Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website Message Boards

They had a small write-up about this years Audie Days and a picture of Michael Dante standing at the statue at the Cotton Museum.

They also had this under Cowboy Quotes: Audie Murphy in September 1968:"I keep turning down liquor and cigarette commercials. I don't believe that stuff is good for kids to see. Maybe it's a matter of not being a 100 percent prostitute. But I just can't do it."

Thanks to Boyd Magers and his Western Clippings newsletter for helping keep Audie's name in front of the folks who still love the western movies and TV shows.

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"You lead from the front." Audie Murphy, WWII's Most Decorated Soldier

Very cool, thank you Bob!

Bob sent me the page and here it is with Michael at the statue. That was the day after we all ate lunch at the VFW, we went by the statue and probably spent an hour taking pics around the statue and in the nearby trees. Debbie and our girls took a bunch with Mary Jane Dante in the trees and they were some good shots.

This is an excellent quote, and worth requoting. I really appreciate the scan of the magazine page too, Bob. Thank you for posting both of these.

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Richard L. Rodgers
Webmaster
Audie Murphy Memorial Website

That quote is one of the more interesting ones that is credited to Audie. It gives one a lot to think about. Since he was occasionally shown either drinking or smoking in his films and TV appearances, did he mean that at least he didn't get paid for making commercials promoting the habits or did the phrase "100% prostituting myself" refer to how he may have felt about earning a living that started with his fame following the public revelation of his military career. We know that thought bothered him because he referred to the relationship between the two careers often, but how much did it bother him? We will probably never know. His fans, like all of us, are so happy he turned his military fame into a career in Hollywood, but this quote really makes one think.

I believe the quote's from a longer interview where he first talks about the decline in the quality of the projects offered to him and the size of the potential paychecks involved, and compares himself, with some dry humor, to an "over-the-hill prostitute." So he's saying that he draws the line at scandalizing his younger fans with liquor/smoking endorsements. (I believe the Quiet American, which flopped, was the only role that required him to smoke on screen, and most of his characters who are willing to drink are portrayed as flawed or misguided people-Jesse James in Kansas Raiders, Cash Zachary in The Unforgiven. Cases where the film is pretty clearly saying "Kids, don't grow up to be like this guy.")

He seems to have been extremely wary about merchandising deals-the only print ads I've seen him do involved menswear of some kind, or guns, (in other words, things that he would probably have owned and used personally) and one "hope chest" ad involving him and Wanda when they were still dating. He did do some promotional work later in his life (see the recent Isaacson & Slockbower thread) but it appears to have been mostly what we would call "business to business" or maybe "business to investor" rather than aimed at the general public.

He was profoundly ambivalent about the movie business. It's safe to say that he enjoyed the money and some of the perks, and found his share of friends in the film industry, but he did not like the movers and shakers, and he generally wasn't impressed with the finished product. He said once in the last years of his life that the reason he tried to stay in the film business (with A Time For Dying) was that he was too old a dog to learn new tricks.

Good comments, Christie. I just watched "The Man" last night and was absolutely impressed by the job he did in that show. I actually watched it the night it was broadcast originally and I believe that Ford Startime was basically live performances. In any case, he should have been very proud of that performance. We don't see him like that very often. If he looked at the show through clear eyes, I would hope he would take a bit of time off from saying he wasn't as good at acting as the next guy and saw himself as someone who really knew his craft.

I had made a VHS tape of the show when it was re-broadcast years after the fact but the tape, along with at least a dozen other of his movies, was stolen, probably so the thief could tape over them.

That's a bummer Who steals videotapes anyway, in this day and age?

There's also a small item about Posse From Hell in this issue.

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Betty

Yes Betty, I read that several days after I posted the other. A nice little piece on the film. I found the piece on David's book and the Michael Dante picture and sent it to David. I still haven't read the whole newsletter. There is so much in one of the newsletters that it sometimes takes me a week to read it.

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"You lead from the front." Audie Murphy, WWII's Most Decorated Soldier

The actual quote in full from 1968 was:

"I feel like a prostitute who is a little over the hill. I get all kinds of promotional offers for movies. But instead of my usual price of $100,000 per picture, they offer $25,000 and a percentage of the profits you never see. Then when people find you need the money in this town, they cut their offer by 80 percent. And I keep turning down liquor and cigarette commercials. I don't believe they are good for kids, I guess it is a matter of not being a 100 per cent prostitute. I'll come out of my present financial difficulties, I'll be okay and at least I've been able to stand up and count my friends."

Thanks,


Dave

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"I believe in all the men who stood up against the enemy, taking their beatings without whimper and their triumphs without boasting. The men who went and would go again to hell and back to preserve what our country thinks right and decent."

Thanks, Dave! The full version is a great quote, with that parting shot about knowing who his friends really are.

Dave, the full version is a gem. Thanks for putting it out ... it says volumes and speaks magnificently to Audie's character.

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Richard L. Rodgers
Webmaster
Audie Murphy Memorial Website

The full version of the quote is great. It was one of the first things I read on Audie after I found out who he was from the book "American Heroes of the 20th Century". As for his smoking in The Quiet American, if you watch the film he has the lit cigarette in his hand as he and Michael Redgrave are talking about Phoung and he never puts it to his mouth. It just stayed in his hand for the entire scene and that scene was the only time he had a cigarette in the movie. Now his appearance in Suspicion: "The Flight" on NBC in Nov 1957 where he played the pilot he was shown smoking but according to what Spec McClure had said "Audie did not want to have to smoke as he did not think it was good for kids to see someone they looked up to smoking but the producers said the tobacco company was sponsoring the program and all the actors were required to smoke in order to be in the show. Audie finally agreed to do it but he would not inhale and you saw the smoke come out of his mouth but not through his nose so I guess you can say they both made their point." I think that was the only scene in that TV program where he was seen smoking. He was lucky that he acted in a genre where it was OK for the characters not to have to smoke and he did not end up having to deal with the issue of smoking very much in his career.

I agree with Richard that the quote speaks volumes on Audie's real character and it certainly made an impression on me when I read it in the newspaper article in 1968.

Sharon

Richard:


Yes, I like this one in particular. It does indeed speak to what a great person audie was and how he did not place the almighty $$$$$ above his morals.


Thanks,


Dave

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"I believe in all the men who stood up against the enemy, taking their beatings without whimper and their triumphs without boasting. The men who went and would go again to hell and back to preserve what our country thinks right and decent."