Barry Morse

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Herbert Morse (10 June 1918 – 2 February 2008), known professionally as Barry Morse, was a British-Canadian actor of stage, screen, and radio, best known for his roles in the

Upon graduation, Morse won the BBC's Radio Prize which resulted in several parts and a main role in the drama The Fall of the City. Later, among dozens of other roles, he played the lead in Shakespeare's Hamlet and featured as Paul Temple for the radio series Send for Paul Temple Again. He later performed on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 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 featured in a number of U.S. productions during 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, was distributed by internet radio KSAV on 7 August and 9 August 2007, prior to being released on compact disc format. The hour-long special audio drama comprised a half-dozen vignettes and performances culled from theatrical history, including Shakespeare and Shaw.

British stage

Morse was a member of repertory theatre companies in

Morse performed on Broadway in Hide and Seek, Salad Days, and the lead of Frederick Rolfe in Hadrian the Seventh, which he also played in Australia, co-featuring with Frank Thring. He directed the Broadway debut of Staircase featuring Eli Wallach and Milo O'Shea, a depiction of gay male life.^[3] He also featured 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 served as artistic director of the

In 1995, he premiered the Elizabeth Sharland play The Private Life of George Bernard Shaw in Toronto, also featuring Shirley Knight. The play featured Morse in the role of Shaw, with 10 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

The next year, Morse appeared in the world premiere performance of the science-fiction play Contact by Doug Grissom, co-featuring Ryan Case and presented in Tampa, Florida.^{[citation needed]}

Television

1975-77 Space: 1999 (Dr. Victor Bergman)

Guest roles

Morse guest-featured in more than a thousand drama, comedy, and talk-show presentations in the U.S., Canada, and

In his later years, Morse guest-featured 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.

Series

Morse's first television series was Presenting Barry Morse, which was broadcast for 13 weeks during the summer of 1960 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Some of his best-known television roles included:

Miniseries

Morse appeared in a number of television miniseries, including

Books

The book based on his long-running stage play Merely Players – The Scripts was published in 2003. 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 was broadcast from 1954 to 1967.

His theatrical memoir, Remember With Advantages – Chasing 'The Fugitive' and Other Stories from an Actor's Life (

After a short courtship, Morse married actress Sydney Sturgess on 26 March 1939, during their work together in repertory theatre in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. 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 with the first television broadcasts of CBC Television from Montreal, and later Toronto. Morse became a Canadian citizen in 1953.

Charitable work

Barry Morse long patronized a number of charitable organisations, 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 Parkinson's disease treatment and research.

The cause of Parkinson's disease was special for Morse, 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.

Death

Barry Morse died on 2 February 2008 at University College Hospital, London, aged 89, after a brief illness.^[4] His body was donated to science, and on 3 April 2011 Morse's ashes were scattered in St. James's Square Garden, Pall Mall, London, England.

Selected filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barry Morse.

• The Official Barry Morse Website
• Destination: Moonbase Alpha – The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Space: 1999
• The Actors' Fund of Canada Archived 10 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine
• Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia – Barry Morse
• Obituary, The Globe and Mail
• Barry Morse at
  IMDb
• Barry Morse at the Internet Broadway Database
• Barry Morse at AllMovie
• Barry Morse at Rotten Tomatoes