Aubrey Morris

Aubrey Morris, born Aubrey Steinberg on 1 June 1926 in Portsmouth, England, and died 15 July 2015, was a British actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television across more than six decades. He was one of nine children born to Becky (née Levine) and Morry Steinberg, whose Jewish grandparents had emigrated from Kiev to London around 1890 following the Russian pogroms. The family subsequently settled in Portsmouth. An elder brother, Wolfe Morris, also pursued a career as an actor. Morris was educated at Portsmouth Municipal College and trained at RADA.

His stage career began in 1944 with an appearance at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park in The Winter's Tale. From 1954 to 1956 he was associated with The Old Vic, and he went on to perform on Broadway between 1956 and 1960. His Broadway credits included The Hostage, Troilus and Cressida, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and King Richard II.

Morris appeared in more than fifty films. An early notable role came in John Gilling's science fiction thriller The Night Caller (1965), in which he played Thorburn, a pornographer operating a bookshop in Soho. He went on to appear in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) as P. R. Deltoid, and in Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973) as the gravedigger and gardener. Further film credits included Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975), Ken Russell's Lisztomania (1975), and Gene Wilder's The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1977). Among his later film appearances were Lifeforce (1985), My Girl 2 (1994), and Visioneers (2008).

Morris made his television debut in the BBC comedy Fly Away Peter in 1948. His television work was extensive and predominantly British, encompassing series such as Z-Cars, Lovejoy, The Avengers, The Sweeney, and The Prisoner. He appeared in The Champions (1968) as Van Velden in the episode "The Invisible Man," and played the Golgafrinchan captain in the 1981 BBC television adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He also took on roles in American productions, including the Columbo television film Ashes to Ashes (1998) and the Dennis Miller horror film Bordello of Blood (1996), as well as appearances in Babylon 5, Deadwood, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.