Morley, Robert

Morley, Robert (1908–92), English actor and playwright, son-in-law of Gladys Cooper. He made his first appearance on the stage in 1928, and was in Fagan's repertory company at Oxford. Later he joined the Cambridge Festival Theatre Company under Norman Marshall, under whose direction he made his first outstanding success in the title-role of Leslie and Sewell Stokes's Oscar Wilde (1936) at the London Gate Theatre (NY, 1938). In 1937 he played Professor Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion at the Old Vic, and among his later successes were Sheridan Whiteside in Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941), the Prince Regent in Norman Ginsbury's The First Gentleman (1945), and Arnold Holt in Edward, My Son (1947; NY, 1948), of which he was co-author. He was then seen in two plays by André Roussin, The Little Hut (1950), which ran for three years, and Hippo Dancing (1954), which he adapted himself. He made his début in a musical play as Panisse in Fanny (1956), and played the Japanese Mr Asano in Spigelgass's A Majority of One (1960). He was also effective in Ustinov's Halfway up the Tree (1967), Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves (1970), in which he also played in North America and Australia, A Ghost on Tiptoe (1974), which he again co-authored, and a revival of Ben Travers's Banana Ridge (1976). Of his own plays, the best known is Goodness, How Sad! (1938). He was limited by his burly form and rich, booming voice to mainly arrogant, domineering roles, but he was an excellent actor and widely and deservedly popular.