ROBERT MORSE
(18 May 1931 – 20 April 2022)
The American actor Robert Morse came to fame in a stage and screen musical early on in his career and later on in a popular television series. The musical was How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and the TV series Mad Men. In between he had a very productive career on stage, in films and on television. He has died in Los Angeles, aged 90, from heart failure.
Robert Alan Morse was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Charles Morse, a record store manager who was also a cinema manager, while his mother May was a pianist. At Newton High School, Robert followed his older brother Richard into acting and eventually joined him in New York at the Neighborhood Playhouse where he trained with Lee Strasberg. His stage debut was in On the Town and, following two TV appearances, he played an uncredited role in George Seaton's The Proud and the Profane (1956) with William Holden and Deborah Kerr. Morse then made his professional stage debut as Barnaby Tucker in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker on Broadway in a run of nearly 500 performances, with Ruth Gordon as Dolly Levi, and he also appeared in Joseph Anthony's 1958 film version of the play with Shirley Booth.
At that time musicals became prevalent in Morse's career starting with Say, Darling (1958), "a play about a musical" by Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Then Take Me Along (1959) was Bob Merrill's musical version of Eugene O'Neill's play Ah, Wilderness with Jackie Gleason, Walter Pidgeon and Una Merkel. Eventually Morse secured the leading role as J. Pierrepoint Finch in Frank Loesser's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, based on Shepherd Mead's 1952 satirical look at corporate business. As Finch, Morse played a window cleaner for the World Wide Wicket Company whose life progresses when he meets company president J.B. Biggley (Rudy Vallee) and after that he leaps from mailroom to the Plans and Systems department, his success guaranteed.
How to Succeed in Business... was itself also a guaranteed hit in 1961, running for almost 1,500 performances on Broadway. It produced memorable songs including 'Company Way', 'I Believe in You' and 'Brotherhood of Man'. Much lauded, How to Succeed... won six Tony awards and a Pulitzer for drama, while Loesser won a Grammy for best musical theatre album. Morse and Rudy Vallee went on to make David Swift's film version of the show in 1967, which was well-received and in its day quite profitable.
Robert Morse also appeared in other films such as Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963), and then Henry Levin's sex comedy Honeymoon Hotel (1964), and Delbert Mann's comedy Quick, Before It Melts (1964). In time, Morse's film parts gradually got better with Tony Richardson's The Loved One (1965), based on Evelyn Waugh's satirical novel about the US funeral industry and Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death, with a screenplay by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood. Morse played an Englishman in Los Angeles for his uncle's funeral where he is persuaded to spend a fortune on the ceremony.
Arthur L. Kopit's blackly comic play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad was filmed by Richard Quine, a tale about a mother on holiday with her son in the Caribbean, along with her dead husband in a casket. The 1967 movie was not successful and, after filming was completed, Alexander Mackendrick shot new scenes with a new music score.
There was more stage work with Sugar (1972), a musical version of Some Like It Hot, while So Long 174th Street was based on Carl Reiner's book and play Enter Laughing, which was also a film in 1967. The show ran just sixteen performances. In 1980, Morse toured the US in Sugar Babies, a revue that initially starred Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller. Moss Hart's Light Up the Sky found him at The Old Vic in London, and he also did Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland in Los Angeles, and played the Wizard in Wicked in San Francisco. His final stage appearance was in the Broadway production of Ben Hecht and Charles McArthur's The Front Page in 2015. In 1989 he won a Tony for playing Truman Capote in Tru, based on the author's writings. It was recorded for television and won Morse a Primetime Emmy.
After the film of How to Succeed... in 1967 Morse's movie career began floundering with A Guide for the Married Man (1967) with Walter Matthau, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? with Doris Day, Walt Disney's The Boatniks, Laurence Bassoff's comedy Hunk, The Emperor's New Clothes, a Hans Christian Andersen story, It's All About You, a comedy about a blackmailed actor, The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez, a Western with Ernest Borgnine, and Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal with Johnny Depp as Trump and Robert Morse as Walter Hoving, chairman of Tiffany's. Morse's last film was Teen Titans Go! vs Teen Titans, an animated film, in which he voiced Santa Claus, based on a TV series he had made earlier.
Television filled in the career gaps in series such as The Phil Silvers Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City, That's Life, The Dukes of Hazzard and Murder, She Wrote. However, the best television role he had was in Mad Men (2007-2015) playing Bertram Cooper, founder of the advertising agency in 74 episodes of the popular series, a satirical look at the doings on Madison Avenue.
Robert Morse was first married to the actress Carole D'Andrea with whom he fathered his daughters Andrea, Hilary and Robin. He has two children, Charlie and Allyn, with his second wife, Elizabeth Roberts.
MICHAEL DARVELL