Top 5 Actors Audie Murphy Hated THE MOST. HT
Most decorated American soldier of World War II, Audi Murphy. >> Top five actors Audi Murphy hated the most. Hollywood has always loved its heroes, the tough guys, the warriors, the men who stared death in the face and never blinked. But there was one man in Tinsel Town who didn’t need to act tough because Audi Murphy had already killed more than 200 enemy soldiers before his 21st birthday.
Most people remember Murphy as America’s most decorated war hero. The babyfaced farm boy from Texas who became a legend on the battlefields of Europe. But in Hollywood, Murphy was known as something else entirely. The man you never ever wanted to cross. Picture this. A crowded party in the Hollywood Hills. Mid 1950s.
The champagne is flowing. Movie stars are laughing. And in the corner, a giant of a man, 6’2, drunk and looking for a fight, is bullying one of the guests. His name was Lawrence Tierney. And he was famous for two things. playing gangsters on screen and being one in real life. Then someone taps him on the shoulder.
Tierney turns around, ready to demolish whoever dared interrupt him. But what he sees stops him cold. It’s a man barely 5’5, slender, almost delicatel looking with the kind of face that belonged on a choir boy, not a soldier. Audi Murphy. What happened next took less than 10 seconds, but Hollywood would whisper about it for decades.
You see, Murphy wasn’t just another actor playing dress up in cowboy boots. He was the real thing. And in a town built on beautiful lies, he became a living reminder of ugly truths. The kind of truths that made powerful men uncomfortable. The kind that ended friendships and sometimes ended careers. Today, we’re counting down the five actors that Audi Murphy despised most.
These aren’t just stories about professional rivalries or petty jealousies. These are tales of genuine hatred born from clashing egos, wounded pride, and in Murphy’s case, the invisible wounds of war that never truly healed. From jealous rages to barroom brawls, from ideological warfare to actual threats of violence, these feuds reveal a side of old Hollywood that the studio system worked overtime to hide.
Because the truth is, America’s greatest war hero was also one of Hollywood’s most dangerous men. And by the end of this video, you’ll understand why even the biggest stars in Hollywood learned to fear the quiet intensity of Audi Murphy. But we’re not starting with the most shocking story. Oh no, we’re building to that because the final confrontation on our list, it nearly ended in it would change Murphy’s career forever.
Let’s begin with number five. Number five, Tony Curtis, The Marriage That War Destroyed. In 1950, Audi Murphy was filming a western called Sierra in the stunning red rock country of Utah. He should have been on top of the world. He was a movie star now, a hero, and he was married to one of Hollywood’s most beautiful women, actress Wanda Hendris.
But war doesn’t end just because the shooting stops. The nightmares had started almost immediately after Murphy returned from Europe. He’d wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, reaching for weapons that weren’t there. Some nights he’d sleep with a loaded pistol under his pillow. Other nights he wouldn’t sleep at all.
He’d sit in the dark watching, waiting for an enemy that existed only in his mind. This was before we had a name for it. Before became part of our vocabulary back then. You were just supposed to be a man. Suck it up. Move on. And Murphy tried. God, how he tried. But the war had followed him home and it was destroying his marriage.
Enter Tony Curtis. Now Curtis was everything Murphy wasn’t. tall, handsome in that Hollywood way, smooth, charming, the kind of guy who could light up a room just by walking into it. At 25, he was on the verge of superstardom, and he knew it. On the set of Sierra, Curtis played a supporting role, but off camera, he was the life of the party.
Always joking, always laughing, and always, always talking to Wanda Hendris. To anyone else, it was innocent co-stars being friendly, making conversation between takes. But to Murphy, already paranoid from his war trauma, already watching his marriage crumble in his hands, it was something else entirely.
He would watch them from across the set. Curtis, with his easy smile and relaxed manner, Wanda actually smiling for once, something she rarely did around Murphy anymore. and something dark would rise up in his chest. The confrontation when it came wasn’t loud. Murphy rarely got loud. That was part of what made him terrifying.
He would just get very, very quiet. One afternoon, after watching Curtis and Wanda laugh together for the third time that day, Murphy walked up to them. Curtis saw him coming and thinking nothing of it, flashed that movie star grin. Hey, Audie. We were just talking about stay away from my wife. Five words delivered in a tone so cold it could freeze.
Curtis’s smile died on his face. Now, most actors would have laughed it off, made a joke, smoothed things over, but Curtis made a critical mistake. He tried to explain, to justify, to treat Murphy like a jealous husband who just needed reassurance. Murphy didn’t need reassurance. Murphy needed Curtis to understand that this wasn’t a request.
It was a warning and there wouldn’t be another one. From that moment on, Tony Curtis ceased to exist in Audi Murphy’s world. They finished the film in icy silence. Murphy would turn and walk away if Curtis entered a room. He refused to speak his name. And years later, long after his marriage to Wanda had ended in divorce, just as the war had ensured it would, Murphy still wouldn’t acknowledge Curtis’s existence.
Was it fair? Probably not. Curtis had done nothing wrong. But fairness is a luxury of peace time. And in Murphy’s mind, he was still at war, fighting an enemy he couldn’t see, protecting territory he was already losing. This is the tragedy of Audi Murphy. The war had turned him into something magnificent and terrible.
A hero, yes, but also a man so damaged by violence that he saw threats everywhere. Even in a friendly co-stars smile. Tony Curtis would go on to have a legendary career. Some like it hot. The Defiant Ones, Spartacus. But he never forgot the ice in Audi Murphy’s eyes that day in Utah. The look that said Murphy had before.
And under the right circumstances, he might again. But if Curtis learned to fear Murphy from one cold stare, our next actor would learn it from something far more direct. Because Kirk Douglas was about to discover what happens when you underestimate a war hero. Number four, Kirk Douglas.
The giant who blinked first. Kirk Douglas was a force of nature in the 1950s Hollywood. The cleft chin, the intensity, the raw masculinity that blazed off the screen. He was champion. He was Spartacus. He was a man who fought his way up from poverty to become one of the most powerful actors in the industry.
And Kirk Douglas did not back down for anyone except once. It was at Romanoffs, the legendary restaurant on Rodeo Drive where movie stars went to see and be seen. Picture it. Red leather booths, crystal chandeliers, the air thick with cigarette smoke and expensive perfume. This was where deals were made.
Where careers were born or died over martinis. Kirk Douglas held court of his usual table, surrounded by admirers. At nearly 6 feet tall with shoulders like a linebacker, he commanded attention just by existing. Some say he was there with his producing partner. Others claim he was meeting with a studio executive, but everyone agrees on what happened next.
Audi Murphy walked in. Now Murphy rarely frequented places like Romanoffs. He found Hollywood’s social scene exhausting. All that false laughter, all those carefully constructed personas. But someone had dragged him there. Probably another actor who didn’t know any better. Douglas spotted him immediately.
How could he not? Murphy was already famous. The medals, the heroism. But seeing him in person, Douglas couldn’t help himself. He leaned over to his companion and said something. Something about Murphy’s size, his boyish face, something dismissive. The words carried. Murphy’s eyes locked onto Douglas from across the room.
And here’s where the story gets interesting. Because Douglas, who had stared down Roman gladiators and boxing champions on screen, who prided himself on never showing weakness, felt something he rarely experienced. Fear. Not the explosive kind. Not the fear of immediate violence, but something colder.
Something in Murphy’s gaze that said, “I have seen men die. I have men.” And you? You’re just an actor. Douglas recovered quickly. He was Kirk Douglas after all. He wouldn’t be intimidated by some little. But that thought died before it finished forming because Murphy was still staring.
Not angry, not threatening, just assessing the way a soldier assesses an enemy position. Calculating, measuring. And Douglas realized in that moment that every hero he’d ever played, was just pretend, while the man across the room, the one barely 5 and 1/2 ft tall, had lived the truth that Douglas could only simulate.
They never became friends. How could they? Douglas was Hollywood royalty, a king in his domain. Murphy was an outsider, a reminder that all their battles were choreographed, all their courage scripted. Years later, Kirk Douglas would describe Murphy in interviews. He chose his words carefully, as men do when they talk about someone who genuinely unsettled them.
He called Murphy a vicious little guy. But listen to how he said it. Not with contempt, with respect, and yes, with a touch of fear, because vicious was exactly right. Not cruel, not mean-spirited, but dangerous, like a wounded animal that’s learned to survive by striking first. The war had made Murphy vicious in the most literal sense, full of violence, yes, but also something more.
full of the knowledge that civilization is just a thin veneer and underneath it the law of survival still applies. Douglas understood power. He’d clawed his way to the top of Hollywood through sheer force of will. But Murphy Murphy understood something deeper. He understood that real power doesn’t come from the size of your presence or the volume of your voice.
It comes from the absolute certainty that you’ll do whatever it takes. Douglas never underestimated Audi Murphy again. But he also never got close to him. Some distances are safer to maintain. Which brings us to number three. And this is where the stories stop being about cold stairs and start being about actual violence.
Because Lawrence Tierney was about to make the worst mistake of his life. He was going to pick a fight with a man who’d survived 240 combat missions. Number three, Lawrence Tierney. 10 seconds in Hollywood hell. Lawrence Tierney was a problem. Not just a difficult actor or a temperamental artist, a genuine certified problem.
6’2, built like a truck with a face that looked like it had been carved from granite with a dull knife. He’d made his name playing criminals. Dillinger in 1945 made him a star. But the truth was Tyranny wasn’t really acting. The violence, the menace, the barely controlled rage, that was all real. By the mid1 1950s, his arrest record was almost as impressive as his filmography.
Bar fights, assault charges, drunk and disorderly conduct. Hollywood tolerated him because he was good at what he did and because frankly most people were afraid of him. Most people. The party was at someone’s home in the Hollywood Hills. one of those affairs where producers mingled with starlets, where deals were made over cocktails, where everyone pretended they were having more fun than they actually were.
The year was probably 1954, maybe 1955. The exact date doesn’t matter. What matters is that Lawrence Tierney showed up drunk, aggressively drunk. He’d been there maybe 20 minutes when he started in on another guest. No one remembers what started it. Maybe the guy looked at him wrong. Maybe he didn’t look at him at all.
With Tierney, the excuse didn’t matter. What mattered was that he decided someone was going to have a bad night. The victim was backing away, hands up, trying to deescalate, but Tierney was advancing, getting louder, more aggressive. He’d done this dance a hundred times before. He knew how it ended with him standing over someone with on his knuckles with everyone else too scared to intervene.
Except this time someone did intervene. Murphy had been watching from near the bar. He’d seen this type before. The bully. The coward dressed up in muscles and anger. In the war, these were the guys who fell apart when the shooting started. All that size, all that bluster, meaningless when the bullets flew. He sat down his drink and walked across the room.
The crowd parted without realizing they were doing it. Later, they would all remember that part, how people just moved. How a pathway opened up between Murphy and Tyranny like the Red Sea splitting for Moses. Murphy walked right up to Tierney. Had to look up at him, actually. Tierney was easily 8 in taller, probably had 80 lb on him.
And Murphy said very quietly, “That’s enough.” Now, Tyranny had been interrupted before. Usually, he’d just redirect his attention. Two victims for the price of one. But something about Murphy’s voice made him pause. It wasn’t the words. It was the tone. The absolute absence of fear. Still, Tyranny was who he was. He’d built a career on intimidation, and this little pretty boy was ruining his show.
“Get lost, kid!” Tierney growled. “Before you get hurt,” Murphy didn’t move, didn’t blink, just stood there, hands at his sides, completely relaxed. But his eyes, God, his eyes, everyone who was there remembered his eyes, cold, empty, like looking into a “I said,” Murphy repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.
“That’s enough,” Tyranny made his move. He was a brawler, had been fighting in bars since he was 15. He knew a sucker punch when he saw the opportunity. This little runt wasn’t ready, wasn’t expecting it. All Tierney had to do was. But Murphy wasn’t there anymore. What happened next, everyone saw. No one could quite explain it.
Tierney threw his punch, a right hook that would have taken Murphy’s head off, but Murphy slipped it. Not dramatically, just a slight shift of weight, and suddenly he was inside Tyrann’s guard. Then it was over. Murphy didn’t beat Tyranny up. That’s not what happened. This wasn’t a boxing match or a movie fight scene.
This was combat. Quick, efficient, brutal. Murphy’s elbow struck Tyranny’s solar plexus. As Tierney doubled over, gasping for air, Murphy grabbed his arm, twisted, and used Tierney’s own momentum to drive him face first into the floor. The entire sequence took maybe 3 seconds, maybe four. Tierney lay there stunned.
The wind knocked out of him, his arm twisted behind his back at an angle that made everyone wse. And Murphy just held him there, applying just enough pressure to make it clear he could break the arm anytime he wanted. “I said that’s enough,” Murphy repeated, still quiet, still calm, like he was commenting on the weather.
Then he let go, stood up, straightened his jacket, and walked back to his drink. The party was over after that. People made their excuses, and left. Tierney eventually picked himself up and staggered out. His pride hurt worse than his body. But the story spread through the stuntmen community first. They loved it, finally seeing a bully get his comeuppance.
Then through the rest of Hollywood, and the legend grew. Audi Murphy wasn’t just a war hero. He was still a soldier. Still deadly and still very, very dangerous. You might think that’s the most shocking story on our list. A barroom takedown of Hollywood’s toughest tough guy. But you’d be wrong. Because the next two feuds weren’t just about personal sllights or drunken confrontations.
They were about something deeper. something that cut to the core of who Audie Murphy was and they nearly destroyed him. Number two, John Wayne, the fake hero versus the real one. John Wayne never went to war. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. The Duke. The man who defined American masculinity for generations.
The ultimate warrior on screen. Never served a day in combat. He was 34 when Pearl Harbor was attacked, eligible for the draft. He applied for deferments, claimed his family needed him, his career needed him, and while men died on beaches in Normandy and jungles in the Pacific, John Wayne stayed in Hollywood playing heroes.
Audi Murphy never said this publicly, not directly. He was too much of a gentleman, too conscious of his public image as America’s hero. But everyone who knew him understood he despised John Wayne. Not personal hatred worse than that. Contempt. In 1960, Wayne was preparing his passion project, The Alamo.
He’d mortgaged his house, put everything on the line. This wasn’t just another movie for Wayne. This was his statement to the world, his definition of courage, of sacrifice, of what it meant to be an American hero. And he was terrified that Audi Murphy would expose him as a fraud. Think about it from Wayne’s perspective.
Here he is about to direct a movie about men fighting and dying for freedom. And just down the road in Hollywood is a man who actually did that. who more enemy soldiers than most entire platoon who earned the Medal of Honor. Every single decoration for valor the United States military could give him. Murphy should have been in the Alamo.
It’s almost absurd that he wasn’t the most decorated soldier in American history playing in the most patriotic movie ever made. It writes itself, but Wayne didn’t call. Oh, they tried to make it seem like scheduling conflicts, like Murphy was just too busy with other projects. But everyone in Hollywood knew the truth.
Wayne couldn’t have Murphy on that set. Couldn’t risk the comparison because next to the real thing, Wayne’s performance would be revealed for what it was, just acting. Murphy watched all this play out with a mixture of amusement and disgust. Friends say he attended an early screening of the Alamo.
Not the premiere, just a press screening. He sat in the back, said nothing. But when the lights came up, someone asked him what he thought. Looks like they got the walls about the right height was all he said. The dagger came in interviews. The kind of subtle comments that journalists love because they seem innocent but cut deep.
When asked about war movies, Murphy would talk about authenticity, about how real combat wasn’t clean, wasn’t noble, wasn’t anything like what Hollywood showed. “War isn’t one man standing on a wall shooting hundreds of enemies,” Murphy said in one interview, clearly referencing a scene from Wayne’s film. “It’s boys crying for their mothers while they out in the mud.
” Wayne heard about these comments. How could he not? And something interesting happened. In later interviews, Wayne became defensive. Started talking about how he’d wanted to serve, how circumstances had prevented it, how he’d supported the troops in his own way, entertaining them, keeping morale up.
But Murphy had stripped away that defense because everyone knew entertaining troops and being a troop are not the same thing. The irony, and oh, it’s rich, is that John Wayne became American’s image of the military hero. His swagger, his toughness, his black and white morality. That’s what people thought soldiers were like.
While Murphy, the actual war hero, was playing cowboys in Bwesterns, struggling with nightmares, unable to hold his marriages together, slowly drinking himself toward an early. One man got rich playing war. The other was destroyed by it. Did Murphy hate Wayne? That’s too simple. Murphy hated what Wayne represented. The lie.
the comfortable fiction that war was glorious, that king was heroic, that men came home the same as they left. Wayne’s Alamo was all about men choosing to die for principle. Murphy knew the truth. Most men didn’t choose to die at all. They just died, scared, young, often calling for mothers they’d never see again.
Here’s the thing that makes this feud tragic rather than petty. Wayne honestly believed he was honoring the military with his films. He thought he was celebrating American values and in some ways he was. His movies gave people hope, made them proud, made young men want to serve. But Murphy had seen where that hope ended.
In foxholes, in field hospitals, in flag draped coffins. They were never friends, never could be. Murphy was the ghost at the feast. The reminder that every time Wayne strapped on a six shooter or threw a screen punch, real men had done the real thing and paid the real price. In 1971, Audi Murphy died in a plane crash. He was just 45 years old.
John Wayne would outlive him by almost a decade. And when Wayne died, the nation mourned a legend. When Murphy died, most people under 30 didn’t even know who he was. That’s Hollywood for you. The fake hero outlasts the real one every single time. But we’re not done yet. Because as shocking as Murphy’s contempt for Wayne was, as violent as his confrontation with Tierney was, nothing nothing compares to our number one story.
Because what Murphy did on a movie set in 1960 nearly ended in it would ensure he’d never work in Hollywood the same way again. Number one, George Sherman, the day the war came back. Lone Pine, California, 1960. The temperature was pushing 100°. The dust was thick enough to choke on.
And on the set of Hellbent for Leather, Audi Murphy was about to snap. George Sherman was a journeyman director. Beemov mostly westerns. The kind of films that got made fast and cheap. Sherman’s job was simple. Get the shots, stay on schedule, don’t go over budget. He was efficient, professional, and completely, fatally uninterested in authenticity.
This was going to be a problem. Murphy took his work seriously, more seriously than anyone else on those B western sets. Because to him, every time he picked up a prop gun, every time he played a gunfighter or a soldier, he was representing something. He couldn’t stand fakery, couldn’t stand actors waving guns around like toys, couldn’t stand fight scenes that looked like dance numbers.
The war had made him a perfectionist about violence because he knew what it really looked like, sounded like, felt like. The scene they were shooting was simple. Murphy’s character gets into a gunfight. Bad guys come at him. He takes them out. Standard western stuff. But Sherman wanted it done quickly.
One take if possible. Move on. Murphy had other ideas. The gun’s not loaded right. >> >> Murphy said, examining the prop weapon. It’s fine, Audi, Sherman replied, not even looking up from his notes. It’s just a prop. The hammer’s loose. It wouldn’t fire. A real gunfighter would notice. It’s a movie, Audi.
Nobody’s going to notice. That’s when Murphy’s jaw tightened. Anyone who knew him would have recognized the sign. The war was coming back. I’ll notice,” Murphy said quietly. Sherman made his fatal mistake. He laughed. “Christ, Audie, we’re not making Citizen Kane here. Just point the damn gun and pull the trigger.
We’re losing light.” Murphy sat the gun down very carefully, walked over to where Sherman was standing. The crew noticed, started backing away. They’d heard the stories, seen the signs before. Say that again,” Murphy said. His voice was still quiet, always quiet before it got bad.
Sherman finally looked up, saw something in Murphy’s eyes that made him take a step back, but he’d already committed, already shown disrespect in front of the crew. He couldn’t back down now. Look, I’ve been making pictures for 20 years. I don’t need some cowboy actor telling me. He never finished the sentence. Murphy shoved him hard.
Sherman stumbled backward, caught his foot on a cable, went down in the dust, and Murphy was on him immediately. Not punching, just grabbing Sherman by the shirt, lifting him partially off the ground despite the size difference. 20 years, Murphy hissed. and you’ve never been in a real fight in your life.
” The crew froze. No one knew what to do. This wasn’t yelling. Wasn’t the normal set drama. This was something else. Something dangerous. Sherman tried to pull away. Audie, for God’s sake, you think this is a game? Murphy’s voice was rising now, the control slipping. You think what I did was entertainment? Men died.
better men than you and you want me to wave a broken prop around like a circus act?” Then Murphy’s hand moved to his belt. Several witnesses swear this happened. Others claimed they didn’t see it clearly, but multiple people said that Murphy’s right hand went to his belt where everyone knew.
Everyone on that set knew Murphy carried a weapon, a real one, loaded. He carried it everywhere, a 9 mm, just in case. Audie. The assistant director’s voice cut through the tension. Audie, man, let him go. For a moment, a terrible frozen moment. It could have gone either way.
Murphy’s hand was on his belt. Sherman was staring up at him with genuine terror in his eyes. The entire crew had stopped breathing. Then Murphy let go, stepped back, but his hand stayed near his belt. “I’m done,” Murphy said to everyone and no one. “I’m done with this.” He walked off the set, got in his car, drove away.
They didn’t see him again for 3 days. George Sherman left the production that afternoon, claimed illness, but everyone knew. The studio hushed it up, brought in a replacement director, finished the film, and made sure George Sherman and Audie Murphy never worked together again. But the damage was done. Not to Sherman’s career he’d survive.
But to Murphy’s, word spread quietly, carefully, but it spread. Audi Murphy was unstable, dangerous, couldn’t be trusted. Insurance companies started asking questions. Producers started looking elsewhere. The roles dried up. Not all at once, but gradually, inevitably. Murphy was being blacklisted.
Not officially, not openly, but just as effectively because he’d violated Hollywood’s cardinal rule. You protect the illusion always, even if the illusion is a lie. especially if the illusion is a lie. Sherman was just a director trying to make a movie. But to Murphy, in that moment, he was every person who’d never understood.
Every civilian who thought war was glorious. Every actor who played soldier without understanding the cost. Every comfortable person who’d never had to or die. The war had followed Murphy to Hollywood, had poisoned his marriages, had haunted his dreams, and finally on a dusty movie set in Lone Pine, California, it had destroyed his career.
Closing. So, there you have it. Five men who crossed paths with Audi Murphy. Five feuds that defined his time in Hollywood. From Tony Curtis to John Wayne. from Kirk Douglas to Lawrence Tierney and finally to George Sherman, the man who almost died because he didn’t understand that for Murphy the war never really ended.
But here’s what’s important to understand. Audi Murphy wasn’t a bad man. He was a broken man. Broken by service to his country. Broken by things he saw and did that no human being should ever have to see or do. And he came home to a world that wanted him to be a hero. Clean, simple, uncomplicated.
Murphy was none of those things. He was complicated, damaged, dangerous, and terrifyingly real in a town built on beautiful lies. On May 28th, 1971, Audi Murphy died when his plane crashed in Virginia. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Thousands attended his funeral.
More than any other person buried there except for John F. Kennedy. [bell] John Wayne sent flowers. Tony Curtis sent a telegram. Kirk Douglas released a statement. George Sherman sent nothing. And Hollywood went back to making war movies with actors who’d never been to war, playing heroes they’d never been, for audiences who’d never understand.
Audi Murphy wouldn’t have expected anything different. If this story shocked you, hit that like button. Subscribe for more untold stories from Hollywood’s golden age. And in the comments, tell me which of these feuds surprised you most. Because next week, we’re diving into an even darker chapter of Hollywood history.