King Vidor, who had directed Murray in The Crowd (1928), later said that he respected Murray as an actor and was dismayed that alcoholism cost the actor his career. Murray, in his later years, ended up penniless and turned to pan-handling on the street. By coincidence, one of the people he hit up for money was Vidor, who offered him a role in Our Daily Bread on the condition that Murray stop drinking and lose weight. Murray deemed it an act of pity and refused. Two years later, he would die after falling into the Hudson River.