R.I.P. Mary Murphy

Live fast, but young starlet, be wary
The casting on couches is scary
And wolves promise rings
to pretty young things,
but dash their careers when they marry



Actress Mary Murphy died on May 4th. Murphy played the assistant to illusionist Vincent Price in The Mad Magician. Top: With Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Above: Live Fast, Die Young with Mike Connors.


Murphy was typically cast as the good girl, less convincingly as a femme fatale. She tamed Marlon Brando in The Wild One (53); She hit the Beachhead with Tony Curtis (54); Then kept Ray Milland company in A Man Alone, spent The Desperate Hours with Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March, and was stranded on Hell's Island (55) with John Payne; She pointed the Finger of Guilt (56) at Richard Basehart; She didn't want to Live Fast, Die Young with Mike Connors, or get static from The Electronic Monster (58) with Rory Calhoun. Perhaps sensing the downward trajectory, Murphy moved into television; She married in 1962 on the condition that she retire, divorced in 68, and returned to film for Sam Peckinpah's Junior Bonner in 72.