Remember with Advantages: Chasing The Fugitive and Other Stories from an Actor's Life

by Barry Morse, Robert E. Wood, Anthony Wynn

His resume of roles includes Macbeth, Cyrano de Bergerac, Ebenezer Scrooge and Oedipus Rex. His career has encompassed theatre and television in England, Canada and the United States. With a gift for developing offbeat characters, Barry Morse has had a prolific acting career, and the story of his life is a veritable history of 20th century theatre from the days before World War II through the early 21st century. In this memoir Morse traces his life and career, including his years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, his radio jobs with the BBC, his 60-year marriage to actress Sydney Sturgess and their years together in the Court Players, his roles on television shows ( The Fugitive, 1999 ), and his acquaintance with literary lights (George Bernard Shaw) and screen stars (Robert Mitchum and Peter Cushing). Photographs from the Morse family collection are included.

258 pages, Paperback

First published March 23, 2007

Reviews

[Barry Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the youngest students ever taken into the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Arts, Barry Morse had played some 200 parts in English repertory theater by the time he was 23. That kind of experience plus doing radio and early television for the BBC made him an extremely professional and versatile actor. He did films as well. He immigrated to Canada in the 1950's where all that experience paid off and he became a fixture on CBC radio and television and in Canadian theater. A facility for accents allowed him to play a wide variety of parts and nationalities. Although he was born a Cockney in London, most people thought he was Canadian, but he could just as easily play Americans. Whether he's remembered for his defining roles as the pursuing policeman in the classic TV show "The Fugitive," with David Janssen or his role on the equally classic "Space 1999," with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, or another one of the some 3000 roles he played in movies, television, stage, or radio pretty well everyone the world over knows his face or voice. In this memoir, with the aid of Anthony Wynn and Robert E. Wood, he looks back on a life and career unlike any other and recalls his acquaintances with the likes of George Bernard Shaw, Robert Mitchum and Peter Cushing. An extremely wide-ranging memoir of a large section show business history. - BH.