Jan Murray

Jan Murray, born Murray Janofsky on October 4, 1916, in the Bronx, New York City, was an American stand-up comedian, actor, and game-show host. He died on July 2, 2006, in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 89, and is entombed at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. Raised in a Jewish household in the Bronx, Murray developed an early interest in comedy by performing routines for his bedridden mother that he had observed at a local theatre.

Murray entered show business as a vaudeville performer at age 18. Through the 1930s he built his reputation entertaining at the Catskills resorts of the Borscht Belt, which catered to Jewish vacationers. By the 1940s and early 1950s he had become a marquee performer in Las Vegas, headlining at the Flamingo Hotel during its first year of operation. In 1947 he appeared on Broadway in Music in My Heart.

His television career began in the late 1940s, when he made multiple appearances on Texaco Star Theater, hosted by Milton Berle. He subsequently appeared as a guest on programs hosted by Jerry Lewis, Steve Allen, Garry Moore, Dean Martin, and Jackie Gleason. From the 1950s through the 1960s he made numerous appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show, on which he also served as guest host on several occasions. He likewise guest-hosted The Joey Bishop Show and co-hosted the annual West Coast Chabad Lubavitch telethon for 18 years.

During the 1950s and into the 1960s, Murray hosted several television game shows. These included Blind Date on the DuMont network in 1953, Dollar a Second from 1953 to 1957, and Treasure Hunt, which he created and which ran from 1956 to 1959. He also hosted Charge Account, broadcast under the alternate title The Jan Murray Show from 1960 to 1962, and Chain Letter in 1966. Between 1966 and 1980 he was a regular panelist on The Hollywood Squares, appearing in nearly 250 episodes, and participated in numerous celebrity game shows including Match Game, Funny You Should Ask, Celebrity Bowling, Celebrity Sweepstakes, and Break the Bank in 1976.

Murray maintained an active acting career across both television and film. His television dramatic and comedic roles spanned series including Dr. Kildare, The Lucy Show, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Name of the Game, Love American Style, Mannix, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Fantasy Island, The Fall Guy, and Hardcastle and McCormick. He played himself in a 1962 episode of Car 54, Where Are You? and again in a 1964 episode of The Defenders. In 1977 he appeared in the final episode of the NBC sitcom The Practice, and his last television acting role was as Uncle Raymond in a 1989 episode of My Two Dads.

His film work included Of Love and Desire (1963), Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965), The Busy Body (1967), Tarzan and the Great River (1967), Thunder Alley (1967), A Man Called Dagger (1968), Which Way to the Front? (1970), The Day of the Wolves (1971), the 1974 television movie Roll, Freddy, Roll!, the 1980 television miniseries The Dream Merchants, and Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I (1981).

Murray received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, and in 1997 a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. In his personal life, he married Pearl Cohen in 1939 and had one child with her before the marriage ended in divorce. In October 1949 he married Kathleen Mann, known as Toni, with whom he had three children and remained married until his death. His production company, Jantone, combined their first names. An avid golfer, Murray organized comedy routines around the sport and chaired the Comedians' Golf Classic, held in both New York and California, for several years. He retired from show business at 83, citing the effect of asthma on his comedic timing.