Patriot Audie Murphy from World War Two: Soldier to Movie Star, Billy the Kid, Posted Friday, January 14, 2022 on Pirates and Patriots Blog
Audie Murphy was a soldier who showed so much bravery in action that he became the most awarded soldier in World War Two. His actions were accompanied with humbleness, as he referred to the many other soldiers who bravely fought, but whose actions had not been recognized, especially those who died in battle.
He became famous, lauded in the press, and attracted the attention of Hollywood, where he became a movie star. Despite all this attention, Audie took care of family members who needed help.
Here is a link to the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website, sponsored by the Audie Murphy Research Foundation (AMRF) a
non-profit 501.c.3 organization.
Here is an excerpt: https://www.audiemurphy.com/index.htm
"The
Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website is dedicated to the preservation,
memory, honor, and history of the late Audie L. Murphy, America's most
decorated combat soldier of World War II and a famous movie star."
"Tragically, Audie Murphy died in a plane accident in 1971.
At the time of Audie Murphy's death, a troubled America seemed
uninterested. When Audie Murphy's body was discovered his incredible
life was given a combined total of 1 minute and 30 seconds of coverage
by the major television news networks ABC, CBS, and NBC."
"Sadly, the age of computers may have accelerated the decline in interest
for Audie Murphy. Reliable newspapers and other news sources have
rapidly failed at an alarming rate. Television news programming has
become more concerned with ratings than facts. Supermarket tabloids, a
staple for many consumers, are focused on creating news instead of
reporting it. Digital books and Internet websites are self-published
without much effort or research, documentation, citations, or truth."
"Social media with an emphasis on being "liked" and video games with
their computer generated super heroes and villians are becoming the
standards and role models of our younger generations. Perhaps worse of
all, "cancelling American culture" seems to have become an increasingly
fashionable trend and a politically approved movement."
"It's little wonder that America's greatest heroes are becoming obscure and harder to find."
PIRATES AND PATRIOTS AWARD TO AUDIE MURPHY
Thus, Mr. Murphy has been added to the Pirates and Patriots Awards. His soldiering seems very well documented, especially online. His films are being shown on Grit TV, and these are often Westerns, with the recurring themes of trying to bring Truth, Justice, and the American Way to the Wild West.
Mr. Murphy is mostly a quiet actor with expressive eyes. His action scenes, especially the fights, have a reality and intensity to them. He isn't a movie star who is pretending to fight. The audience knows that Mr. Murphy actually did fight, quite a bit, and killed many men fighting for the enemy. He fought and he survived, humble and left with Post Traumatic Stress for the rest of his life.
Here's a quote from one reviewer:
"Audie
Murphy is not a John Wayne type. He is soft spoken with a slim build. He
always looks very young. These westerns are a perfect fit for him because
he was a country boy in Texas. Audie Murphy is authentic. John Wayne was a
fake. Audie Murphy was a real war hero. John Wayne just played war heroes
in movies. Audie Murphy could shoot a gun and ride horses. John Wayne
was the all American cowboy who, in life, hated horses. These movies have
good stories. great color and good acting. Watch some Audie Murphy
westerns. I think alot of people are missing out."
So, it's worth the time to seek out and watch his films. Some, of course, seem better than others, or are rated differently by different people. Some are difficult to find. In particular the hard-to-find The Kid from Texas (1950). where he played Billy the Kid, is an interesting, historical fiction account of a Texas legend and Wild West crossings and double crossings.
References
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001559/
"Part of Murphy's appeal to many people was that he didn't fit the
"image" most had of a war hero. He was a slight, almost fragile-looking,
shy and soft-spoken young man, whose boyish appearance (something he
never lost throughout his life; he always looked at least 15 years
younger than he actually was) often shocked people when they found out
that, for example, during one battle he leaped on top of a burning
tank--which was loaded with fuel and ammunition and could have exploded
at any second--and used its machine gun to hold off waves of attacking
German troops, killing dozens of them and saving his own unit from
certain destruction and the entire line from being overrun."
Small Doesn't Mean Wimpy
"The
real attraction here is war hero Audie Murphy in one of his first
starring roles. Naturally, the Western format best fit his military
background and acting inexperience, so its no surprise that his movie
career was built on a succession of similar B-oaters. Nonetheless, there
would have been no Hollywood career, I believe, without his boyish good
looks that had hardly faded at the point of his untimely death (1971).
True, he was small, hardly imposing in the usual Hollywood style. But he
could work up a cold-eyed stare with the best of them, and coming from
that baby face, the contrast was especially startling. It's that
disconnect between the boyish appearance and the intimidating manner
that's so unusual."
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
"Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971) was an American soldier, actor, songwriter, and rancher. He was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He received every military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor
for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly
holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, then leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition."
"Murphy was born into a large family of sharecroppers in Hunt County, Texas. His father abandoned them, and his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family; his skill with a hunting rifle helped feed his family."
Audie Murphy Biography Author- Editors, TheFamousPeople.com
Website- TheFamousPeople.com
URL- https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/audie-murphy-3650.php
The following website offers an interesting discussion of Audie Murphy as an actor.
http://www.actingoutpolitics.com/audie-murphy-a-bressonian-actor-in-american-western/
*To The Memory Of Audie Murphy (1925 – 1971), Perhaps, One Of The Most Humanistically Significant Actors In American Western
During WWII Murphy was an efficient soldier, a person with a soul
without any militancy and bravado (almost paradoxical combination in any
army). And he was a movie actor without any emotional pedaling – exist
as a style of acting oriented to seduce the viewers by transforming them
into movie-star’s blind admirers. The quiet rationality of his screen
persona is different and personified an alternative to the sentimental
appeal of the Western (positive) heroes to the public.
The Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum
600 I-30 East Greenville, TX 75401 (903) 450-4502
The mission of the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum is to educate
the public and to preserve the history of Hunt County, Texas. Of
particular emphasis is the impact of the cotton industry and the
historical significance of our military heroes, especially Audie Murphy.
https://cottonmuseum.com/about/
From War History Online:
On 7 June 1971, Murphy was buried with full military honors at Arlington
National Cemetery. The headstones of Medal of Honor recipients buried
at Arlington National Cemetery are normally decorated in gold leaf.
Murphy previously requested that his stone remain plain and
inconspicuous, like that of an ordinary soldier. The headstone contains
the incorrect birth year 1924, based upon the falsified materials among
his military records.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/hell-back-10-interesting-facts-audiemurphy.html?firefox=1
