The wild and tragic life of Audie Murphy, the war hero who became a movie star

Audi Murphy began his life without any problems.

His childhood was dark as one of 11 children on a dirt farm in Texas. His father abandoned them. His mother later passed away when he was 16 years old. He achieved his fifth grade education.

Pearl Harbor was then attacked and plunged America into World War II. Murphy was short and ragged, only 16 years old, but he managed to sneak into the US military.

Coincidentally, Murphy was first sent to Casablanca. Casablanca is the setting and title of one of the greatest films ever made.

His battles spread from North Africa, spewing the mud out of fear, into invasions of beaches in France and Italy, and into the reduced bases of Hitler. He said his rifle is “more flowery and more reliable than your best friend.”

He fought in the hot heat and the vibrant cold, killing the man with his bare hands.

Once, he jumped into an abandoned tank, attacked machine guns, dodged 250 Nazi soldiers and six tanks. During the course of the battle, he killed at least 100 enemy soldiers, captured 100 and wounded 500, but he did not want to know the number of them.

His courage earned him 24 military honors than any other WWII soldier. He remains one of the most decorated soldiers in American history.

“I didn't like being called the 'most decorated' soldier,” Murphy later said.

Murphy witnessed unimaginable horror. “You will never forget these things,” he said. “They etch themselves into your brain and you keep looking at them. You try to put them aside, but they're always there.

He fought until May 1945. He continued to get injured, but bounced back to the battlefield.

He often reflected that being a good infantryman and ignorance, the need for abundant qualities. At first, he believed he was doing the right thing and saw himself as a noble killer. But by the end of the war he was plagued by doubt. When news of peace came, he stopped the murder despite the fight that continued. His purpose shaking. His mind was no longer in it: “The desire was gone.”

It ended before he turned 21. Returning to the hero's welcome, he told him in his memoir, “Hell and the Back” (1949). James Cagney discovers it and invites Murphy to Hollywood. Murphy played himself in the film adaptation, and from there he became a Hollywood fixture.

Although Odie Murphy has appeared in 40 films, I would like to focus on “Night Passage” (1957). It is one of his rare villain roles. “Night Passage” is ranked among my top 10 Westerners. Critics hated it. The audience didn't care. Even though Jimmy Stewart and Murphy share the best bills, the film has become obscure.

He is mostly known for his behind-the-scenes dramas. Murphy is said to have punched a horse in his face. The original director, Anthony Mann, disliked the rivalry of the old brothers in the script, and thought it was ridiculous to cast Murphy and Stewart as siblings. When Stewart insisted on playing his accordion, Mann quit and ended his creative partnership with Stewart.

But I think that's just one of the movies. The story is simple. Grant McClain (Stewart), a castaway with an accordion, returns to railroad work to stop payroll robberies.

The 1950s was Murphy's era. He played a reactive, small, almost frail, softly spoken hero. He has a handsome, boyish face. But you remember his war story.

Later in his life, Murphy admitted, “All I ever found was war.”

For years he couldn't sleep, suffered by PTSD. He always put the pistol under his pillow. His doctor prescribed Pacizil.

In the biography of Audi Murphy, my best friend explained the damage. “Some people who saw him at Plasidil have estimated he was taking it. The drug had the same outward effect as alcohol. Murphy ended up locking him up in a hotel room, and I was freed from the drug grip.

He was terrible with money and loved to bet on horses.

Everything about Murphy changed in the 1960s. His brand of heroes was replaced by anti-Western anti-heroes who rebelled against the indifferent practices of the Great War. My acting job has disappeared. My friend abandoned him.

“When the words arrive, you're washed away, so no one touches you with a 10-foot pole,” he said in an interview.

You fall a little and suddenly they can pass you on the street without seeing you. When you call, they are never in and they will not return your phone. They are afraid that you will ask them for work. The hanger will also move on. Those who were inviting you to the party will stop inviting you. Good tables at Swank restaurant go to others. If you're eating, you're lucky immediately.

At 45, he lives in a furnished garage attached to his previous home, harboring $1 million in debt and has been involved since his second divorce. All his miracles had disappeared. There he jumped on the Virginia opportunity and became an ambassador for a company that sold pre-built homes.

Then, in May 1971, he and five other members of the company flew from Atlanta to Martinsville, Virginia, with twin engine aero commander. They were caught in a thunderstorm. Their plane crashed into a mountain in a wooded valley near Roanoke, Virginia.

All six have passed away.

Murphy's Hollywood friends did not show up at the funeral. He had been exiled.

“Life in Hollywood is not the idea that I live, but it's the only life I know,” he once said. “Sometimes, it might have been easy if I had died on one of those battlefields. I wouldn't have been unique. Lots of good boys went back there and died. I'd be better than them. Not. Many things may have come a lot more than I did.”

My father grew up in Thurles, a small town in Tipperary County, Ireland. One winter they tore the stairs out of the stairs and fed them with fire. The film, especially the Westerner, was his escape. Like countless children around the world, he found a hero in Audi Murphy.

Every time Murphy appears on screen, my dad and his friends will scream and scream “Boy!” (The boy was always a good guy.)

“There was no one like him,” he would say I saw Westerners together as a child.

It wasn't just about films. It was always a poster that caught his eye – a towering image of Murphy hanging on the walls of Dela Hunty's films, everyone calls it “the one below.” The Capitol called “the above” was fine, but the “the one below” was magic.

Even today, when he sees Murphy on the screen, something inside him shines. Young boy believes in heroes. These Sunday Matinees feel somehow approaching, as if the year wasn't important.

For him, Murphy was more than just a movie star. He was the glory of America – a country where my father fell in love through the silver screen.

For him, freedom was not an abstraction. It was riding a Murphy on a screen, with six shooters in his hand, standing for the unshakable. It was America: far, mythical, yet somehow close enough to touch.

The Murphy's Story – the war hero, movie star, and the poor boy who became an icon of American grit – spoke to him. That's part of the reason he moved to America and part of the reason why I'm here today.

And it wasn't an act: Audi Murphy described himself as a “Super Patriot.”

In the book “Audi Murphy: The American Soldier,” Murphy talked about his visit to the French schoolyard at the end of World War II. He heard the kids sing and felt something bigger than in that moment. It reminded him of his home.

“The true meaning of America, do you ask? It's in the Texas Rodeo, in the badge of policemen, in the sounds of laughing children, in political gatherings, in the newspaper. In all of this, you find America Let's. In all of this, you will find freedom.”