Stephen Murray (actor)

Stephen Umfreville Hay Murray (6 September 1912 – 31 March 1983) was an English cinema, radio, theatre and television actor.

A member of Clan Murray headed by the Duke of Atholl, he was born in Partney, Lincolnshire, the son of the Reverend Charles Murray, Rector of Kirby Knowle, Yorkshire, and Mabel (née Umfreville). He was the great-grandson of the Right Reverend George Murray, Bishop of Rochester, while the diplomat Sir Ralph Murray was his elder brother. He was educated at Brentwood School, Essex and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. He was also the great uncle of the comedian Al Murray.

Murray found his greatest fame as the new Number 1, later promoted to Lieutenant Commander in The Navy Lark on BBC Radio. His film debut was as the second police officer who interrupts an amorous Eliza and Freddy (Wendy Hiller and David Tree) in Pygmalion (1938). He was Gladstone to John Gielgud's Disraeli in The Prime Minister in 1941. He played Dr. Stephan Petrovitch in the 1943 Ealing war film Undercover. Among his other larger film roles were Uncle Henry in London Belongs to Me (1948, heavily made-up to look several decades older) and the lead in Terence Fisher's Four Sided Triangle (1953). He once again appeared under heavy make-up as the elderly Dr Manette in A Tale of Two Cities (1958).