10 War Movie Actors Who Were Actually There

by Ewan Paterson

1. Audie Murphy

To Hell and Back Audie Murphy
Universal Pictures

Perhaps the strangest and most tragic example of an actor revisiting their wartime experiences on film is Audie Murphy's performance in To Hell and Back, a 1955 film in which Murphy starred as himself and relived the battle that won him the Medal of Honor.

Said battle took place in Holtzwihr, and saw Murphy repel an entire German counterattack almost singlehandedly by directing artillery fire and utilising a 50. caliber machine gun stationed atop a friendly tank that had been set alight by the advancing enemy. Murphy was wounded multiple times in the engagement, but was able to link back up with his men, who successfully drove the opposing German forces away.

Murphy's heroics were well documented at the time, and upon his return from the European Theatre he was celebrated as a war hero. This eventually attracted Hollywood attention, and soon, Murphy was starring in numerous films - mostly Westerns, but also the occasional drama and war picture, of which To Hell and Back is the most notable example.

Based on Murphy's 1949 autobiography, To Hell and Back cast the Medal of Honor recipient as himself - something Murphy was initially (and understandably) reluctant to do, given his well-documented PTSD. His casting ensures that To Hell in Back remains one of the most unusual and, at times, upsetting war films of the 1950s, as well as a reminder of Murphy's fierce acting potential, which was cut tragically short when he passed in a plane crash in 1971.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.