Audie Murphy was born near Kingston, Texas, June 20, 1924, one of 11 children in a poor sharecropper family abandoned by his father. He enlisted in the Army at age 19, served in the 15th Infantry 3rd Division in North Africa, Italy, southern France and Germany. He and Matt Urban of the 9th Division were awarded 29 decorations, the most of all soldiers in World War II. In the battle of the Colmar pocket Jan. 26, 1945, he saved his platoon by firing a machine gun from a damaged tank, killing 240 Germans, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor (by Gen. Alexander patch in the field, not by President Truman). He failed in business after the war, made several dozen Hollywood films, was charged with attempted murder in a barroom brawl in 1970, died with 5 others in a plane crash May 28, 1971.
U.S. Postal Service's Distinguished Soldiers series released Nov. 1, 1999
Production:
Released 1955 by Universal Pictures, TechniColor, 106 min., mono sound
Directed by Jesse Hibbs
Produced by Aaron Rosenberg
Written by Gil Doud based on the autobiography Audie Murphy
Film Editing by Edward Curtiss
Cinematography by Maury Gertsman
Music by Henry Mancini
Cast:
Audie Murphy as Audie Murphy Marshall Thompson as Johnson Charles Drake as Brandon Jack Kelly as Kerrigan Gregg Palmer as Lt. Manning Paul Picerni as Valentino David Janssen as Lt. Lee Richard Castle as Kovak Bruce Cowling as Captain Marks Paul Langton as Colonel Howe Art Aragon as Sanchez Felix Noriego as Swope Denver Pyle as Thompson Brett Halsey as Saunders Susan Kohner as Maria Anabel Shaw as Helen Mary Field as Mrs. Murphy Julian Upton as Steiner
Gordon Gebert as Young Audie
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith as Introduction
