Earned just $1 a day. Rejected by Marine Corps for being short. How Audie Murphy became America’s most decorated soldier and a huge film star, playing himself in a blockbuster that earned over $10 million

Decorated army veteran. Hollywood heartthrob. Accomplished songwriter. He did not live to be old, but in his short life, Audie Leon Murphy lived many lives and reached unparalleled career highs. Born to a poor sharecropper family, Murphy’s father abandoned the family when he was a youngster, and he had to leave school as a teen to pick cotton and find other work to support his family. At one point, he only earned $1 a day chopping cotton as per the US Dept of War website. His mother died when he was 16.

According to the US Department of War website, Murphy was just 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed 110 pounds; therefore, his size prevented him from being admitted into the Marine Corps. According to Arlington National Cemetery, he eventually managed to enlist in the Army in 1942 after falsifying his birth certificate to make him appear to be eighteen, one year older than he actually was.

Murphy’s military career was nothing short of phenomenal. He was dispatched to Europe with the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, which fought its way through North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France and Germany during World War II.


In 1945, six tanks and waves of German infantrymen attacked Company B, which Murphy was leading close to Holtzwihr, France. Despite being alone and exposed to German gunfire from all the three sides, Murphy killed dozens of Germans and singlehandedly slaughtered 50 enemy soldiers during the battle.

According to reports shared by the AUSA, Murphy spent 400 days on the front lines of the war and killed more than 240 enemy soldiers and was rewarded with 33 awards. He was considered to be the most decorated US soldier of all time.

Cometh The Hollywood Fame

Post-war, Murphy transitioned into a flourishing Hollywood career. He was invited by actor James Cagney, who had seen his picture in Life Magazine, to shift to Hollywood and make a career as an actor. He got his first break as a leading man in the 1949 drama film Bad Boy. However, it was the war film To Hell And Back (1955) which catapulted him to stardom. The movie was also a biopic, and he played himself on the big screen. The movie was a huge commercial success, earning nearly $10 million globally. Murphy had a percentage of the profits, and he earned $1 million from the film.

Murphy acted in 44 films overall from 1948 to 1969. Some of his other notable films are 'Destry', No Name On The Bullet and The Quiet American.

Murphy is also credited with writing the lyrics of 16 country-western songs, the most well-known of which was ‘Shutters And Boards’.

Murphy's financial situation deteriorated as a result of his gaming. He claimed to have lost $260,000 on an oil deal in Algeria in 1968 and to have been in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service over unpaid taxes. In 1971, Murphy perished in a private aircraft collision on a mountainside close to Roanoke, Virginia. He was only forty-five.