Richard Slattery; ‘Murph’ in Union Oil Commercials

Richard X. Slattery, a veteran character actor perhaps best remembered for his 17-year stint as “Murph,” the gravel-voiced station owner in a gasoline commercial, has died. He was 71.

Slattery died Monday at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills.

The Union Oil commercials featuring Slattery as Murph were shot at the Union 76 Station at Dodger Stadium and aired nationally during major league baseball, football and basketball telecasts from 1974 until 1991.

Although Slattery’s acting career spanned three decades on stage, films and television, he said he was universally recognized as Murph. When he and his wife moved to Avalon, where they ran shops, he named his Asian fast-food takeout Murph’s Wok Away.

“Of all the things I’ve ever done, the identity with Murph and the gas station is the one I can’t escape,” Slattery told The Times in 1982.

He said his strong identification with the gasoline brand he advertised once caused a young attendant to refuse to sell him another brand of gas even though his tank was nearly empty.

“ ‘You can’t come in here, Murph,’ he told me. ‘You’ve got to go to a Union station.’ ”

The Bronx-born son of an Irish immigrant police officer, Slattery became a New York policeman. During his 12 years on the force, he began acting in little theater and eventually decided to make that his career. He continued to appear in uniforms--often as a military or law enforcement officer--in many of his early roles.

“I was never a young leading man even when I was young,” he said. “I was always the cop or a GI or a sailor.”

He played Capt. Morton on the television series “Mr. Roberts,” another captain in the Don Rickles series “CPO Sharkey” and Adm. Bull Halsey in the miniseries “Winds of War.”

Slattery was also a regular on the series “The Gallant Men,” “Switch” and “Rich Man, Poor Man: Book II.” He appeared in several television movies and miniseries and had guest roles in such popular series as “Bewitched,” “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Bonanza.”

Beginning on the off-Broadway and Broadway stage, Slattery appeared in such plays as “A Cook for Mr. General” and “Dark at the Top of the Stairs.”

His first film was “Butterfield 8,” starring Elizabeth Taylor, in 1960. Other films included “The Boston Strangler,” “The Secret War of Harry Frigg,” “Walking Tall,” “Herbie Rides Again,” “The Zebra Force” and “The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again.”

Survivors include his wife, Helene, their eight children and six grandchildren.

Memorial services are scheduled for Saturday at Pierce Bros. Valhalla in North Hollywood and for Feb. 8 at St. Catherine’s Catholic Church in Avalon.

The family has asked that contributions in Slattery’s memory be made to the Motion Picture & Television Fund in Woodland Hills.