Robert Morse, Broadway legend with a film/Tv career including a key role in hit show ‘Mad Men’ has died aged 90.
Writer-producer Larry Karaszewski, who serves as a VP on the board of governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, tweeted news of Morse’s death on Thursday.
Morse, known for his impish, gap-toothed grin, became a star on Broadway in the musical comedy “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” for which he won his first Tony, as best actor in a musical, in 1962. The enormous hit ran for more than 1,400 performances and was adapted for the big screen in a 1967 film in which Morse reprised his starring role of J. Pierpont Finch.
Morse appeared in a number of other movies in the 1960s, including Tony Richardson’s satire of the funeral industry “The Loved One” (1965), also starring Jonathan Winters. Variety said: “Robert Morse as the poet who falls in love with the lady cosmetician (later promoted to embalmer) while making arrangements for his uncle’s interment, plays it light and airy, like a soul apart.”
The actor also starred in the Disney comedy “The Boatniks” (1970), and made a few guest appearances on series including “Love, American Style” and “Fantasy Island” during the 1970s; in the 1980s he guested on shows including “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Murder, She Wrote.”
Indie Mac User 