American actor Michael Murphy pursued a high school teaching career upon graduation from the University of Arizona. Among the subjects he taught was drama; good-looking and personable enough to get paid for reciting lines to an audience older than the age of 18, Murphy chucked the teaching profession to work on stage. In films since 1967, Murphy is best remembered as Jill Clayburgh's cheating -- and uncontrollably sobbing -- husband in An Unmarried Woman (1978). Michael Murphy has also functioned as a stock company player for director Robert Altman (Countdown [1968], McCabe and Mrs. Miller [1971], Nashville [1974], etc.); in 1988 Munrphy portrayed a pre-fab presidential candidate in Altman's satirical HBO miniseries Tanner. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi