Fred MacMurray was a talented Hollywood actor that is nowadays best known for his starring role
on the classic television series My Three Sons, as well as his numerous starring roles in Walt Disney
pictures, such as The Absent-Minded Professor. Although Fred mostly found himself typecast as
the nice guy in the media, one of his other most memorable roles came when he was cast as a villain
in Billy Wilder’s acclaimed 1944 film noir Double Indemnity. While the majority of Fred’s
career success came from his family-friendly roles, he spent the final years of his life
trying to chase the glory that he received from his against-type turn in Double Indemnity. Join
Facts Verse as we take a look inside Fred MacMurray’s insufferable final years.
When Fred MacMurray passed away in 1991, he was 83 years old and
had been working in the entertainment industry for over half of a century.
At that point, the star was best known to the public for portraying the character of widower
and aeronautical engineer Steven Douglas on the classic ABC sitcom My Three Sons, which aired from
1960 to 1972. Besides Fred’s memorable role in the series, the actor also acted in a great number of
films, including The Absent-Minded Professor for Disney. Walt Disney himself was a fan of Fred,
claiming that no one else in the industry could do family-friendly comedy quite like he could.
Though Walt Disney had plenty of praise for Fred MacMurray’s comedy skills,
those comedy skills weren’t what the actor wanted to be known for. On the contrary, Fred found
himself increasingly agitated by his continued fame from family-friendly
productions such as My Three Sons and his works with Walt Disney. Fred would’ve preferred
to continue making a name for himself with his darker and more mature roles,
such as the one he had in Billy Wilder’s acclaimed 1944 film noir, Double Indemnity.
At the time of his passing, Fred MacMurray was being treated for cancer, though the official
cause of death was pneumonia. He died within a day of being admitted into the hospital.
Though friends, family, and coworkers were saddened to see the beloved star pass,
they were glad that he was no longer going to be suffering. Fred’s final years had been tumultuous,
both because of his ongoing battle with his failing health and because
he never got to be the kind of Hollywood star that he had truly desired to be.
Fred MacMurray’s career began on the stage before branching out into film and television.
Before the actor’s 1991 death, he had appeared in over 80 films. The most critically acclaimed
of Fred’s many features is certainly the aforementioned Double Indemnity.
That feature showcased Fred in a rare villain role, whereas the actor was
predominantly typecast as the nice guy in other features. While critics loved seeing
Fred as the villain, the audience always seemed to want to see him as a loving man.
Fred MacMurray’s greatest commercial success in the cinemas came as a result of his work with Walt
Disney. Fred appeared in the aforementioned The Absent-Minded Professor and its sequel,
The Son of Flubber. Of course, the role Fred played in those
two films would go on to be played by Robin Williams in the 1997 film
Flubber. Besides The Absent-Minded Professor and its sequel, Fred could also be seen in
the classic live-action Walt Disney features The Shaggy Dog and The Happiest Millionaire.
Regardless of any work that Fred had done on the big screen over the course of his career, he
passed away remaining most popular for his work as the lead character on the long-running series
My Three Sons, which was still popular in syndication at the time of the actor’s death.
The show revolved around the character of Steven Douglas taking care of his titular three
sons after the death of their mother. Teen heartthrob Don Grady played one of those sons,
alongside real-life brothers Stanley and Barry Livingston. Don Grady has since passed
away himself, dying in 2012, at the age of 68. Stanley and Barry are still with us.
All three former child stars were saddened to see their beloved on-screen father pass
into the next life, though they shared his close family’s sentiments that the star’s final years
had been tumultuous and that the end had probably come as a relief for him. If you’re enjoying this
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Whenever Fred MacMurray was asked how he felt about the success of My Three Sons, he would
say that it was the child stars portraying his three titular sons that deserved all the credit.
Perhaps this is why those three former child actors went on to speak so highly
of the beloved star in the wake of his passing. Although Fred MacMurray was an actor who went
out of his way in his professional career to try to prove to the public that he wasn’t a nice guy,
it seems that his nice-guy demeanor on the screen was more than just an act!
Although Fred MacMurray downplayed the massive amounts of attention that he got as a result
of his starring turn on the series My Three Sons, it can’t be denied that his role on the show has
gone down as one of his most memorable, and had a fairly staggering impact on the actor’s career.
It was Fred’s turn on My Three Sons that caught the attention of the aforementioned Walt Disney,
leading to Fred making his appearances in numerous of his live-action films.
While Fred’s roles in these features were certainly beneficial for the actor’s
career overall, he once again would’ve preferred to have been acting in more challenging features.
Fred MacMurray may have found himself typecast in the role of a nice guy over the course of his
career, but the actor certainly had immense range! Fred could pretty much do whatever a part demanded
of him, but he didn’t get a lot of opportunities to showcase this range to the public. One of
Fred’s rare opportunities to show the world his true acting talents came
in the form of his role in the aforementioned Billy Wilder film noir Double Indemnity.
Of course, given that Double Indemnity came in 1944,
this role came well over a decade before the production of My Three Sons even started.
Long before his family-friendly roles on My Three Sons and in numerous Walt Disney features, Fred
MacMurray was actually a very prominent serious actor during Hollywood’s early
Golden Age. Fred had been born in 1908 in the state of Illinois to a concert-violinist father.
When Fred was only five years old, his father passed away, at which point Fred’s
mother moved the family to her own home state of Wisconsin. It was heard that Fred came of age,
excelling at sports while attending the local Beaver Dam High School.
For his higher education, Fred went on to attend Wisconsin’s Carroll College.
After the death of his father at such an early age, Fred’s family wasn’t the most well-off family
on the block, prompting Fred to seek alternative means to pay for his tuition. Fred ended up paying
his tuition fees by taking on small roles as an extra in local film productions.
He also made some money playing in orchestras and singing, which led to him joining a fairly
prominent vocal ensemble by the name of the California Collegians, which toured nationally.
Alongside the California Collegians, Fred MacMurray wound up in New York City. While
the city was merely one small stop on the tour for the vocal ensemble, Fred decided that he wanted to
stay there and try his hand at Broadway. He went on to make his Broadway debut in 1930,
appearing alongside Sydney Greenstreet in Three’s a Crowd. Even more Broadway success
came Fred’s way when he starred alongside Bob Hope in the 1933 production Roberta.
Fred’s turn in the 1933 Bob Hope plays Roberta was so successful that it
ended up netting the aspiring star a contract with Paramount Pictures!
This is how Fred finally wound up in Hollywood. In 1935, Fred appeared alongside Katharine Hepburn
in Alice Adams. That same year, he made the first of several appearances on the big screen
starring alongside actress Claudette Colbert, with his first being in the feature film The Gilded
Lady. It would be less than a decade later that Fred MacMurray would be cast in Double Indemnity,
receiving the most critical acclaim of his career. Around the time of Double Indemnity’s release,
Fred was the highest-paid actor in all of Hollywood. Sadly, in later years,
Fred’s Golden Age Hollywood past would be obscured by his later aforementioned family-friendly roles.
Fred MacMurray also had other interests besides acting. In the early 1940s, Fred used his
Hollywood wealth to purchase a sprawling plot of land in Northern California that he fashioned into
a functioning cattle ranch. At the time, Fred was married to a dancer named Lillian Lamont.
Fred and Lillian had tied the knot in 1936, soon after Fred first showed up
in Hollywood. Throughout their marriage, Fred and Lillian adopted two children together. The
couple lived happily up until Lillian's tragic death in 1953, from cancer. It didn’t take
Fred long to move on from his spouse’s tragic death, as he remarried the following year.
Fred remained married to second wife June Haver up until his own death in 1991. Fred and June adopted
a pair of twins together and had been married for nearly four decades by the time of Fred’s passing.
Although Fred MacMurray was once the highest-paid actor in all of Hollywood, he became better known
during his later years for his family-friendly roles in television shows and Walt Disney features
than for his earlier dramatic works. Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that My Three Sons’
Fred MacMurray hated being labeled as a nice guy by the public and that he spent his final years
suffering considerably as a result of his failing health? As always, like this
video to show your support, subscribe, and hit the notification bell if you’d
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