F. Murray Abraham
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference
(written from a Production point of view)
| F. Murray Abraham | |
|---|---|
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| Birth name: | Frank Murray Abraham |
| Gender: | Male |
| Date of birth: | 24 October 1939 |
| Place of birth: | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Character(s): | Ru'afo |
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Actor F. Murray Abraham (born 24 October 1939; age 70) portrayed the villainous Ahdar Ru'afo, a member of the Son'a race, in the 1998 film Star Trek: Insurrection. He is primarily a stage actor, though he has appeared in many films and several television productions. He is perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning role in the 1984 film Amadeus.
Abraham was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in El Paso, Texas, where he spent his teenage years as a member of local gangs. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, after which he studied acting under Uta Hagen in New York City.
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[edit] Films
Abraham has had a long and distinguished acting career in film, which began with small roles in classics such as They Might Be Giants (1971, with Eugene Roche), Serpico (1973), and All the President's Men (1976, with Stephen Collins, Nicholas Coster, and Richard Herd). He went on to have significant roles in such films as The Big Fix (1978, with Fritz Weaver, Nicholas Coster, William Glover, and Jorge Cervera, Jr.), Scarface (1983, with Harris Yulin and Mark Margolis), and The Name of the Rose (1986, with Christian Slater and Ron Perlman). He is most well-known, however, for his Best Leading Actor Academy Award-winning performance as Antonio Salieri in the 1984 film Amadeus. He is one of only three Star Trek performers to have been nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Actor in a Leading Role (the others being Frank Langella and Paul Winfield) and the only one to have won the award.
In 1990 he made an uncredited appearance in the film The Bonfire of the Vanities. This film starred other Star Trek alumni such as Kim Cattrall, Saul Rubinek, Richard Libertini, and Kirsten Dunst. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actress Terry Farrell also appeared uncredited in the film.) Abraham went on to make a cameo as "Dr. Harold Leecher" (a parody of Dr. Hannibal Lecter) in the 1993 comedy National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1. William Shatner co-starred in this film, while James Doohan (as Montgomery Scott), Charles Napier, and Whoopi Goldberg had cameos.
His other motion picture credits include Beyond the Stars (1989, with Olivia d'Abo), Mobsters (1991, with Christian Slater and Seymour Cassel), Last Action Hero (1993), Dillinger and Capone (1995, with Jeffrey Combs, Catherine Hicks, and Clint Howard), Mighty Aphrodite (1995, with David Ogden Stiers), Finding Forrester (2000), and Thir13en Ghosts (2001). Abraham had major roles in all of these films.
[edit] Television
Abraham has worked less frequently in television than in film. He was a regular on the short-lived NBC soap opera How to Survive a Marriage in 1974 and has made guest-appearances on only four episodic television series, including All in the Family, two episodes of Kojak, and the pilot for A.E.S. Hudson Street (starring Rosanna DeSoto).
His television credits primarily consist of made-for-TV movies, including The First Circle (1992, with Robert Joy and Christopher Plummer), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1993, co-starring Francis Guinan, Jeffrey Nordling, Tim Russ, and Carel Struycken), Color Justice (1997, with Bruce Davison and Saul Rubinek), Noah's Ark (1999), Pompeii: The Last Day (2003), and Shark Swarm (2008, featuring Renie Rivas and Rick Scarry and directed by James A. Contner).
Murray also appeared in several TV mini-series. In 1982, he co-starred in NBC's Marco Polo, in which Star Trek: Deep Space Nine guest actor Kenneth Marshall played the title role. This production also featured TOS star Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek movie and TNG veteran David Warner in the cast. Abraham next portrayed President Abraham Lincoln in the 1986 CBS mini-series Dream West, working alongside fellow Star Trek alumni Jeff Allin, Erich Anderson, John Anderson, Lee Bergere, William O. Campbell, James Cromwell, Michael Ensign, Stefan Gierasch, Alice Krige, Matt McCoy, Glenn Morshower, Fritz Weaver, and Noble Willingham. Abraham's Insurrection director and co-star, Jonathan Frakes, had a role in this mini-series, as well. More recently, Abraham starred in the 1996 mini-series Dead Man's Walk, co-starring Keith Carradine.
[edit] Theater
In addition to his film career, Abraham has amassed an extensive resume of stage plays. His first professional stage performance was in a Los Angeles production of Ray Bradbury's The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.
Abraham has performed in many Broadway productions, from the Tony Award-nominated The Man in the Glass Booth in the late 1960s (co-starring Lawrence Pressman) to his Drama Desk Award-nominated starring role in Teibele and Her Demon in 1979-80 (co-starring Ron Perlman) to his portrayal of AIDS-inflicted attorney Roy Cohn in Tony Kushner's epic two-part masterpiece Angels in America in 1994 (working with Megan Gallagher). He also co-starred with Stephen Collins in the farcical comedy The Ritz in 1975 (Abraham starred in the film adaptation of this film the following year) and received his second Desk Drama Award nomination in 1992 for his role in A Life in the Theater.
