Father Murphy: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

A good-hearted frontiersman dresses as a priest to start an orphanage for a group of kids whose homes have been destroyed by an evil mining manager. Father Murphy, an NBC series about an 1870s gold miner who occasionally pretends to be a Catholic priest in order to keep officials from closing his orphanage school, premiered in a special two-hour presentation on Tuesday. Nov. 3 1981. Merlin Olsen stars in the title role.

Series details

• Title: Father Murphy
• Format: Scripted
• Language: English
• Genres: Drama, Family, Western
• Premiere date: 1981-11-03
• Final broadcast date listed: 1983-09-18
• Status in TVmaze: Ended
• Network listed by TVmaze: NBC
• Network country: United States
• Typical episode runtime: 60 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 16034
• IMDb ID: tt0081861
• TVDB ID: 77447

Cast and credited roles

• Merlin Olsen — John Michael Murphy
• Moses Gunn — Moses Gage
• Katherine Cannon — Mae Woodward
• Timothy Gibbs — Will Adams
• Scott Mellini — Ephram Winkler
• Kirk Brennan — David Sims
• Lisa Trusel — Lizette Winkler
• Byron Thames — Matt Sims

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 1981-11-03; final listed air date 1982-03-11; episode order: 22.
• Season 2: premiered 1982-09-28; final listed air date 1983-09-18; episode order: 13.

Source and licence

Adapted from Father Murphy on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.