is played by birds. Actual birds.
Genres: Family Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1948-03-28
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Screen Snapshots Series 21 No. 1
Overview: This edition of Screen Snapshots has more of a vaudeville flavor as opposed to Ralph Staub's usual candid-camera at home with the stars offerings. Ken Murray, assisted by the Brewer Twins, is the MC, while the Andrews Sisters sing "In Apple Blossom Time" and the pre-"Uncle Miltie" Milton Berle plays his clarinet. The rest of the players, with contract-player faces belonging to 20th-Century Fox, RKO Radio, Universal and Columbia, just pass through. Production Number 3851.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-08-15
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Crooner
Overview: Fame goes to a priggish singer's head and almost costs him his girlfriend.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-08-20
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Half Marriage
Overview: A young couple marries in secret. Judy's afraid her parents won't approve of Dick and she'll lose her generous allowance. Her parents bring her home from the city where she's been studying art and encourage the attentions of Tom, a persistent suitor. Judy and her jealous husband have an argument that leads her back to the city, a drunken, amorous Tom and a tragedy.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1929-10-12
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Ladies of the Jury
Overview: Society matron Mrs. Livingston Baldwin Crane is selected as a juror in the trial of former chorus girl Yvette Gordon, who's accused of murdering her rich older husband. In court and during deliberations, Mrs. Crane proves to be a disruptive and unorthodox juror.
Genres: Comedy Crime Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-02-02
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Hollywood Without Make-Up
Overview: A collection of behind the scenes and home movies from the golden age of Hollywood.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-07-01
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Disgraced!
Overview: A lovely fashion model's dreams of marital bliss are shattered when her fiance jilts her. To make matters worse, her father kills the cad and she gets accused of the crime.
Genres: Mystery Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-07-07
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A Night at Earl Carroll's
Overview: Newly-elected reform Mayor Jones celebrates his victory over the crooked political machine with a party at Earl Carroll's night club. Steve Kalkus, the defeated racketeer-politician, has Earl Carroll and several of his acts kidnapped, figuring the kidnapping coup will cause Jones to be laughed out of office. In Carroll's absence his assistant, Ramona Lisa, and his press agent, Barney Nelson put on the show themselves with the remaining talent, the chorus girls and also pressing into the entertainment cigarette girls, cloakroom girls, the doorman and others including oil heiresses Brenda Gusher and Cobina Gusher. Carroll and the other prisoners make their escape when a kidnapped juggling act sends their captors down in a barrage of beer bottles.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-12-06
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A Preferred List
Overview: A Preferred List is a 1933 American Pre-Code short comedy film produced by Lou Brock. At the 6th Academy Awards, held in 1933, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Comedy).
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-10-06
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You're a Sweetheart
Overview: A Broadway producer is in a quandary when he discovers that the opening of his newest big production coincides with that of a major charity event. He despairs that the show will close after opening night until an ingenious writer suggests that he simply give the production snob-appeal by making the tickets nearly impossible to get by fabricating a story that they were all purchased by a flamboyant Texas oil baron who is totally besotted by the show's star.
Genres: Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-12-26
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Swing It Soldier
Overview: In this musical comedy, a pregnant disc jockey misses her husband who is fighting overseas. Stressed out by the situation and her job, she decides to take some time off and convinces her twin sister to trade places with her. The switcheroo causes the soldier her husband appointed as her unofficial guardian no end of confusion.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-11-07
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Hollywood My Home Town
Overview: Ken Murray narrates his 16mm home movies shot over 35 years in Hollywood.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1965-12-31
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The Marshal's Daughter
Overview: To fully appreciate the western comedy The Marshal's Daughter, one must be aware that its star, a zaftig, wide-eyed lass named Laurie Anders, was in 1953 a popular TV personality. A regular on The Ken Murray Show, Anders had risen to fame with the Southern-fried catchphrase "Ah love the wi-i-i-ide open spaces!" Striking while the iron was hot, the entrepreneurial Murray produced this inexpensive oater, which cast Anders as Laurie Dawson, the singing daughter of a U.S. marshal (Hoot Gibson). Teaming with her dad to capture outlaw Trigger Gans (Bob Duncan), Laurie briefly disguises herself as a masked bandit. Amidst much stock footage from earlier westerns and a plethora of lame jokes and dreadful puns, The Marshal's Daughter is a treat for trivia buffs, featuring such virile actors as Preston S. Foster, Johnny Mack Brown, Jimmy Wakely and Buddy Baer as "themselves."
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1953-06-25
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Swing, Sister, Swing
Overview: In this musical comedy, two star-struck small town kids head for the Big Apple and become famous for their jitterbug act. Their fame doesn't last long, but they had fun anyway. Songs include: "Baltimore Bubble," "Gingham Gown," "Just a Bore," "Wasn't It You," "Kaneski Waltz" (Frank Skinner, Charles Henderson).
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-12-16
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Son of Flubber
Overview: Beleaguered professor Ned Brainard has already run into a pile of misfortunes with his discovery of the super-elastic substance "Flubber." Now he hopes to have better luck with a gravity-busting derivative he's dubbed "Flubbergas." Ned's experiments, constantly hampered by government obstruction, earn the consternation of his wife, Betsy. But a game-winning modification to a football uniform may help Ned make the case for his fantastic new invention.
Genres: Comedy Family Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-01-16
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From Headquarters
Overview: When a Broadway playboy is found dead, it's up to detective Jim Stevens to pick the murderer out of several likely candidates.
Genres: Drama Mystery Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-11-16
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Leathernecking
Overview: Chick Evans is a Marine private in Honolulu, Hawaii. He falls for society girl Delphine Witherspoon, and begins to scheme as to how to win her over.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-09-12
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Juke Box Jenny
Overview: Swing and jitterbug.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-03-27
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Peeks at Hollywood
Overview: Two young beautiful starlets use the Griffith Observatory telescope to find stars in Hollywood.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-01-26
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Frank Capra's American Dream
Overview: A documentary looking at the life and career of film director Frank Capra. Hosted by Ron Howard.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-01-01
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Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood
Overview: A would-be filmmaker and actress shake up the industry with a trick dog who gets discovered by a studio bus driver in the 1920s.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1976-07-26
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