Murray Hamilton

Murray Hamilton (March 24, 1923 – September 1, 1986) was an American actor born in Washington, North Carolina, where he is also interred at Oakdale Cemetery. His interest in performing developed during his years at Washington High School, shortly before the United States entered World War II. Disqualified from military service due to poor hearing, Hamilton relocated to New York City at age nineteen to pursue a stage career. He went on to work across Broadway, film, and television for more than four decades, becoming one of the most recognizable character actors of his generation.

Hamilton's Broadway career spanned from 1945 to 1968 and included productions such as Stockade, Critic's Choice, The Heroine, Absence of a Cello, and Forty Carats. His performance in Stockade, a stage adaptation drawn from James Jones's novel From Here to Eternity, earned particular notice from New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson, who praised Hamilton's portrayal of Prewitt as modest in manner yet possessed of a steel-like spirit. He received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1965 for his work in Absence of a Cello. Hamilton appeared on Broadway alongside Henry Fonda on multiple occasions, including an early role as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts, in which he replaced David Wayne, and again in the 1960 production of Critic's Choice, where New York Times critic Howard Taubman described him as "properly obnoxious as the director."

On screen, Hamilton accumulated a substantial body of film work, frequently cast in dramatic supporting roles. He appeared alongside James Stewart in The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and The FBI Story (1959). In Anatomy of a Murder, he played bartender Al Pacquette, a witness who testifies about the murder of Barney Quill. He appeared with Paul Newman in both The Hustler (1961), playing Findley, a high-stakes billiards gambler, and The Drowning Pool (1975). His other notable film credits include The Graduate (1967), in which he played Mr. Robinson, husband of the seductress Mrs. Robinson, opposite Dustin Hoffman, and two films with Robert Redford, The Way We Were (1973) and Brubaker (1980). He also appeared in the science-fiction drama Seconds (1966) with Rock Hudson, and in Steven Spielberg's comedy 1941 (1979). Hamilton had a comedic role opposite Andy Griffith in No Time for Sergeants (1958), a film he later cited as an exception to the dramatic typecasting he experienced throughout much of his career. He publicly expressed frustration with that typecasting, noting in a newspaper article that after being cast as a heavy on The Untouchables, producers proved difficult to convince that he was capable of other kinds of roles.

Hamilton's most widely recognized screen performance came as Larry Vaughn, the mayor of Amity, in Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975). He reprised the role in Jaws 2 (1978) and had agreed to appear again in Jaws: The Revenge, but died before production began. He had previously reunited with Henry Fonda on screen in The Boston Strangler (1968). In 1986, when illness made film work harder to obtain, his former co-star George C. Scott arranged for Hamilton to appear in the television film The Last Days of Patton.

Hamilton's television work was extensive. He guest-starred on the NBC legal drama Justice in 1955 and appeared in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Deadly Double" in 1958. He played Jake Buley in a 1957 episode of Gunsmoke and returned to the series in 1959 as Calhoun. In 1959, he co-starred in the second episode of The Twilight Zone, "One for the Angels," as Mr. Death opposite Ed Wynn, and also appeared in several episodes of The Untouchables that same year. During the 1959–60 television season, he co-starred in the NBC sitcom Love and Marriage alongside William Demarest, Jeanne Bal, and Stubby Kaye, playing attorney Steve Baker. He guest-starred on The Real McCoys, appeared in the anthology series Way Out in 1961, and guest-starred in an episode of the James Stewart legal drama Hawkins in 1973. In 1986, he appeared in a first-season episode of The Golden Girls as Curtis "Big Daddy" Hollingsworth, the father of Blanche Devereaux.

Hamilton died of lung cancer on September 1, 1986, at the age of 63. He was survived by his wife, Terri DeMarco Hamilton of The DeMarco Sisters, and their son, David.