J. Harold Murray

J. Harold Murray (February 17, 1891 – December 11, 1940) was an American baritone singer and actor. For more than a decade, during the Roaring Twenties and the Depression Thirties, he contributed to the development of musical theater by bridging vaudeville, operetta and the modern American musical. The most popular American songs he introduced on Broadway included "Autumn in New York" (1934, Thumbs Up!, words and music by Vernon Duke); "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" and "Soft Lights and Sweet Music" (1932, Face the Music, Moss Hart and Irving Berlin); "Rio Rita", "The Kinkajou" and "The Rangers Song" (1927, Rio Rita, Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy); and "Mandalay" (1921, The Whirl of New York, (Gustave Kerker, Hugh Morton and Edgar Smith).

Born Harry Rulten on February 17, 1891 in South Berwick, Maine, "Hal" Murray served in the Merchant Marine during World War I. After the war and a short apprenticeship in vaudeville, he made his debut on the musical theatre stage as J. Harold Murray in out-of-town productions of Arthur Hammerstein's Always You and Frank Tinney's Sometime, both in 1920. He debuted on Broadway at the age of 30 in J.J. Shubert's, The Passing Show of 1921. During the rest of the decade, he starred in 10 musicals, and separately co-starred with Eddie Cantor (Make It Snappy, 1922), Fred Allen (Vogues of 1924) and Joe E. Brown (Captain Jinks, 1925). Other shows were: The Midnight Rounders of 1921, The Whirl of New York (1921), Springtime of Youth (1922), Caroline (1923), China Rose (1925) with Olga Steck, and Castles in the Air (1926) with Vivienne Segal. In February 1927, he starred in Rio Rita, a Flo Ziegfeld production, which was so successful after it opened the Ziegfeld Theatre that the musical Show Boat, which had been scheduled to open in April, was delayed until the end of the year. In Hollywood from 1929–30, he appeared in the William Fox Studio musicals: Cameo Kirby with Norma Terris; Happy Days; Married In Hollywood with Norma Terris; Women Everywhere with Fifi D'Orsay; and Under Suspicion.