Garrett Morris

Garrett Isaac Morris, born February 1, 1937, in New Orleans, Louisiana, is an American actor, comedian, and singer whose career has spanned Broadway, film, and decades of television. He grew up in the Gert Town neighborhood of New Orleans and sang in church choirs from an early age. He trained at the Juilliard School of Music and earned a degree from Dillard University in 1958. Early in his professional life, Morris performed with The Belafonte Folk Singers, and in 1960 he recorded South African Freedom Songs with Pete Seeger and Guy Carawan for Folkways Records. In 1965, he worked alongside Amiri Baraka, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and Sonia Sanchez at the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in Harlem, a venue that was frequently surveilled and raided by the New York City Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation during that period.

Morris's Broadway career ran from 1967 to 1974. His credits include the musical I'm Solomon, Operation Sidewinder, Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death, and What the Wine-Sellers Buy, in which he starred. He also appeared in Hallelujah, Baby! during this period on the stage.

In 1975, Morris became a founding cast member of Saturday Night Live, making him the first Black cast member in the program's history. He was 38 at the time of the show's debut, making him the eldest of the original cast, a distinction he continues to hold as the eldest surviving member of that group. His path to the show involved an unusual sequence of events: Morris had written a play that producer Lorne Michaels read and admired, which initially brought him on as a writer. His casting as a performer came later, after colleagues already hired for the show prompted Michaels to watch Cooley High, a 1975 film in which Morris appeared, which Morris credited as having played a role in securing him a spot on the cast. He remained with SNL through 1980.

Among his recurring characters on the program was Chico Escuela, a Dominican baseball player for the New York Mets whose limited English led him to answer nearly any question with the phrase "Baseball... been berra berra good... to me." Morris also appeared regularly in the Weekend Update segment as the self-described headmaster of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing, a character who repeated each headline by shouting it with his hands cupped around his mouth, parodying the then-common practice of providing sign language interpretation in a screen inset. His other recurring characters included Cliff, the streetwise companion to the Festrunk Brothers played by Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin; Grant Robinson Jr., one of The Nerds; Hodo, a crony of Miles Cowperthwaite; and Merkon, leader of the Coneheads. Morris also performed classical music periodically on the show, including a Mozart aria from Don Giovanni, a Schubert lied, and, in February 1977, a Tchaikovsky piece performed barefoot in Caribbean dress. According to the book Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, Morris was frequently unhappy during his tenure and felt he was typecast in stereotypical roles. In 2024, the film Saturday Night, directed by Jason Reitman, depicted Morris's dissatisfaction during the show's opening night, with actor Lamorne Morris portraying him.

Morris's film work began during his SNL years. He played a teacher in Cooley High in 1975 and appeared as Slide the bookmaker in Car Wash in 1976. He starred as Carl in The Census Taker, a 1984 black comedy directed by Bruce R. Cook. In 2008, he played Reverend Pratt in The Longshots, a family drama starring Ice Cube and Keke Palmer. He also appeared in the 1992 horror comedy Severed Ties.

His television work after SNL was extensive. Morris appeared in five episodes of The Jeffersons in 1983 and 1984, playing a character named Jimmy. From 1986 to 1989, he played Arnold "Sporty" James on the NBC cop drama Hunter, starring Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer. He appeared in two episodes of Married... with Children, once in a season one episode and again in season three, playing Russ, one of Al Bundy's poker companions. From 1992 to 1995, Morris played Stan Winters, Martin's first boss, on the sitcom Martin, until a 1994 shooting by a would-be robber temporarily incapacitated him. He made two guest appearances on The Wayans Bros. in 1995, first as himself and then as the brothers' uncle Leon. From 1996 to 2001, Morris held a starring role as Junior "Uncle Junior" King on The Jamie Foxx Show. He appeared as himself in a 1998 episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast and reprised his Weekend Update character in a 2006 cameo on Family Guy. From 2011 to 2017, Morris played Earl Washington, a regular character on the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls. He appeared in the NBC drama This Is Us in 2018 and in a 2019 episode of A Black Lady Sketch Show. Morris also had regular roles on Diff'rent Strokes, Hill Street Blues, 227, and Roc.

In 2024, Morris received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.