Murray Alper Biography

Supporting actor Murray Alper's earliest screen credit was 1930's The Royal Family of Broadway. For the next 35 years, Alper was an inescapable movie presence, playing dozens of cab drivers, bookies, cops and GIs. One of his few credited appearances in an "A" picture was in The Maltese Falcon; he plays the friendly cabbie who drives Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) on a mid-film wild goose chase. Frequently seen in comedies, Alper showed up in eight Bowery Boys farces of the 1940s and 1950s, and was prominently featured in the Three Stooges' Trick Dicks (1953) and The Outlaws is Coming (1965, as Chief Crazy Horse!). One of Murray Alper's least characteristic roles was the judo instructor in Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor (1963). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi