Kate MacMurray, daughter of Fred McMurray presented a program featuring some of the highlights of family life on the MacMurray Ranch from the 1940’s along with insights into the character of Fred McMurray, both as an actor as well as a father, husband and farmer.
 
Kate MacMurray, daughter of Fred McMurray presented a program featuring some of the highlights of family life on the MacMurray Ranch from the 1940’s along with insights into the character of Fred McMurray, both as an actor as well as a father, husband and farmer.
 
Fred was an accomplished performer, starting as a saxophone player in the 20’s and 30’s. He belonged to a group called the California Collegians. One of his friends in theater, Bob Hope, convinced him to do a screen test for Paramount pictures, and he was signed to a contract. During his career he made over 100 pictures, had a 12 year run on TV with My Three Sons and then did several pictures with Walt Disney, including the Absent-Minded Professor.
 
Fred fell in love with the Russian River area in the 30’s as he was a great fly fisherman and loved the atmosphere of fog filtering through the redwoods, which reminded him of rural Scotland which was the birthplace of his family. He also loved Healdsburg, which at the time was rural, rustic and congenial. He bought property, the Tri-Valley Ranch, west of Healdsburg in the early 1940’s and established a home there.
 
During the war years of the 40’s he practiced “diversified farming” which included dairy production, sheep, pigs, and vegetable gardening. After the war he wanted to establish a herd of Angus cattle and travelled to Scotland to buy a bull ,Troilus, for breeding purposes. After the long voyage from Scotland to San Francisco, Troilus  was introduced into a pasture with 5 beautiful heifers and promptly fainted. Not a great way to start what ultimately became a very renowned herd of cattle.
 
Growing up on the ranch was a wonderful opportunity to enjoy nature, experience the work involved with operating a functioning ranch, and to meet very interesting people that did very interesting things. Kate recalls going into town for church at St. John's Catholic Church. Her father would drop them off and he would go enjoy the newspaper and browsing through Garrett's Hardware, which at the time was an old-fashioned hardware store on the Plaza with functioning hitching racks for horses at its façade.
 
Her family's life was filled with acquaintances from Hollywood including John Wayne, Bob Hope, Walt Disney and Robert Young. John Wayne was instrumental in arranging the marriage between Fred and June Haver. Kate recalls several incidents in the family's relationship with Walt Disney. Once, while in Paris while Fred was working on a movie, Bon Voyage, the families were going to the water show at Versailles Palace. Walt asked Kate where her sweater was . (it was a blistering hot day). She told him that it was a hot day, to which he replied,  “Bring a sweater. You can always take it off, but you can't put it on if you don't have it.” To this day, she always brings a sweater with her.
 
Although he enjoyed making his movies, in which for the most part he played relatively affable and good-natured characters, his true love was doing My Three Sons, a series that almost didn't get started. He was unwilling to spend the 9 or 10 months a year working on the show, and agreed to do it only with a revolutionary filming schedule in which the show was not recorded sequentially, but rather shots for many episodes were taken during an intense period of filming lasting about 3 months and then ultimately put together by editors later on. This allowed him to have a 12 year run of the show, while at the same time maintaining his ties to family and community in the Tri-Valley Ranch.
 
Kate absolutely loves Healdsburg and Sonoma County. This is her home. She is currently working for Gallo family Vineyards and represents the MacMurray wine label for them. She would not trade her experiences of living on the ranch for anything.