Audie Murphy was a bona fideWorld War IIhero , a term which , in these days of endless American conflict , seems both archaic and slightly offensive even . But in his time , Murphy — maybe the heavy war hero the res publica ever has seen — was an out - and - out superstar . He forge a thankful country ’s unbridled adulation into a career as one of Hollywood ’s biggest draw , most excellently playing the lead function in his own movie autobiography,“To Hell and Back . "
Yet the war that made him famed , as is the case with many who contend , never left him .
" A hero is somebody who takes an nonfigurative virtue and embodies it for a short time , " says David A. Smith , the author of " The Price of Valor : The Life of Audie Murphy , America ’s Most Decorated Hero of World War II . " Smith teaches history at Baylor University in Waco , Texas . " As human beings , we ’re not easy with abstraction . But if you show me what honour looks like , even a glance , I ’ll know . If you show me what valour expect like , then I ’ll have a go at it what it means .
" Audie Murphy fit the role of a hero . Being a hero is great for the companionship . But it ’s really heavy on the person who , for a moment , becomes a hero . "
The Roots of a Legend
digest in Hunt County , Texas , in 1925 , the Logos of Irish sharecroppers , Audie Leon Murphy grow up in extreme poorness — theGreat Depressionbegan in 1929 — inside a family in agitation . Murphy ’s father deserted the kinfolk when he was just a Kyd . When Murphy was 16 , as World War II broke out in Europe , his female parent died . Some of his younger siblings were placed in an orphanage .
" [ T]o say that the category was poor would be an understatement . poorness dogged our every step , " Murphy compose in " To Hell and Back , " his 1949 memoir . " twelvemonth after year the babies had come until there were nine of us children living , and two bushed . get food for thought for our stomachs and clothes for our back was an ever - present problem . As soon as we were quondam enough to handle a plough , an axe , or a hoe , we were thrown into the struggle for existence , " he wrote .
Just 5 - foot-5 ( 1.6 meter ) and barely 100 pounds ( 45 kilogram ) , Murphy dreamed of the table service as a manner out . After his mother died , he prove to join the Marines but was turn down for being too small and too young . He was finally accepted into the U.S. Army , with some tweaked support , in June 1942.He was just 17 .
After his preparation in the States , Murphy was shipped to North Africa with the 3rd Infantry Division , the rootage of a short but unparalleled calling in which he was award every medallion for valor that the Army could confer . ( Some of the original commendations arehere . ) One of his field exploits , in especial , became fabled .
During a firefight in France on Jan. 26 , 1945 , an American armoured combat vehicle uprooter was hit by German ardor , setting it reddened and forcing the crowd to abandon . Murphy ordered artillery flak on the German positions and name for his man to withdraw to nearby wood . But Murphy did not decrease back . Instead , he mounted the burning tank , grabbed command of its .50 - caliber car gunman , and faced with unfriendly fire from three sides for more than an hour , keep the Germans at true laurel , killing musical score of them . Murphy was injure in both stage in the fight .
He was grant the Medal of Honor for his actions . From the his cite ( via theSmithsonian Institution ):
Murphy returned home to parade — some 300,000 people in San Antonio — more honor ( from France and Belgium , too ) , and wages that enable him to buy a menage for his elder sister , where his younger sibling came to live on for some clip . On July 16 , 1945 , a smiling Murphy was sport on the cover ofLife Magazinewith the words " Most Decorated Soldier . "
He had just turned 20 days old .
Audie Murphy’s Hollywood Career
In 1945 , movie champion James Cagney and his sidekick were looking for a novel type of star for their fledgling moving-picture show production companionship when they saw the Life clause . Cagney called up Murphy , signed him , put him through acting lessons and helped him get his first function in the diligence , though Cagney ’s output troupe soon would bumble .
Murphy , too , witness the early live rough . " I had eight words to say , " Murphy reportedly said of his first function , in 1948’s"Beyond Glory . ““Seven more than I could handle . "
Murphy was far from a natural at his newfound career .
" It was a huge bounce , " Smith aver . " And he did n’t make it very well at all . Audie Murphy did n’t do it what he was fail to do . You get the feeling he did it just because he needed a gig . And Cagney take a break . "
Still , Murphy hold open at it . By the metre Universal pick up the rights to his memoir , " To Hell and Back , " he had a few pretty successful films to his credit , starring with such Hollywood notability as Tony Curtis , Jane Wyatt , Hugh O’Brian and Lee Marvin . Murphy institute his first star role as a disruptive teenager in 1949’s"Bad Boy " .
When it came time for the picture show " To Hell and Back , " Murphy suggested Curtis for the lead . But the manufacturer had Murphy in nous to play himself , and he at long last relent . It was a dreamlike variety of role for Murphy , but one that made the film enormously pop . " To Hell and Back , " released in 1955 , would be Universal ’s highest - gross picture until " Jaws " unseat it 20 year later .
" Gallantry has been glorified more dramatically on cinema previously,“The New York Timessaid of the film in a 1955 writeup , " but Mr. Murphy , who still seems to be the diffident , serious tenderfoot rather than a titan among G.I. heroes , lends stature , credibility , and dignity to an autobiography that would be everyday and hackneyed without him . "
Murphy address the nature of playing himself in the moving-picture show ’s more grueling scenes .
" This unusual jerk back and away between make - believe and reality , " he order , allot to an article published years subsequently inThe Times . " Between fighting for your biography and the discovery that it ’s only a game and you have to do a retake because a holidaymaker ’s hot dog ran across the field in the eye of engagement . "
Murphy would go on to make more than 40 photographic film in his career — mostly warfare stories and Westerns , though he did dip into other genre — and asterisk in a short - lived telecasting Western in 1960 , " Whispering Smith . " ( Anearly episodefeatured a young Robert Redford . ) But it was " To Hell and Back " for which he reportedly earned more than $ 1 million that made his stain in Hollywood .
" Unless you could get a part that was tailored to him and his personality , he looked out of place , " Smith pronounce . " But if you could find a role that he could somehow naturally inhabit , the way of life that it does n’t feel bogus to him , then he could do well in it .
" He had moments where he could sort of lose himself . But the whole performing business to him seemed kind of dissimulator . And when you determine his movies , you get the sense that this is a guy that never did get past that . "
The Other Audie Murphy
During his sentence in the Army , Murphy engaged in some of the rough battles of the war . He was offend several times , battled case of gangrene andmalaria , was directly creditworthy for the death of many dozens of the enemy and saw many of his fellow soldier die by his side .
In the ' 40s and ' fifty , experience like that often lead to psychological problem , then know as " shell shock " or " battle fatigue . " Now it goes by a different name : post - traumatic stress disorder(PTSD ) . And it is something that Murphy clearly struggled with for years , throughout his living in Hollywood and beyond .
" The way that we understand PTSD today … that ’s basically since the ' 60 and ' LXX . citizenry who knew him consider he was just nuts , " Smith says of Murphy . " He slept with a loaded gun under his pillow . He have these unbelievable endangerment with money , and he was a compulsive gambler . Nobody stitched this stuff together in a way that lease him empathise that what he ’s dealing with here is trauma from the war . And he never got help . And that ’s sort of the tragedy .
" He sleep with that he was carry something with him . But it was the contemporaries that suffered in secrecy . "
Murphy moved from the surrealism of war to the artificial world of Hollywood , so it ’s credibly not surprising that a kid from staring poorness who never got past the 8th degree struggled . " He had this very strong sentiency of reality and authenticity , " Smith says , " and I think it sort of bothered him a caboodle that he was an actor . "
During his postwar lifetime , Murphy made and lost fortune . As his acting career slow down — his last movie was 1969’s"A Time for Dying " — he paddle in call down racehorses and in other ventures . He declare bankruptcy in 1968 , and was on his agency to look into another investing speculation in late May 1971 when the plane in which he was traveling crashed into a Virginia hillside . He and five others croak . He was just 45 .
On June 1 , 1971 , 25 eld after returning home from the war , The New York Times carried his obituaryon the front page . The newspaper headline read , " Audie Murphy , War Hero , Killed in Plane Crash . "
grant to the necrology , someone once asked Murphy how soldier get past the horror of war .
" I do n’t imagine they ever do , " he said .
