Barry Morse
Encyclopedia
Herbert "Barry" Morse was an Anglo-Canadian
actor
of stage, screen, and radio
best known for his roles in the ABC
television series The Fugitive
and the British
sci-fi drama Space: 1999
. His performing career spanned seven decades and he had thousands of roles to his credit, including work for the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
.
family, Morse was a 15 year old school dropout and errand boy when he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
. He performed the role of the Lion in Androcles and the Lion
and as a result came to know George Bernard Shaw
, a patron of the academy. His first paid job as an actor while still a student was in If I Were King. At graduation he starred in the title role of Shakespeare
's Henry V
, presented as a Royal Command Performance
for King George VI
and Queen Elizabeth.
's Hamlet
and starred as Paul Temple in the radio series Send for Paul Temple Again
, among dozens of other roles. He later performed on CBC
radio beginning in 1951 and continuing to the 1980s, including the long-running series A Touch of Greasepaint, the Joe McCarthy
-inspired The Investigator, and 1984. He also starred in a number U.S.
productions in the 1970s and 1980s for producer Yuri Rasovsky
, including The Odyssey of Homer, which won a Peabody Award
.
Morse's final radio performance, Rogues and Vagabonds - A Theatrical Scrapbook, aired on internet radio KSAV 7 August and 9 August 2007, prior to being released on compact disc. The hour-long special audio drama was composed of a half-dozen vignettes and performances culled from theatrical history, including William Shakespeare
and George Bernard Shaw
.
, Nottingham
, and other cities where he gained experience as an actor while playing more than 200 roles. In 1941 he joined the national tour of The First Mrs. Fraser starring Dame Marie Tempest
and A.E. Matthews. He debuted on the London West End stage in The School for Slavery. Other West End productions included Escort, The Assassin, and A Bullet in the Ballet. He was directed by John Gielgud
in Crisis in Heaven. Morse developed a theatrical partnership with actress Nova Pilbeam
and they worked together both in film and on stage, most notably in the hit stage productions of The Voice of the Turtle and Flowers for the Living.
with Will Hay
and continued with roles in Thunder Rock
, When We Are Married
, and This Man is Mine (released as A Soldier for Christmas in North America) with Glynis Johns
and Nova Pilbeam
. Other notable films include Kings of the Sun
with Yul Brynner
, Justine
, and Puzzle of a Downfall Child with Faye Dunaway
. He also appeared in the thrillers Asylum
with Peter Cushing
and The Changeling with George C. Scott
. He worked on several Lacewood animated productions, notably as the voice of Dragon in The Railway Dragon
, alongside Tracey Moore
who played Emily. In 1999 he filmed the dramatic comedy Taxman with Billy Zane
, released as Promise Her Anything and on DVD as Nothing to Declare. His final film appearance was in I Really Hate My Job
, released in 2007.
in Hide and Seek, Salad Days, and the lead of Frederick Rolfe
in Hadrian the Seventh
, which he also played in Australia, co-starring with Frank Thring
. He directed the historic debut of Staircase
starring Eli Wallach
and Milo O'Shea
, which stands as Broadway's first depiction of homosexual men in a serious way. He also starred in the U.S.
national tour of Harold Pinter
's The Caretaker
as Davies.
He first presented a version of his one man show Merely Players
in 1959, which explored the experiences of actors through history, with the definitive version of the show debuting in 1984 for a Canadian national tour. Morse was perhaps the only actor to have performed in every play of William Shakespeare
and George Bernard Shaw
.
Morse served as Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival
of Canada
for the 1966 season and as an Adjunct Professor at Yale Drama School in 1968.
In 1995, he premiered the Elizabeth Sharland
play The Private Life of George Bernard Shaw in Toronto, also starring Shirley Knight
. The play featured Morse in the role of George Bernard Shaw with ten actresses portraying the various women in Shaw's life. Morse later performed the play in 1997 at the British Theatre Museum in London
.
With his son Hayward Morse
, he starred in the 2004 North American debut of Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship by Anthony Wynn
, performed at the University of Florida, Sarasota. This two-act stage drama is based on the correspondence between playwright George Bernard Shaw, played by Morse, and Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas
(the intimate friend of Oscar Wilde
), played by Hayward.
The following year, Morse appeared in the world premiere performance of the science fiction play Contact by Doug Grissom, co-starring Ryan Case
and presented in Tampa, Florida
.
, Canada
, and the UK
. Early American
appearances include the U.S. Steel Hour, Encounter
, and Playhouse 90
. He also guest starred on such TV series as Naked City
, The Untouchables
, The Twilight Zone
, Wagon Train
, The Defenders, and The Saint
. In The Outer Limits
episode "Controlled Experiment" he starred with Carroll O'Connor
and Grace Lee Whitney
. In his later years, Morse guest-starred in a number of Canadian-produced series, including La Femme Nikita and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
, as well as such British series as Doctors, Waking the Dead
and Space Island One
.
. Some of his best known television roles included: Lt Philip Gerard on the 1960s series The Fugitive
with David Janssen
; "Prof. Victor Bergman
" in the 1975-1976 season of Space: 1999
with Martin Landau
, Barbara Bain
, and Zienia Merton
; 'Mr. Parminter' in The Adventurer
with Gene Barry
; and "Alec 'The Tiger' Marlowe" in The Zoo Gang
with Sir John Mills
, Lilli Palmer
, and Brian Keith
. In 1982 he played the Ronald Reagan
-esque U.S. President Johnny Cyclops in the satirical sitcom Whoops Apocalypse
in the UK and hosted the series Strange But True for the CBC.
and War and Remembrance
(both with Robert Mitchum
), The Martian Chronicles
, Sadat
, and Frederick Forsyth
's Icon
. Other notable miniseries appearances include A Woman of Substance
, Master of the Game
, and Race for the Bomb.
The book based on his long running stage play Merely Players - The Scripts
was published in 2003 and his first autobiography Pulling Faces, Making Noises was released in 2004.
Stories of the Theatre was published in 2006 and features material from his CBC radio series A Touch of Greasepaint, which aired from 1954 to 1967.
His long-awaited theatrical memoir, Remember With Advantages - Chasing 'The Fugitive' and Other Stories from an Actor's Life (ISBN 9780786427710), (written with Robert E. Wood
and Anthony Wynn
), details his life and career. The book features a foreword written by Academy Award-winning actor Martin Landau
and was released by McFarland and Company publishers in Spring 2007.
Morse wrote the Afterword to Destination: Moonbase Alpha - The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to SPACE: 1999 (ISBN 9781845830342), published in 2010 by Telos Publishing. Written by Robert E. Wood
and featuring a colour photo section of models created for the series by Martin Bower
, as well as a Foreword by Zienia Merton
, the book is the most comprehensive work ever published on the cult science fiction series Space: 1999
. Morse is extensively quoted throughout the book, as are numerous other series cast and crew.
on March 26, 1939, during their work together in repertory theatre in Peterborough
, England
. The couple had two children, Melanie Morse
(1945–2005) and Hayward Morse
(b. 1947).
In 1951, the Morse family relocated to Canada, where he worked in radio and theatre, and participated in the first television broadcasts of CBC
Television from Montreal, and later Toronto. Morse became a Canadian
citizen in 1953.
The cause of Parkinson's disease
held a special place in Morse's heart as his wife of more than 60 years, actress Sydney Sturgess
, battled the illness for 14 years before her death in 1999. In later years, he also became an advocate for senior citizens in his adopted homeland of Canada.
hospital, aged 89, from undisclosed causes. His body was donated to Medical Science.
Anglo-Canadian
Anglo-Canadian can mean:* A collaboration between the United Kingdom and Canada, similar to the term Anglo-American* A shorthand form for English Canadian...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
of stage, screen, and radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
best known for his roles in the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television series The Fugitive
The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
and the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
sci-fi drama Space: 1999
Space: 1999
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...
. His performing career spanned seven decades and he had thousands of roles to his credit, including work for the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
.
Beginnings
Born to a CockneyCockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
family, Morse was a 15 year old school dropout and errand boy when he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...
. He performed the role of the Lion in Androcles and the Lion
Androcles and the Lion (play)
Androcles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw.Androcles and the Lion is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requited mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture...
and as a result came to know George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, a patron of the academy. His first paid job as an actor while still a student was in If I Were King. At graduation he starred in the title role of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Henry V
Henry V (play)
Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...
, presented as a Royal Command Performance
Royal Command Performance
For the annual Royal Variety Performance performed in Britain for the benefit of the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund, see Royal Variety Performance...
for King George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
and Queen Elizabeth.
Radio
Upon graduation, Morse won the BBC's Radio Prize which led to several parts and a leading role in The Fall of the City. Later he played the lead in William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
and starred as Paul Temple in the radio series Send for Paul Temple Again
Paul Temple
Paul Temple is a fictional character created by British writer Francis Durbridge for the BBC radio serial Send for Paul Temple in 1938. Temple is an amateur private detective and author of crime fiction...
, among dozens of other roles. He later performed on CBC
Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation
The Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation is the government-owned media corporation located in Barbados.The television service broadcasts on channel 8 and is the only legally-licensed, over-the-air television channel broadcasting in the country of Barbados...
radio beginning in 1951 and continuing to the 1980s, including the long-running series A Touch of Greasepaint, the Joe McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
-inspired The Investigator, and 1984. He also starred in a number U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
productions in the 1970s and 1980s for producer Yuri Rasovsky
Yuri Rasovsky
Yuri Rasovsky is an American award-winning writer and producer working in the field of radio drama in the United States....
, including The Odyssey of Homer, which won a Peabody Award
George Foster Peabody
George Foster Peabody was a banker and philanthropist.-Early life:...
.
Morse's final radio performance, Rogues and Vagabonds - A Theatrical Scrapbook, aired on internet radio KSAV 7 August and 9 August 2007, prior to being released on compact disc. The hour-long special audio drama was composed of a half-dozen vignettes and performances culled from theatrical history, including William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
.
British stage
Morse was a member of repertory theatre companies in PeterboroughPeterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
, Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, and other cities where he gained experience as an actor while playing more than 200 roles. In 1941 he joined the national tour of The First Mrs. Fraser starring Dame Marie Tempest
Marie Tempest
Dame Marie Tempest DBE was an English singer and actress known as the "queen of her profession".Tempest became the most famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere...
and A.E. Matthews. He debuted on the London West End stage in The School for Slavery. Other West End productions included Escort, The Assassin, and A Bullet in the Ballet. He was directed by John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
in Crisis in Heaven. Morse developed a theatrical partnership with actress Nova Pilbeam
Nova Pilbeam
Nova Margery Pilbeam is a British film and stage actress. She was born in Wimbledon. Her father was RADA-trained actor Arnold Pilbeam.-Career:Pilbeam had widely noted roles as a child stage actress...
and they worked together both in film and on stage, most notably in the hit stage productions of The Voice of the Turtle and Flowers for the Living.
Film
Morse made his film debut in the 1942 comedy The Goose Steps OutThe Goose Steps Out
The Goose Steps Out is a British comedy film released in 1942. This film starred, and was co-directed by, the British comedian Will Hay.The film's title refers to the Nazis' vigorous ceremonial marching, called "goose-stepping".-Plot summary:...
with Will Hay
Will Hay
William Thomson "Will" Hay was an English comedian, actor, film director and amateur astronomer.-Early life:He was born in Stockton-on-Tees, in north east England, to William R...
and continued with roles in Thunder Rock
Thunder Rock (film)
Thunder Rock is a 1942 British drama film with supernatural elements, directed by Roy Boulting and starring Michael Redgrave, James Mason, Lilli Palmer and Barbara Mullen.-Background:...
, When We Are Married
When We Are Married (film)
When We Are Married is a 1943 British comedy-drama film, directed by Lance Comfort and starring Sydney Howard, Raymond Huntley and Olga Lindo.The film is a screen version of the well-known 1938 stage play by J. B...
, and This Man is Mine (released as A Soldier for Christmas in North America) with Glynis Johns
Glynis Johns
Glynis Johns is a South African-born Welsh stage and film actress, dancer, pianist and singer . With a career spanning seven decades, Johns is often cited as the "complete actress", who happens to be a trained pianist and singer...
and Nova Pilbeam
Nova Pilbeam
Nova Margery Pilbeam is a British film and stage actress. She was born in Wimbledon. Her father was RADA-trained actor Arnold Pilbeam.-Career:Pilbeam had widely noted roles as a child stage actress...
. Other notable films include Kings of the Sun
Kings of the Sun
Kings of the Sun is a 1963 movie directed by J. Lee Thompson set in Mesoamerica at the time of the conquest of Chichen Itza by Hunac Ceel. The story is about Mayan refugees who sail to the Mississippi River Valley and lay the foundation for the Mississippian culture complex...
with Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...
, Justine
Justine (1969 film)
Justine is a drama film directed by George Cukor and Joseph Strick. It was written by Lawrence B. Marcus and Andrew Sarris, based on the 1957 novel Justine by Lawrence Durrell.-Plot:...
, and Puzzle of a Downfall Child with Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
. He also appeared in the thrillers Asylum
Asylum (1972 film)
Asylum is a 1972 British horror film made by Amicus Productions. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, produced by Milton Subotsky, and scripted by Robert Bloch .It is a horror portmanteau film, one of several produced by Amicus during the 1960s to...
with Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
and The Changeling with George C. Scott
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
. He worked on several Lacewood animated productions, notably as the voice of Dragon in The Railway Dragon
The Railway Dragon
The Railway Dragon is a 1989 American television animated film. Leslie Nielsen featured as the narrator.-Plot:A little girl named Emily knows that there's something special in the railway tunnel close to her home. One day she decides to see for herself...
, alongside Tracey Moore
Tracey Moore
Tracey Ann Moore in Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian animated voice actress. She was the voice of Princess Toadstool in the two North American cartoon television series, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World...
who played Emily. In 1999 he filmed the dramatic comedy Taxman with Billy Zane
Billy Zane
William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor, producer and director. He is probably best known for his roles as Caledon Hockley in Titanic, The Phantom from The Phantom, John Wheeler in Twin Peaks and Mr...
, released as Promise Her Anything and on DVD as Nothing to Declare. His final film appearance was in I Really Hate My Job
I Really Hate My Job
- External links :*...
, released in 2007.
Later stage work
Morse performed on BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in Hide and Seek, Salad Days, and the lead of Frederick Rolfe
Frederick Rolfe
Frederick William Rolfe, better known as Baron Corvo, and also calling himself 'Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe', , was an English writer, artist, photographer and eccentric...
in Hadrian the Seventh
Hadrian the Seventh
Hadrian the Seventh is a 1904 novel by the English novelist Frederick Rolfe, who wrote under the pseudonym "Baron Corvo"....
, which he also played in Australia, co-starring with Frank Thring
Frank Thring
Frank William Thring was an Australian character actor.-Early life:Thring was born in Melbourne and educated at the Melbourne Grammar School. His father, Frank W. Thring, was the head of Efftee Studios, in Melbourne, in the 1920s, and is said to be the inventor of the clapperboard...
. He directed the historic debut of Staircase
Staircase (play)
Staircase is a two-character play by Charles Dyer about an aging gay couple who own a barber shop in the East End of London. One of them is a part-time actor about to go on trial for propositioning a police officer...
starring Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
and Milo O'Shea
Milo O'Shea
-Early life:He was born and raised in Dublin and educated by the Christian Brothers at Synge Street, along with his friend Donal Donnelly.He was discovered in the 1950s by Harry Dillon, who ran the "37 Theatre Club" on the top floor of his shop The Swiss Gem Company, 51 Lower O'Connell Street...
, which stands as Broadway's first depiction of homosexual men in a serious way. He also starred in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
national tour of Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
's The Caretaker
The Caretaker
The Caretaker is a play by Harold Pinter. It was first published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960. The sixth play that Pinter wrote for stage or television production, it was his first significant commercial success...
as Davies.
He first presented a version of his one man show Merely Players
Merely Players
Merely Players was a one man stage show written and performed by Barry Morse. It examined the lives of a series of actors and others from Elizabethan times up to present day...
in 1959, which explored the experiences of actors through history, with the definitive version of the show debuting in 1984 for a Canadian national tour. Morse was perhaps the only actor to have performed in every play of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
.
Morse served as Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival
Shaw Festival
The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the second largest repertory theatre company in North America...
of Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
for the 1966 season and as an Adjunct Professor at Yale Drama School in 1968.
In 1995, he premiered the Elizabeth Sharland
Elizabeth Sharland
Elizabeth Sharland, L.G.S.M., A.Mus. A., is an actress, author and producer. Her first book, , was published in 1997 and she has since written six more books on the theatre, including , , and , as well as penning a novel, , promoted by the noted British public relations consultant Richard...
play The Private Life of George Bernard Shaw in Toronto, also starring Shirley Knight
Shirley Knight
Shirley Enola Knight is an American stage, film and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in 1960 for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and in 1962 for Sweet Bird of Youth....
. The play featured Morse in the role of George Bernard Shaw with ten actresses portraying the various women in Shaw's life. Morse later performed the play in 1997 at the British Theatre Museum in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
With his son Hayward Morse
Hayward Morse
Hayward Morse is a British stage and voice actor. His career began on CBC television and with numerous stage performances in Canada and the United States. He made his USA television debut in 1959 with Ingrid Bergman in the critically acclaimed film The Turn of the Screw...
, he starred in the 2004 North American debut of Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship by Anthony Wynn
Anthony Wynn
Anthony Wynn is an American author and playwright.-Playwright:Wynn's two-act, two-actor drama Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship, explores the complex relationship between playwright George Bernard Shaw and poet Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. It is based on correspondence exchanged...
, performed at the University of Florida, Sarasota. This two-act stage drama is based on the correspondence between playwright George Bernard Shaw, played by Morse, and Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...
(the intimate friend of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
), played by Hayward.
The following year, Morse appeared in the world premiere performance of the science fiction play Contact by Doug Grissom, co-starring Ryan Case
Ryan Case
Ryan Case was born September 12, 1990, in Des Moines, Iowa. At the age of 4 Ryan first attended school as one of the youngest kids in his class. He went on to earn top honors in his elementary school at the age of 9...
and presented in Tampa, Florida
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
.
Guest roles
Morse guest starred in more than a thousand drama, comedy, and talk show presentations in the U.S.United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Early American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
appearances include the U.S. Steel Hour, Encounter
Encounter (TV series)
Encounter is a five-week anthology television series aired from Toronto, Canada, and carried by both the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and ABC from October 5 to November 2, 1958.The one-hour dramas were either romance, adventure, or mystery stories...
, and Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...
. He also guest starred on such TV series as Naked City
Naked City (TV series)
Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format....
, The Untouchables
The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s with the help of a...
, The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
, Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...
, The Defenders, and The Saint
The Saint (TV series)
The Saint was an ITC mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the UK on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It centred on the Leslie Charteris literary character, Simon Templar, a Robin Hood-like adventurer with a penchant for disguise. The character may be nicknamed The Saint because the...
. In The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. The series is similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone, but with a greater emphasis on science fiction, rather than fantasy stories...
episode "Controlled Experiment" he starred with Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor
John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
and Grace Lee Whitney
Grace Lee Whitney
Grace Lee Whitney, also known as Ruth Whitney and Lee Whitney is an American actress and entertainer. She is best known for playing the role of Janice Rand on the Star Trek television series and subsequent films.-Early life:...
. In his later years, Morse guest-starred in a number of Canadian-produced series, including La Femme Nikita and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
Kung Fu: The Legend Continues is a spin-off of the 1972-1975 television series Kung Fu. David Carradine and Chris Potter starred as a father and son trained in kung fu - Carradine playing a Shaolin monk, Potter a police detective. This series aired in syndication for four seasons, from January 27,...
, as well as such British series as Doctors, Waking the Dead
Waking the Dead (TV series)
Waking the Dead is a British television police procedural crime drama series produced by the BBC featuring a fictional Cold Case Unit comprising CID police officers, a psychological profiler and a forensic scientist. A pilot episode aired in September 2000 and there have been a total of nine series...
and Space Island One
Space Island One
Space Island One is a British/German science fiction television series that ran for 26 episodes beginning in 1998. A co-production between the UK's Sky One channel and the German Vox channel, it starred Judy Loe as Kathryn McTiernan, the commander of the multinational crew of the space station...
.
Series
Morse's first television series was Presenting Barry Morse, which aired for thirteen weeks in the summer of 1960 on CBCCanadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
. Some of his best known television roles included: Lt Philip Gerard on the 1960s series The Fugitive
The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
with David Janssen
David Janssen
David Janssen was an American film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series The Fugitive , the starring role in the 1950s hit detective series Richard Diamond, Private Detective , and as Harry Orwell on Harry O.In 1996 TV Guide...
; "Prof. Victor Bergman
Victor Bergman
Professor Victor Bergman is the name of a recurring character on the UK science fiction television series Space: 1999. The role was portrayed by actor Barry Morse.-Character Biography:...
" in the 1975-1976 season of Space: 1999
Space: 1999
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...
with Martin Landau
Martin Landau
Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999...
, Barbara Bain
Barbara Bain
Millicent Fogel , known professionally as Barbara Bain, is an American actress.-Early life:Bain was born in Chicago. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in sociology. She moved to New York City, where she was a dancer and high fashion model. Bain studied with...
, and Zienia Merton
Zienia Merton
Zienia Merton is a British actress born in Burma. Her mother was Burmese, and her father half English, half French. She was raised in Singapore, Borneo, Portugal, and England....
; 'Mr. Parminter' in The Adventurer
The Adventurer (TV series)
The Adventurer is an ITC Entertainment TV adventure series created by Dennis Spooner that ran for one season from 1972 to 1973. It premiered in the UK on 29 September 1972. The show starred Gene Barry as Gene Bradley, a government agent of independent means who poses as a glamorous American movie...
with Gene Barry
Gene Barry
Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City and The War of The Worlds and for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Bat Masterson, among many roles.-Personal life:Barry was born...
; and "Alec 'The Tiger' Marlowe" in The Zoo Gang
The Zoo Gang
The Zoo Gang was a 1974 ITC Entertainment drama series that ran for six one-hour colour episodes, based on the 1971 book of the same name by Paul Gallico....
with Sir John Mills
John Mills
Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...
, Lilli Palmer
Lilli Palmer
Lilli Palmer , born Lilli Marie Peiser, was a German actress. She won the Volpi Cup, the Deutscher Filmpreis three times, and was nominated twice for a Golden Globe Award.-Life and career:...
, and Brian Keith
Brian Keith
Brian Keith was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his four decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney family film The Parent Trap, the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and the 1975 adventure saga The Wind and...
. In 1982 he played the Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
-esque U.S. President Johnny Cyclops in the satirical sitcom Whoops Apocalypse
Whoops Apocalypse
Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 television sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 movie from ITC Entertainment, with almost completely different characters and plot, although one or two...
in the UK and hosted the series Strange But True for the CBC.
Miniseries
Morse appeared in a number of television mini-series, including The Winds of WarThe Winds of War
The Winds of War is Herman Wouk's second book about World War II, the first being The Caine Mutiny . Published in 1971, it was followed up seven years later by War and Remembrance; originally conceived as one volume, Wouk decided to break it in two when he realized it took nearly 1000 pages just to...
and War and Remembrance
War and Remembrance
War and Remembrance is a novel by Herman Wouk, published in 1978, which is the sequel to The Winds of War. It continues the story of the extended Henry family and the Jastrow family starting on 15 December 1941 and ending on 6 August 1945. This novel was adapted into a mini-series presented on...
(both with Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
), The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
, Sadat
Sadat
- See also :* Anwar Sadat, former President of Egypt* Sadat * Saadat* Sadat. Term also used for the descendents of Holy Prophet Muhammad through Imam Ali and Bibi Fatima progeny....
, and Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth, CBE is an English author and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan and The Cobra.-...
's Icon
Icon (film)
Icon is a Hallmark Channel original television film directed by Charles Martin Smith and based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth. The film premiered on the network May 30, 2005...
. Other notable miniseries appearances include A Woman of Substance
A Woman of Substance (mini-series)
A Woman of Substance is a British/American television miniseries, produced in 1984. It is based on the 1979 book of the same name by the author Barbara Taylor Bradford.- Plot :In 1970, Emma Harte is a wealthy, formidable businesswoman...
, Master of the Game
Master of the Game
Master of the Game is a novel by Sidney Sheldon, first published in hardback format in 1982. Spanning six generations in the lives of the fictional MacGregor/Blackwell family, the critically acclaimed novel debuted at number one on the New York Times Bestseller List...
, and Race for the Bomb.
Books
Merely Players
Merely Players was a one man stage show written and performed by Barry Morse. It examined the lives of a series of actors and others from Elizabethan times up to present day...
was published in 2003 and his first autobiography Pulling Faces, Making Noises was released in 2004.
Stories of the Theatre was published in 2006 and features material from his CBC radio series A Touch of Greasepaint, which aired from 1954 to 1967.
His long-awaited theatrical memoir, Remember With Advantages - Chasing 'The Fugitive' and Other Stories from an Actor's Life (ISBN 9780786427710), (written with Robert E. Wood
Robert E. Wood (painter)
Robert E. Wood is a Canadian fine artist and author. He specializes in representational landscape paintings, which focus on the Rocky Mountains, lakes, rivers and forests of Alberta and British Columbia. Wood's diverse subject matter also includes street scenes, still life and floral subjects,...
and Anthony Wynn
Anthony Wynn
Anthony Wynn is an American author and playwright.-Playwright:Wynn's two-act, two-actor drama Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship, explores the complex relationship between playwright George Bernard Shaw and poet Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. It is based on correspondence exchanged...
), details his life and career. The book features a foreword written by Academy Award-winning actor Martin Landau
Martin Landau
Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999...
and was released by McFarland and Company publishers in Spring 2007.
Morse wrote the Afterword to Destination: Moonbase Alpha - The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to SPACE: 1999 (ISBN 9781845830342), published in 2010 by Telos Publishing. Written by Robert E. Wood
Robert E. Wood (painter)
Robert E. Wood is a Canadian fine artist and author. He specializes in representational landscape paintings, which focus on the Rocky Mountains, lakes, rivers and forests of Alberta and British Columbia. Wood's diverse subject matter also includes street scenes, still life and floral subjects,...
and featuring a colour photo section of models created for the series by Martin Bower
Martin Bower
Martin Bower is a model maker and designer of special effects miniatures for both film and television. His credits include the television series Space: 1999 and the films Alien , Flash Gordon and Outland...
, as well as a Foreword by Zienia Merton
Zienia Merton
Zienia Merton is a British actress born in Burma. Her mother was Burmese, and her father half English, half French. She was raised in Singapore, Borneo, Portugal, and England....
, the book is the most comprehensive work ever published on the cult science fiction series Space: 1999
Space: 1999
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...
. Morse is extensively quoted throughout the book, as are numerous other series cast and crew.
Family life
After a short courtship, Morse married actress Sydney SturgessSydney Sturgess
Dorothy Anna "Sydney" Sturgess was a British-Canadian actress. She is best known for her work with the Shaw Festival and the Stratford Festival of Canada...
on March 26, 1939, during their work together in repertory theatre in Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The couple had two children, Melanie Morse
Melanie Morse MacQuarrie
Melanie Virginia Sydney Morse MacQuarrie was a Canadian actress.-Background:MacQuarrie was the daughter of actors Barry Morse and Sydney Sturgess and sister of Hayward Morse. She was born in London, England, but lived in Canada from the age of six...
(1945–2005) and Hayward Morse
Hayward Morse
Hayward Morse is a British stage and voice actor. His career began on CBC television and with numerous stage performances in Canada and the United States. He made his USA television debut in 1959 with Ingrid Bergman in the critically acclaimed film The Turn of the Screw...
(b. 1947).
In 1951, the Morse family relocated to Canada, where he worked in radio and theatre, and participated in the first television broadcasts of CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
Television from Montreal, and later Toronto. Morse became a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
citizen in 1953.
Charitable work
Barry Morse long supported a number of charitable organizations, including the Toronto-based Performing Arts Lodges of Canada, the Royal Theatrical Fund, the London Shakespeare Workout Prison Project, Actors' Fund of Canada, The Samaritans, BookPALS, and Parkinsons disease treatment and research.The cause of Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
held a special place in Morse's heart as his wife of more than 60 years, actress Sydney Sturgess
Sydney Sturgess
Dorothy Anna "Sydney" Sturgess was a British-Canadian actress. She is best known for her work with the Shaw Festival and the Stratford Festival of Canada...
, battled the illness for 14 years before her death in 1999. In later years, he also became an advocate for senior citizens in his adopted homeland of Canada.
Death
Barry Morse died 2 February 2008 at University College LondonUniversity College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
hospital, aged 89, from undisclosed causes. His body was donated to Medical Science.
Selected filmography
- This Man Is MineThis Man Is Mine (1946 film)This Man Is Mine is a 1946 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Tom Walls, Glynis Johns and Jeanne De Casalis. A Canadian soldier is billeted with a British family for the Christmas holidays to the delight of the two unmarried daughters...
(1946) - Daughter of DarknessDaughter of Darkness (1948 film)Daughter of Darkness is a 1947 British film, with macabre overtones, directed by Lance Comfort and starring Anne Crawford, Maxwell Reed and - in the central role - Siobhan McKenna...
(1948) - AsylumAsylum (1972 film)Asylum is a 1972 British horror film made by Amicus Productions. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, produced by Milton Subotsky, and scripted by Robert Bloch .It is a horror portmanteau film, one of several produced by Amicus during the 1960s to...
(1972) - The ChangelingThe Changeling (film)The Changeling is a 1980 horror film directed by Peter Medak and starring George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere . The story is based upon events that writer Russell Hunter said he experienced while he was living in the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion of Denver, Colorado.-Plot:Scott stars as Dr...
(1980)
External links
- The Official Barry Morse Website
- Destination: Moonbase Alpha - The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Space: 1999
- The Actors' Fund of Canada
- Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia - Barry Morse
- Obituary, The Globe and Mail