Kermit Murdock

Birth : 1908-03-20, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Death : 1981-02-11

History

Kermit Murdock (20 March 1908 – 11 February 1981) was an American film, television and radio actor known for his avuncular and professorial character portrayals. His more prominent character roles in major motion pictures included Dean Pollard in Splendor in the Grass (1961), Henderson in In the Heat of The Night (1967), and Dr. Robertson in The Andromeda Strain (1970). He is also well known for his voice acting in many episodes of the 1950s science fiction radio series X Minus One. He was in The Mysterious Traveler episode "Survival of the Fittest" with Everett Sloane, and was featured in an episode of the series Adventure Ahead. He appeared in character roles in television drama of the 1960s and 1970s including episodes of Kung Fu, The Mod Squad, and The Defenders. He portrayed a prosecutor of witches in the Star Trek episode, "All Our Yesterdays".

Movies

The Godchild

Nathaniel Mony

Three Union POWs fleeing across the desert to escape both their Confederate pursuers and rampaging Apaches come across a dying woman and her infant child. They promise the woman that they will take care of the child and get it to safety, even though none of them knows anything whatsoever about children or babies.

The Andromeda Strain

Dr. Robertson

When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico, are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scramble to a secure laboratory and try to first isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Hoyt III

Daisy Gamble, an unusual woman who hears phones before they ring, and does wonders with her flowers, wants to quit smoking to please her fiancé, Warren. She goes to a doctor of hypnosis to do it. But once she's under, her doctor finds out that she can regress into past lives and different personalities, and he finds himself falling in love with one of them.

Dial Hot Line

Fourth Board Member

The head of a psychiatric telephone hotline inspires his associates to get out of the office and into the streets to help people with psychiatric problems.

The Lonely Profession

Senator

Private investigator Leo Gordon is hired to trail Karen Mendaros, the mistress of a reclusive billionaire. When they meet, Gordon and Mendaros hit it off and check in at a motel. Gordon wakes up the next morning and discovers that Mendaros had been murdered during the night. Gordon opens his own investigation of Mendaros' past in an attempt to determine who killed Mendaros and why he's been set up as the fall guy.

The Whole World Is Watching

2nd Judge

A student radical, accused of murdering a cop during a campus revolt, welcomes a court confrontation and then refuses to take the stand, despite the urging of the three high-priced lawyers he has hired to represent him in this second pilot of "The Lawyers," a rotating segment of "The Bold Ones" series.

In the Heat of the Night

Henderson

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.