.

J. Harold Murray was an American baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

. For more than a decade, during the Roaring Twenties

Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, principally in North America, but also in London, Berlin and Paris for a period of sustained economic prosperity. The phrase was meant to emphasize the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism...

 and the Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 Thirties, he contributed to the development of musical theater by bridging vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

, operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

 and the modern American musical. The most popular American songs he introduced on Broadway included "Autumn in New York"

Autumn in New York (song)

"Autumn in New York" is a jazz standard composed by Vernon Duke in 1934 for the Broadway musical Thumbs Up! which opened on December 27, 1934, performed by J. Harold Murray...

 (1934, Thumbs Up!, words and music by Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke was a Russian-American composer/songwriter, who also wrote under his original name Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love" with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche, "I Can't Get Started" with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, "April in Paris" with lyrics by E. Y...

); "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee

Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee

"Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" was a song by Irving Berlin appearing in the musical comedy Face the Music, which opened in 1932. The song, set in a self-service restaurant modeled on the Horn & Hardart Automat, was sung in the play by a group of once-wealthy citizens who were awaiting better...

" and "Soft Lights and Sweet Music" (1932, Face the Music

Face the Music (musical)

Face the Music is a musical, the first collaboration between Moss Hart and Irving Berlin . Face the Music opened on Broadway in 1932, and has had several subsequent regional and New York stagings...

, Moss Hart

Moss Hart

Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...

 and Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...

); "Rio Rita", "The Kinkajou" and "The Rangers Song" (1927, Rio Rita

Rio Rita (musical)

Rio Rita is a 1927 stage musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson , music by Harry Tierney, lyrics by Joseph McCarthy, and produced by Florenz Ziegfeld...

, Harry Tierney

Harry Tierney

Harry Austin Tierney was a successful American composer of musical theatre, best known for long-running hits such as Irene , Broadway's longest-running show of the era , Kid Boots and Rio Rita , one of the first musicals to be turned into a talking picture .Born...

 and Joseph McCarthy

Joseph McCarthy (lyricist)

Joseph McCarthy was an American lyricist whose most famous songs include You Made Me Love You, and I'm Always Chasing Rainbows, based upon the haunting melody from the middle section of Chopin's "Fantasie Impromptu".McCarthy, who was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, was a frequent collaborator...

); and "Mandalay" (1921, The Whirl of New York

The Whirl of New York

The Whirl of New York is a Broadway musical that premiered at Winter Garden Theatre on June 13, 1921. It was an expanded and substantially re-worked version of The Belle of New York . The show was billed not as a revival but as "founded on The Belle of New York."...

, (Gustave Kerker

Gustave Kerker

Gustave Adolph Kerker was a German composer and conductor who made a career in London and America. He became a musical director for Broadway theatre productions and wrote the music for a series of musicals.-Life and career:...

, Hugh Morton and Edgar Smith).

Biography

Born Harry Rulten on February 17, 1891 in South Berwick, Maine

South Berwick, Maine

South Berwick is a town in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 7,220 at the 2010 census. South Berwick is home to Berwick Academy, a private, co-educational university-preparatory day school founded in 1791...

, "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

Arthur Hammerstein

Arthur Hammerstein , was the son of Oscar Hammerstein I and uncle of Oscar Hammerstein II, was an opera producer and one of the writers of the song "Because of You," a major hit for Tony Bennett in 1951. Hammerstein wrote the song in 1940. It was used in the film I Was an American Spy...

'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

Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...

 (Make It Snappy, 1922), Fred Allen

Fred Allen

Fred Allen was an American comedian whose absurdist, topically pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny, but it...

 (Vogues of 1924) and Joe E. Brown

Joe E. Brown (comedian)

Joseph Evans Brown was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. In 1902 at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville...

 (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

Castles in the Air

Castles in the Air is a musical comedy, with a book and lyrics by Raymond W. Peck and music by Percy Wenrich . The story concerns two young men, Monty Blair and John Brown, who mistake an exclusive Westchester resort for an inn. They decide to pretend to be nobility, and Monty introduces John as...

(1926) with Vivienne Segal

Vivienne Segal

Vivienne Sonia Segal was an American actress and singer.Segal was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is best remembered for creating the role of Vera Simpson in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's Pal Joey and introduced the song "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"...

. 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

William Fox (producer)

William Fox born Fried Vilmos was a pioneering Hungarian American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s...

 Studio musicals: Cameo Kirby

Cameo Kirby

Cameo Kirby is a 1923 silent drama film directed by John Ford and featured Jean Arthur in her onscreen debut. It was Ford's first film credited as John Ford instead of Jack Ford. It was based on a play by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson. The story had been filmed as a silent before in 1915...

with Norma Terris

Norma Terris

Norma Terris was an American musical theatre star. Her mother, a singer, named her after the heroine of Bellini's opera, Norma....

; Happy Days

Happy Days (1929 film)

Happy Days is an 80 minute musical film, notable for being the first feature film shown entirely in widescreen anywhere in the world. Happy Days (1929) is an 80 minute musical film, notable for being the first feature film shown entirely in widescreen anywhere in the world. Happy Days (1929) is an...

; Married In Hollywood

Married in Hollywood

Married in Hollywood is an American musical film. The only known footage to survive is a 12-minute fragment from the final reel in Multicolor at UCLA Film and Television Archive. The film is also known as Maritati ad Hollywood in Italy and Pantremmenoi sto Hollywood in Greece...

with Norma Terris

Norma Terris

Norma Terris was an American musical theatre star. Her mother, a singer, named her after the heroine of Bellini's opera, Norma....

; Women Everywhere with Fifi D'Orsay

Fifi D'Orsay

-Biography:Born Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier in Montreal, Quebec, as a young typist, filled with the desire to become an actress, she went to New York City. There, she found work in The Greenwich Village Follies after an audition in which she sang the song "Yes, We Have No Bananas' in French...

; and Under Suspicion.

Returning to New York City, Hal starred in the Moss Hart

Moss Hart

Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...

-Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...

 musical Face the Music, Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...

's East Wind,, Thumbs Up, and Venus in Silk, a Laurence Schwab operetta that closed out-of-town (Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.) before reaching Broadway. Murray retired from the Broadway stage in 1935. He sang on a Hartford, Conn. radio show weekly for three years. He also was active in business, summer stock (The Only Girl, 1938; Knickerbocker Holiday, 1939, at The Player's Theatre, Clinton, Connecticut

Clinton, Connecticut

Clinton is a town located on Long Island Sound in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 13,094 at the 2000 census. The town center along the shore line was listed as a census-designated place by the U.S...

); and performed in several musical film shorts for Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures

-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...

 (Nite in a Night Club, 1934; The Singing Bandit, 1937; Somewhere in Paris, 1938; Wild and Bully 1939), RKO (Phony Boy, 1937; Under a Gypsy Moon 1938) and Vitaphone

Vitaphone

Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...

(Who Was That Girl, 1934; The Flame Song, 1934) during the next five years, Murray developed nephritis in the spring of 1940. He died of the disease on December 11 at the age of 49.

Modern theater musicals emerged from vaudeville and operettas, and J. Harold Murray played an important role in their early development. His acting and strong baritone performances of songs, such as "Rio Rita", "The Ranger’s Song", "Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee", "Soft Lights and Sweet Music", and "New York in Autumn" were notable then, and his introducing them on the Broadway stage contributed to their withstanding the test of time into the 21st Century.