Army after being turned down by the Marines and the Navy for being too short (five feet, five-and-a-half inches) and slight of build. In June of 1942, claiming to be 18 rather than 17, he succeeded in joining the U.S. He was said to have remarked to a friend, 'If I don't hit what I shoot at my family won't eat today.' While still a youngster he worked at a garage and a radio repair shop.Īfter the death of his mother in 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor later that year, Murphy attempted to enlist in the military but was rejected because he was underage. He became a crack shot with his rifle, bringing home squirrels, rabbits and birds to help feed the family. His father abandoned the family while Audie was still in grade school, and the young Audie dropped out of fifth grade to help support his family by doing farm work. He was the sixth of 12 children, two of whom did not survive to adulthood. His quiet, understated style and coiled manner may be seen as a forerunner to the 'cool' later displayed by Steve McQueen and others.Īudie Leon Murphy (1924-1971) was born in Kingston, Texas, to sharecroppers of Irish descent. World War II cartoonist Bill Mauldin summed up his appeal: 'In him, we all recognized the straight, raw stuff, uncut and fiery as the day it left the still.' Murphy, always comfortable in action scenes, learned the craft of film acting as he went along and eventually became a skilled actor, especially in the role of anti-hero. He also enjoyed success as a composer of country music and as the author of To Hell and Back, a 1949 memoir of his wartime experiences that was filmed in 1955 with Murphy playing himself. Audie Murphy, the most decorated American soldier of World War II, parlayed his celebrity, boyish good looks and natural manner into a successful Hollywood career that encompassed 44 feature films, mostly Westerns and war movies.

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