Born in Washington, North Carolina, Hamilton displayed an early interest in performing during his days at Washington High School just before America's entry into World War II. Bad hearing kept him from enlisting, so he moved to New York City as a 19-year-old to find a career on stage.[citation needed]
Hamilton's best-known performance[3] is as Larry Vaughn, the mayor of Amity, in the Steven Spielberg thriller Jaws (1975).[2] Hamilton reprised the role in the sequel, Jaws 2 in 1978.[4] He had agreed to reprise the role again in Jaws: The Revenge, but died in 1986, before production began.[5] Other notable big-screen appearances include the critically acclaimed 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder with James Stewart, in which he played the bartender Al Pacquette, who gives testimony in the murder of Barney Quill. He also worked with Stewart in The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) and The FBI Story (1959).
The actor made dozens of TV guest appearances. In 1955, Hamilton guest-starred on the NBClegal dramaJustice, based on case files of the Legal Aid Society of New York. Hamilton appeared in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Deadly Double" (1958) as murderer Johnny Hale the shadowy boyfriend of a woman with a split personality who is the sister of Perry Mason's client.
In 1957 he played a conniving cowboy who sets up Chester for a murder charge as "Jake Buley" in the Gunsmoke episode "Chester’s Murder". In 1959, he appeared in a few episodes of the crime drama The Untouchables,[6] as well as co-starring in the second episode of Rod Serling's television series The Twilight Zone, "One for the Angels", playing Mr. Death opposite Ed Wynn.[7] Also, Hamilton portrayed Calhoun, on (S4E9) of Gunsmoke, which aired in April, 1959. His character is swindled in a land deal along with other members of a wagon train & his wife tries to leave Calhoun with the swindler.
Hamilton complained in a newspaper article about being typecast, stating "After I was first cast as a heavy on The Untouchables, I couldn't ever persuade them [producers] that I could also do something else."[8] While comic roles were rare for Hamilton during his Hollywood career, he had one opposite Andy Griffith in the 1958 military comedy No Time for Sergeants, as well as an appearance in Steven Spielberg's raucous comedy 1941, released in 1979. He also appeared in a comedic guest spot on Mama's Family in the second-season episode "Mama Cries Uncle" as Uncle Roy. He was more often cast in dramatic works, such as the science-fiction drama Seconds (1966), which starred Rock Hudson. In his most high-profile performances, Hamilton appeared with Paul Newman in The Hustler (1961), playing Findley, a wealthy billiards player who gambles for high stakes, and with Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) as Mr. Robinson, husband of the seductress Mrs. Robinson. In 1975, Hamilton appeared again with Newman in The Drowning Pool. He also worked with Robert Redford in a pair of films, The Way We Were (1973) and Brubaker (1980). In early 1982 he appeared as a judge presiding over an impromptu court case on an episode of Bret Maverick.
For many years before and during his film career, Hamilton was a prominent dramatic stage actor, earning a Tony Award nomination for his role in the 1965 production of Absence of a Cello. New York Times theater critic Brooks Atkinson praised his work in the play Stockade, which was based on a part of the James Jones novel From Here to Eternity: "Murray Hamilton is an ideal Prewitt. Modest in manner, pleasant of voice, he has a steel-like spirit that brings Prewitt honestly to life."[1] When the actor was suffering from cancer and found film roles harder to come by, his old co-star George C. Scott helped out by getting him a part in the made-for-television movieThe Last Days of Patton (1986).
Death
Hamilton died of lung cancer at age 63,[2] and is interred at Oakdale Cemetery in his native Washington, North Carolina.[9] He and his wife, Terri DeMarco Hamilton (of The DeMarco Sisters), had a son, David.[2]
