Richard Murdoch

Richard Murdoch

Born: April 6, 1907
Died: October 9, 1990
in Keston, Kent, England, UK
Richard Bernard Murdoch was educated at Charterhouse School in Surrey, and Pembroke College, Cambridge University. Whilst at university he participated in the Footlights Dramatic Club's performances.

Murdoch's first appearance in cinema was as an uncredited dancing extra in 1932 film Looking on the Bright Side. In 1937 he was listed among the cast of the "Television Follies", an early BBC Television programme.

He received his big professional break in the British Broadcasting Corporation's comedy radio programme Band Waggon in 1938 as part of a double act with the then rising star Arthur Askey, acquiring the nickname "Stinker" in mocking reference to his superior formal education.

As Askey moved from radio performing into cinema at the end of the 1930s Murdoch went with him and they appeared in a number of Askey star vehicle films together, Murdoch's tall athletic physique, good looks and upper middle class English Home Counties demeanor contrasting comedically with Askey's short stature, homely appearance, Lancashire provincial accent and working class performance persona. Their working partnership broke up during World War 2 when Murdoch joined the Armed Forces, but they briefly reprised it in the late 1950s for the television series Living It Up.

Murdoch was conscripted into the Royal Air Force in 1941, serving as a junior intelligence officer with Bomber Command, before being posted to the Department of Allied Air Force and Foreign Liaison as a Flight Lieutenant. In 1943 he joined the Directorate of Administrative Plans at the Air Ministry, where he shared an office with Wing Commander Kenneth Horne, being responsible for the supply of aircraft and air equipment to Russia. He finished the war with the rank of Squadron Leader.

Movies for Richard Murdoch...

Whoops Apocalypse
Title: Whoops Apocalypse
Character: Cabinet Minister
Released: May 6, 1986
Type: Movie
When a small British owned island in the Caribbean is invaded and the world's most dangerous terrorist kidnaps a member of the Royal family, the countdown to World War 3 begins. If anyone can prevent the oncoming apocalypse it's the American President, but her closest ally the British Prime Minister appears to have gone stark raving mad.
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Title: Blackadder
Character: Ross, a Lord
Released: June 15, 1983
Type: TV
Black Adder traces the deeply cynical and self-serving lineage of various Edmund Blackadders throughout British history, from the muck of the Middle Ages to the frontline of the First World War.
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Title: The Moomins
Character: Narrator
Released: November 19, 1978
Type: TV
A stop motion animated children's television series based on Tove Jansson's book series.
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Title: The Professionals
Character: Sir Alan Sternfield
Released: December 30, 1977
Type: TV
The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.
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Title: The New Avengers
Released: October 22, 1976
Type: TV
The New Avengers is a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series broadcast during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series The Avengers and was developed by Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens. A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the show picks up the adventures of John Steed and his team of Avengers fighting evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit, a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey, a former trainee with The Royal Ballet who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's previous female partners.
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Title: Rumpole of the Bailey
Released: December 17, 1975
Type: TV
Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.
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Under the Table You Must Go
Title: Under the Table You Must Go
Character: Self
Released: January 2, 1970
Type: Movie
A trip around the clubs, pubs and discotheques in London, England.
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Not a Hope in Hell
Title: Not a Hope in Hell
Released: October 1, 1960
Type: Movie
The efforts of a female Customs Officer to challenge smugglers who hide illicit liquor in a steam roller.
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Strictly Confidential
Title: Strictly Confidential
Released: January 1, 1959
Type: Movie
Two con-men just released from prison get straight back to their old tricks.
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The Magic Box
Title: The Magic Box
Character: Sitter in Bath Studio
Released: January 1, 1952
Type: Movie
Now old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once very different. As young and handsome William Green he changed his name to include his first wife's so that it sounded more impressive for the photographic portrait work he was so good at. But he was also an inventor and his search for a way to project moving pictures became an obsession that ultimately changed the life of all those he loved.
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Lilli Marlene
Title: Lilli Marlene
Character: Flight Lieutenant Murdoch / Capt. Wimpole
Released: December 8, 1950
Type: Movie
Lilli Marlene, a French girl working as a bar maid in her uncle's café in Benghazi, Libya, turns out to be the girl that the popular German wartime song Lili Marleen had been written for before the war, so both the British and the Germans try to use her for propaganda purposes - especially as it turns out that she can sing as well. When the Germans kidnap her in Cairo and she starts appearing in radio broadcasts from Berlin, her British soldier friends think that she's joined the enemy. They couldn't be more wrong, because after the war it turns out that her songs over the radio contained secret messages to London from British agents in Berlin.
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Golden Arrow
Title: Golden Arrow
Character: David Felton
Released: December 31, 1949
Type: Movie
On a journey from Paris to London, a Briton, a Frenchman and an American bond with each other and indulge in a romantic fantasy about a girl they see.
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It Happened in Soho
Title: It Happened in Soho
Character: Scott the News Reporter
Released: June 24, 1948
Type: Movie
Murder drama set in Soho involving a police inspector, a newspaper reporter and a country girl.
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One Exciting Night
Title: One Exciting Night
Character: Illusionist
Released: December 4, 1944
Type: Movie
A young singer meets a man who is the victim of a kidnap plot, and is assumed by the gang to be his girlfriend.
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I Thank You
Title: I Thank You
Character: Stinker
Released: October 20, 1941
Type: Movie
Classic comedy starring Arthur Askey. The perils, humiliations and humour of trying to run a second-rate theatrical company are further compounded when financial aid, given by the former famous music-hall star Lady Randall (Lily Morris), is withdrawn. Not to be defeated, the stars decide the show must go on and devise a plan to persuade her to reinvest
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The Ghost Train
Title: The Ghost Train
Character: Teddy Deakin
Released: May 5, 1941
Type: Movie
Mismatched travellers are stranded overnight at a lonely rural railway station. They soon learn of local superstition about a phantom train which is said to travel these parts at dead of night, carrying ghosts from a long-ago train wreck in the area.
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Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt
Title: Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt
Character: 'Stinker' Burton
Released: August 31, 1940
Type: Movie
Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt is a 1940 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde starring Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch as Oxford 'scholars'. The film is one of many to be made based on the farce Charley's Aunt. Taking inspiration from a well-known Victorian play, a modern-day prankster poses as a wealthy woman in a ploy to prevent him and his friends from being expelled from college.
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Band Waggon
Title: Band Waggon
Character: Stinker Murdoch
Released: March 23, 1940
Type: Movie
A gang of spies held up in a haunted castle gives this team of celebrated British wireless comedians plenty of scope for laughs.
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The Terror
Title: The Terror
Character: Detective Lewis
Released: May 2, 1938
Type: Movie
For ten years, The Terror has laughed at both police and public. And for ten years, two of his erstwhile associates, Joe Conner and 'Soapy' Marks, have plotted revenge on the mastermind whose double-crossing sent them to Dartmoor prison without their share of the bullion stolen in a daring raid.
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Over She Goes
Title: Over She Goes
Character: Sergeant Oliver
Released: August 16, 1937
Type: Movie
Plot and counter-plot jostle each other in this romantic comedy about a music-hall star who finds himself much in demand when he inherits a title!
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Looking on the Bright Side
Title: Looking on the Bright Side
Character: Dancer (uncredited)
Released: March 14, 1932
Type: Movie
Gracie Fields' second film Looking on the Bright Side was a smash hit film of 1932. It contains a lot of her biggest hit songs of the period.