Education
Queen"s University Belfast.
Queen"s University Belfast.
Born in 1948 in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland, Murphy began his career on stage with the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. He branched out into television work with roles in Z-Cars, Doctor Who, Minder, Heartbeat, Father Ted, Dalziel and Pascoe and The Bill. He narrated the British Broadcasting Corporation Radio version of Tolkien"s The Lord of the Rings.
His film roles include the pirate and spy "The Nord" in Waterworld, and as the corrupt High Court Judge Faden in Batman Begins.
Onstage, Murphy portrayed Hector in Alan Bennett"s The History Boys, a role previously played by Richard Griffiths, in a national tour co-produced by the West Yorkshire Playhouse and Theatre Royal, Bath and directed by Christopher Luscombe. In addition, he played Salieri in a 2007 production of Amadeus directed by Nikolai Foster.
Although suffering in 2012 from spinal cord compression due to prostate cancer, Murphy appeared in Glasgow Citizens Theatre"s production of Krapp"s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett. Murphy died at the age of 64 on 26 August 2013 in Cambridge from prostate cancer, which he bravely battled for over two years.