Murray Matheson

Biography

Matheson was born in Australia, where he grew up on a 3,000-acre sheep station. When he was 12, he saw a production of Sally by a touring company, and that experience sparked his desire to be an actor.

His first principal stage performance was in Roberta at Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne Australia in 1934. His London debut was at the Palladium in Band Wagon (1939), and his New York debut was as Captain Worthy in The Relapse, as part of the Theatre Guild (1950). Matheson performed in dozens of plays, including some major tours, until 1982.

Matheson's first film appearance was as Joe Lawson in The Way to the Stars, a.k.a. Johnny in the Clouds (1945). He played the clown in the classic The Twilight Zone episode Five Characters in Search of an Exit. He made guest appearances in two 1964 episodes of CBS's Perry Mason: murder victim B.K. Doran in "The Case of the Accosted Accountant." and murderer Howard Hopkins in "The Case of the Wooden Nickels."

His most remembered film and television roles include:

In "The Reversed Blade" (February 4, 1961), Matheson portrays John Tundall, the employer of Billy the Kid (Clu Gulager) in the NBC western television series, The Tall Man. The real employer is rancher John Tunstall. In the story line, Tundall grows indignant when the con-man Ben Webster (John Archer), who stole Tundall's wife and $10,000 eight years earlier, arrives in Lincoln, New Mexico, the setting of The Tall Man. Jeanne Cooper plays Tundall's former wife, now Mrs. Elmira Webster. John Tunstall died at twenty-four, but Matheson was forty-nine when he assumed the role as the employer of Billy the Kid

In 1960 and 1961, he was cast as Geoffrey Carey in "The Archer's Ring" and as the High Priest in "The Perils of Penrose", respectively, on the ABC series, Adventures in Paradise, starring Gardner McKay. In 1961, he played the lead guest-starring role in the episode "A Rope for Charlie Munday" on another ABC adventure series, The Islanders, co-starring William Reynolds. In 1966 guest starred in Bewitched season 5 episode 28 " Samantha's Good News ". In 1970, he appeared in an episode of the ABC crime drama The Silent Force, and in 1978 he appeared in the "Murder! Murder!" episode of the NBC crime drama The Eddie Capra Mysteries.

Matheson's ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.