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Fred Macmurray Hb (Hardcover)
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Fred Macmurray Hb (Hardcover)
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Hardback edition. Fred MacMurray was one of the most durable stars
in motion picture history. Fred arrived in Hollywood in 1934 and
within a year he was one of the top leading men in the movie
industry. He was the leading actor or one of the leads in films
through 1973 when Walt Disney Studios released his final starring
role in a motion picture, Charley and the Angel. Thirty-nine years
- five separate decades. Few stars have equaled that distinction.
Of course every star career has its peaks and valleys. The initial
peak of Fred';s stardom was from his days as a Paramount leading
man, beginning in 1935 and running roughly until the end of the
Second World War. Like many aging stars, the post-war years were a
mixed bag for Fred. Public tastes were changing and the kind of
frothy, romantic comedies which had been his forte were going out
of fashion. But he persevered and continued to do leading roles in
a variety of pictures and from time to time found a film which
registered strongly with film audiences and critics alike, such as
The Egg and I (1947), and especially The Caine Mutiny (1954). By
the mid 1950s Fred was appearing, increasingly, in that favorite
genre of the aging leading man - the western film. Eight of ten
films he made between 1955 and 1960 were westerns, not Fred's
favorite genre. But they did keep his name before the public. Then
in 1959, Fred began the second peak of his career thanks to Walt
Disney, who cast Fred in his studios first live action comedy film,
The Shaggy Dog. Incredibly this film which was made for under $1
million became the third biggest box office hit of that year, and
Fred found a new audience. Over the next several years, Fred
starred in a series of hugely popular family films for the Walt
Disney Studios. Then in 1960, Fred did something that solidified
his new family friendly image. He accepted the lead in a new
television series called My Three Sons. For the next twelve years
he played Steve Douglas, a widower with three rambunctious sons.
Fred became THE quintessential father figure for a new generation
of kids. In accepting My Three Sons Fred succeeded at something
that few film actors had achieved up to that time. He became a star
in both television and motion pictures. Look at it this way. In
1951 when Lucille Ball began I Love Lucy she had already spent
nearly two decades as a motion picture actress, but she never had
the kind of movie fame that Fred MacMurray had achieved when he
became a television star. Loretta Young began a long running
anthology series in 1953, and had been a popular, and Academy Award
winning, movie actress prior to that, but when she began on
television her days as a film actress were over. When Fred began
doing My Three Sons in 1960, he was enjoying a rejuvenated film
career thanks to the Disney films and his superb performance in
Billy Wilder's hugely popular and Academy Award winning The
Apartment. Fred was simultaneously enjoying popularity on both the
big and small screens. Many film actors attempted this after Fred,
including his contemporaries Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, but
both proved failures in their own series.
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