Placeholder when loading item promotions
Robert Morse, a pompous Tony-winner who starred in the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, transformed into author Truman Capote for an acclaimed one-man show, wowing TV viewers as eccentric ad executive Bert Cooper “Mad Men” died on April 20 at his home in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 90.
His agent David Shaul confirmed the death but gave no reason, saying Mr Morse had “a brief illness” that was not Covid-19.
Mr. Morse, a gap-toothed actor who retained a youthful energy well into retirement, became a Broadway sensation when he played seductive schemer J. Pierrepont Finch, a window-washer turned professor, in How to Succeed In President of the World Wide Wicket Co. rises in business without really trying.”
The musical, based on a satirical book by Shepherd Mead, premiered in 1961 and ran for over three years, winning a Pulitzer Prize and seven Tony Awards including Best Actor in a Musical for Mr. Morse.
Whether kissing the company president (Rudy Vallée), flirting with a secretary (Michele Lee), or shaving in front of a bathroom window while singing his signature tune “I Believe in You,” Mr. Morse was “an intoxicating madman,” , wrote theater critic Walter Kerr, “a sixteenth-century harlequin with a Dow Jones soul.”
Fans of the show included President John F. Kennedy and his family — Mr. Morse fondly remembered hanging out at Hickory Hill, Robert F. Kennedy’s Virginia home — and led to a 1967 film adaptation starring Mr. Morse and other original cast members .
The film was well received, but Mr. Morse struggled to translate his theatrical success to the screen, appearing in light comedy and bedroom farces that were largely ignored by viewers. He played a British poet learning the funeral business in The Loved One (1965), taught Walter Matthau how to cheat on his wife in A Guide for the Married Man (1967), and a drunkard in Where Were You? , when the lights went out?” (1968).
He also got his own television show with EJ Peaker in the ABC musical comedy That’s Life (1968-69), which received an Emmy nomination and featured a procession of guest stars – George Burns, Goldie Hawn, Sid Caesar – which was followed canceled one season.
Mr. Morse later said he battled depression and alcoholism while attempting to branch out into dramatic roles, frustrated at being typecast as a prankster of musical comedies. (He claimed that his drinking only interfered with his private life, and sobered up in 1975.) To fund his children’s education, he took dinner theater jobs; For a time he collected unemployment benefits and spent his days playing golf.
“I was considered a musical comedy performer,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “a how-to-succeed, sing-a-songs, toothless goblin, personable, fun at parties, sober, but not an actor. ”
That changed when he starred in “Tru” as the late author Capote, delivering a monologue composed mostly of the author’s own words. Written and directed by Jay Presson Allen, the play opened in 1989, ran for 297 performances and earned Mr. Morse his second Tony. He received an Emmy Award after filming the production for American Playhouse.
“With his crazy grocery bag wife’s cackle and his lounge lizard tongue whirring, Mr. Morse eerily simulates the public Capote’s pathetic final years that he might be a Capote robot,” wrote New York Times theater critic Frank Rich. He added: “One is glad to have met this actor again, is impressed by his command of his technique and audience, and is moved by the courage that has enabled him to return to a Broadway stage in such an unusual vehicle . ”
Mr. Morse had another triumph in his late career with Mad Men, in which he played the dapper co-founder of Sterling Cooper, a fictional advertising agency in the 1960s. A Zen-like Cooper, he collected modern art, embraced Japanese culture, and was rarely seen wearing shoes. His character had a gentle farewell midway through season seven, but returned later that episode as a hallucination to Adman Don Draper (Jon Hamm), performing a song and dance routine to the tune of “The Best Things in Life” on Are Free. “
The scene was a joyful reminder of Mr. Morse’s flair for musical comedy, even if some of his cast members were unaware of his previous work.
“The first day I walked on set, I thought I walked into the Road Company production of ‘How to Succeed,'” he told Rolling Stone in 2014. As he walked the aisles, he sang, ” A Secretary Is Not a Toy”, one of the most well-known songs from the musical. “Everyone looked at me like I was crazy because they’re all so damn young!
“To be fair,” he continued, “I look more like Rudy Vallée’s boss Biggley now than J. Pierrepont Finch.”
Robert Alan Morse was born on May 18, 1931 in Newton, Mass. According to a New York magazine profile, his father owned a chain of cinemas and his mother was a classically trained pianist. Like Capote, Mr. Morse said he felt he was growing up an outcast in a family that, as his character put it in “Tru,” viewed him as “kind of a two-headed calf.”
Encouraged by one of his school teachers, he concentrated on theater and traveled to New Hampshire, making his professional debut in a 1949 production of Our Town. He served in the Navy during the Korean War and later settled in New York, where he trained at the American Theater Wing and auditioned for the role of an apprentice merchant in Thornton Wilder’s comedy The Matchmaker.
Aside from an uncredited role as a wounded sailor in The Proud and the Profane, a recently completed war film, Mr. Morse has had little credit to his name. When the play’s director asked about his experiences, he began talking about the film before being interrupted by his agent – who explained that Mr Morse had just finished a major film starring William Holden and Deborah Kerr. “Period,” Mr. Morse recalled.
“I went home; my agent called and said, ‘You have a Broadway show.’ ”
The Matchmaker opened in 1955 and ran for over a year, leading to a national tour and a 1958 film version in which Mr. Morse reprized his role. (The play also served as the basis for the musical Hello, Dolly!)
Over the next two years, Mr. Morse received Tony nominations for the backstage comedy Say, Darling and Take Me Along, a musical adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s play Ah, Wilderness. He was also nominated for Sugar, a musical adaptation of the cross-dressing comedy film Some Like It Hot, and returned to Broadway at the age of 85 to appear in a revival of The Front Page.
At this time he was increasingly working for television, with credits spanning from Grandpa in the TV movie Here Come the Munsters (1995) to journalist Dominick Dunne in The People v. OJ Simpson (2016), part of the FX anthology, series American Crime Story. He has also worked as a voice artist for children’s shows, including as the title character in the stop-motion Christmas special Jack Frost and as Santa Claus in Teen Titans Go!.
His marriage to Carole D’Andrea, a West Side Story actress, ended in divorce. In 1989 he married Elizabeth Roberts. In addition to his wife, survivors include three daughters from his first marriage, Andrea Doven, Hilary Allen and Robin Morse; two children by his second, Charles Morse and Allyn Morse; a brother; and five grandchildren.
Mr. Morse said that while he loved musical theatre, playing Capote fulfilled a dream of “getting a dramatic role that touches every part of you”. But he resented being asked about parallels between himself and the character, as he had done when playing roles like musician Jerry, who disguises himself as a woman to escape gangsters in Sugar.
“No matter what I do, people want it to matter — alcohol or women’s clothing or male/female identity,” he told New York magazine in 1990. “They want to know, ‘What are your secrets?’ I’m like, ‘Hey, just like you. I have the same.’ ”