Johnny Murray (1904-1956) was an American

voice actor Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talent ...

. Before 1929, he was a

cornetist The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B, though there is also a sopra ...

at the Cocoanut Grove. In 1929, he was under a contract with First National Pictures to sing for

Richard Barthelmess Richard Semler Barthelmess (May 9, 1895 – August 17, 1963) was an American film actor, principally of the Hollywood silent era. He starred opposite Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's ''Broken Blossoms'' (1919) and ''Way Down East'' (1920) and w ...

in his films; he provided Barthelmess's voice in ''

Weary River ''Weary River'' is a 1929 American romantic drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Richard Barthelmess, Betty Compson, and William Holden (no relation to William Holden, star of such films as '' Sunset Boulevard''). Produced and dist ...

''. He is most famous today for his role as Bosko, the first star of

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

cartoons.IMDB entry on Johnny Murray
/ref> He was the voice actor for Bosko in the 1933 short, ''

Bosko's Picture Show ''Bosko's Picture Show'' is a Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' animated short directed by Hugh Harman and Friz Freleng. It was the last ''Looney Tunes'' Bosko cartoon produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. ...

''. This cartoon is infamous for perhaps containing the first cartoon depiction of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

, and possibly of being among the first, if not first, widely distributed films that contain verbal usage of the

f-bomb ''Fuck'' is an English-language expletive. It often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to arou ...

. If that is the case, Murray is the first person to use the

in Hollywood cinema.

References

External links

* American male voice actors Place of birth missing Place of death missing 20th-century American male actors Warner Bros. Cartoons voice actors 1904 births 1956 deaths {{US-voice-actor-stub