Murphy also acted in films and on TV, most notably portraying Sara Delano Roosevelt in the TV miniseries "Eleanor and Franklin" (1976) and "" (1977). She played Maudie Atkinson in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962) as well as Callie Hacker in "Walking Tall" (1973). The following year, in 1974, she appeared in the television film "A Case of Rape", playing a ruthless defense attorney who brutally cross-examines a rape victim (played by Elizabeth Montgomery) and wins an acquittal for the man who attacked her. In 1974–75, she played high-school principal Margaret Blumenthal in the series "Lucas Tanner".