MacMurray's most famous role was in the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity, in which he starred with Barbara Stanwyck. Later in life, he became better known as the slightly stammering Steve Douglas, the widowed patriarch on the CBS TV series, My Three Sons. The show ran from 1960 until 1972.

MacMurray was often typecast as a lovable, friendly fellow, and he capitalized on this by starring in a number of live-action comedies for Walt Disney during the later part of his career, with his biggest hits being The Shaggy Dog (1959) and The Absent-Minded Professor (1961).[citation needed]

MacMurray was born in Kankakee, Illinois to Frederick MacMurray and Maleta Martin . The family moved around the country, before the elder MacMurray, a concert violinist[citation needed], finally settled in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. MacMurray was five years old during the year that they settled in Beaver Dam.

During his childhood, "Bud" MacMurray (as he was known by his friends) was known for his athleticism; MacMurray received 12 varsity letters in three years of high school.[citation needed] He was considered one of the best fullbacks and punters in the State of Wisconsin[citation needed], and earned a full scholarship to attend Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

In college, MacMurray participated in numerous local bands, playing the saxophone. After one semester at Carroll College, he left for Chicago to look for professional musical gigs.[citation needed] In 1930, he recorded a tune for the Gus Arnheim Orchestra as a featured vocalist on All I Want Is Just One Girl on the Victor 78 label.

Early in his acting career, before signing with Paramount in 1934, he also appeared on Broadway in Three's a Crowd (1930-1931), and in the original production of Roberta (1933-1934, on which a movie of the same name was based). In addition to MacMurray, the Roberta cast included Sydney Greenstreet and Bob Hope.

MacMurray's early film work is largely overlooked by many film historians and critics, but in his heyday, he worked with some of Hollywood's greatest talents, including director Preston Sturges and actors Humphrey Bogart and Marlene Dietrich. He played opposite Claudette Colbert in seven films, the first of which was The Gilded Lily (1935); he also co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams (1935) and Carole Lombard in Hands Across the Table (1935), The Princess Comes Across, and True Confession (1937).

Mostly cast as decent, amiable characters in a succession of light comedies, dramas (The Trail of the Lonesome Pine 1936), melodramas (Above Suspicion 1943) and musicals (Where Do We Go From Here? 1945), MacMurray had become one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors by 1943, when his salary reached $420,000.

Despite his "nice guy" image, MacMurray often stated that the best film roles he ever played were two in which he was cast against type by Billy Wilder. He played the role of Walter Neff, an insurance salesman (numerous other actors had turned the role down) who plots with a wealthy heiress Barbara Stanwyck to murder her husband in Double Indemnity (1944). In 1960, he played Jeff Sheldrake, a slimy, two-timing corporate executive in Wilder's Oscar-winning comedy The Apartment, with Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. In another turn in the "not so nice" category , MacMurray played the cynical, duplicitous Lieutenant Thomas Keefer in 1954's The Caine Mutiny. He gave his finest dramatic performances, though, when cast against type as counterfeit nice-guys or hard-boiled heels: a crooked cop in Pushover (1954).

MacMurray revived his career in the 1960s, starring as good-natured father figures in the Disney comedies The Shaggy Dog (1959), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and Son of Flubber (1963).

A shrewd investor, MacMurray was one of the wealthiest people in Hollywood[citation needed], as well as one of the most politically conservative[citation needed]. He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party who joined Bob Hope and James Stewart in campaigning for Richard Nixon in 1968. He was also, generally, considered one of the most frugal. Studio co-workers could not help noticing that even as a successful actor, MacMurray would usually bring a brown bag lunch to work, often containing a hardboiled egg. According to his co-star on My Three Sons (1960-1972), William Demarest, MacMurray continued to bring dyed Easter eggs for lunch several months after Easter.

He was married twice. He married his first wife, Lillian Lamont, on June 20, 1936 and they adopted two children. Lamont died on June 22, 1953. He married actress June Haver in 1954, and they also adopted two children.

During the 1940s, the Fawcett Comics superhero character, Captain Marvel was modeled after MacMurray. (MacMurray had played a caped superhero in a dream sequence in the 1943 film No Time for Love.) The same image was later used in the creation of the 1990s character The Gentleman, from Astro City.

MacMurray died at the age of 83 in Santa Monica, California. He had long suffered from leukemia. He was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.