Biography for
F. Murray Abraham More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

24 October 1939, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Birth Name

Fahrid Murray Abraham

Height

5' 11" (1.80 m)

Spouse

Kate Hannan

(7 April 1962 - present) 2 children

Trade Mark

Rich smooth voice

Trivia

Was educated at the University of Texas.

Was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of Italian and Syrian parents and brought up in El Paso, Texas.

In July 2004, during a ceremony in Rome, he was awarded the "Premio per gli Italiani nel Mondo." This is a prize distributed by the Marzio Tremaglia foundation and the Italian government to Italian emigrants and their descendants who have distinguished themselves abroad.

Early in his career, he was one of the "Fruit of the Loom guys" (men dressed up as fruits) in the underwear commercials

He has one daughter and one son.

He studied drama at the HB Studios in Greenwich Village in New York City.

After his Oscar win for Amadeus (1984), he turned down roles in films such as Clue (1985) and Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986).

Personal Quotes

[from the Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) Special Collector's Edition DVD] If I could do only "Star Trek" movies for the rest of my career, I would. That's how strongly I feel about this organization. I do not say that lightly.

[on the so-called "Oscar jinx"] The Oscar is the single most important event of my career. I have dined with kings, shared equal billing with my idols, lectured at Harvard and Columbia. If this is a jinx, I'll take two.

The difficulty is capturing surprise on film.

[accepting his Best Actor Oscar, 1985] It would be a lie if I told you I didn't know what to say, because I've been working on this speech for about twenty-five years. But you're not going to hear any of those speeches, because none of the speeches were less than forty-five seconds. You know, it's easy to gamble everything when you've got nothing to lose, and Milos Forman had a great deal to lose when he gave these brilliant roles to Tom Hulce and me, and his courage became my inspiration. There's only one thing that's missing for me tonight, and that's to have Tom Hulce standing by my side.

[announcing Geraldine Page as the winner of the Best Actress Oscar, 1986] I consider this woman the greatest actress in the English language.

You keep getting offered the same role you got the Oscar for. Every time you complain, they don't change the script; they just offer you more money. For the first 15 years of my career, I was only doing comedy - all comedy - and as soon as Salieri happened, I was offered all sinister villains.