Barry Morse

Herbert Barry Morse was born on 10 June 1918, in the Hammersmith area of west London, the son of Charles Hayward Morse and Mary Florence Hollis Morse, whose family ran a tobacco shop. At fifteen, while working as an errand boy, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. During his studies he played the Lion in Androcles and the Lion, an experience that brought him into contact with George Bernard Shaw, who was a patron of the academy. His first paid acting work came while he was still a student, in If I Were King. At graduation he took the title role in a Royal Command Performance of Henry V, presented before King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Morse's performing career extended across seven decades and encompassed film, television, stage, and radio work in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Born in London, he later became a British-Canadian actor, writer, and director.

His professional stage career began in repertory theatre companies in Peterborough, Nottingham, and other cities, where he accumulated more than 200 roles. In 1941 he joined the national tour of The First Mrs. Fraser, featuring Dame Marie Tempest and A.E. Matthews. His West End debut came in The School for Slavery, and subsequent London productions included Escort, The Assassin, and A Bullet in the Ballet. John Gielgud directed him in Crisis in Heaven. He developed a sustained theatrical partnership with actress Nova Pilbeam, collaborating with her on stage and in film, most notably in The Voice of the Turtle and Flowers for the Living.

Morse appeared on Broadway between 1957 and 1969. His credits included the drama Hide and Seek, Salad Days, and Hadrian the Seventh, in which he played the lead role of Frederick Rolfe. He subsequently performed the same role in Australia, co-featuring with Frank Thring. He also directed the Broadway debut of Staircase, featuring Eli Wallach and Milo O'Shea, a production depicting gay male life. In addition, he toured the United States in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker, playing Davies.

Beyond Broadway, 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. He first presented his one-man show Merely Players in 1959, a work exploring the experiences of actors through history, with the definitive version premiering in 1984 for a Canadian national tour. In 1995 he premiered Elizabeth Sharland's The Private Life of George Bernard Shaw in Toronto, playing Shaw opposite Shirley Knight and nine other actresses portraying the women in Shaw's life. He reprised the role in 1997 at the British Theatre Museum in London. In 2004 he appeared alongside his son Hayward Morse in the North American debut of Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship by Anthony Wynn, performed at the University of Florida, Sarasota, again portraying Shaw.

On radio, Morse won the BBC's Radio Prize upon graduating from RADA, which led to several parts including a lead role in The Fall of the City. He later played the title role in Shakespeare's Hamlet and featured as Paul Temple in Send for Paul Temple Again. Beginning in 1951 and continuing into the 1980s, he worked extensively for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, appearing in A Touch of Greasepaint, The Investigator, and 1984, among other productions. For American producer Yuri Rasovsky he featured in The Odyssey of Homer, which received a Peabody Award. His final radio performance, Rogues and Vagabonds – A Theatrical Scrapbook, was distributed by internet radio KSAV in August 2007 and subsequently released on compact disc.

Morse's film work began with the 1942 comedy The Goose Steps Out, featuring Will Hay. Subsequent roles came in Thunder Rock, When We Are Married, and This Man Is Mine with Glynis Johns and Nova Pilbeam. Later film appearances included Kings of the Sun with Yul Brynner, Justine, Puzzle of a Downfall Child with Faye Dunaway, Asylum with Peter Cushing, The Changeling with George C. Scott, and Funeral Home with Kay Hawtrey and Lesleh Donaldson. He provided the voice of Dragon in the Lacewood animated production The Railway Dragon, alongside Tracey Moore. In 1999 he appeared in the dramatic comedy Taxman with Billy Zane, and his final film appearance was in I Really Hate My Job, released in 2007.

On television, Morse gained his widest recognition through two prominent series roles. He portrayed Lt. Philip Gerard, the relentless antagonist pursuing Dr. Richard Kimble in the American series The Fugitive from 1963 to 1967. The series finale was broadcast simultaneously around the world to preserve its outcome, and in the United States it was watched by 72 percent of the American viewing public, a record that stood until the Dallas "Who shot J.R.?" episode in 1980. Morse later played Dr. Victor Bergman in the science-fiction series Space: 1999 from 1975 to 1976. His first television series had been Presenting Barry Morse, broadcast for thirteen weeks in the summer of 1960 on the CBC, where he was so frequently seen in the network's early years that he was nicknamed "the CBC Test Pattern." Over the course of his career he guest-featured in more than a thousand drama, comedy, and talk-show presentations across the United States, Canada, and Britain, including appearances on The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Naked City, The Untouchables, Wagon Train, The Defenders, The Invaders, and The Saint, as well as later work on La Femme Nikita, Waking the Dead, and Doctors.

Barry Morse died on 2 February 2008.