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Morgan Conway

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Morgan Conway
Conway in Dick Tracy (1945)
Born
Sydney Albert Conway

(1900-03-16)March 16, 1900
Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedNovember 16, 1981(1981-11-16) (aged 81)
New Jersey, U.S.
OccupationActor
Years active1934–1946
Spouse(s)Lilian Conway
Aurelia Fitzpatrick Carr (1 son)
ChildrenBen Conway (1927–2003)

Morgan Conway (born Sidney Albert Conway,[1] March 16, 1900 – November 16, 1981[citation needed] ) was an American actor, best known for his portrayals of Dick Tracy.

Early life and career

Conway was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1900, the fifth of six children of Sydney Vincent Conway (1864-1914) and Margaret McConnell Conway (1867-c.1940), both born in the USA of Irish Catholic ancestry.[2] [3] He was educated at Columbia University in New York City. He had a real estate brokerage in New York City for 11 years before closing it in 1933. He went to Hollywood and began acting in little theatre.[1]

Returning to New York, Conway acted on Broadway in plays that included Angel Island (1937), In the Bag (1937), Mimie Scheller (1936), Summer Wives (1936), and If a Body (1935).[4]

For many years he freelanced, working for various studios in bits or supporting roles. His most familiar appearance from this period is probably in Charlie Chan in Reno (1939).

RKO Radio Pictures and portrayal of Dick Tracy

By the mid-1940s he was a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, and he was chosen to portray Chester Gould's comic-strip detective Dick Tracy in a pair of feature films:[3] Dick Tracy and Dick Tracy vs. Cueball. RKO's earliest publicity photos posed Conway in profile, hoping to emulate Gould's square-jawed caricatures. Morgan Conway is considered by many (including Dick Tracy writer Max Allan Collins) to be the best screen Dick Tracy.[citation needed]

Actor Ralph Byrd had played the role in four hit serials, and some exhibitors petitioned RKO to make more Tracy features, but with Byrd. RKO made the substitution, reassigning Conway to two other "B" features. The studio abandoned most of its "B" product in 1947 and Conway's contract was not renewed. In 1948, author Chester Gould proposed that RKO should continue the series, stipulating that Morgan Conway should play the lead, but RKO (then in organizational turmoil after the studio's sale to Howard Hughes) declined.[citation needed]

The Tracy role eventually led to Conway's quitting acting in 1947, because he felt that he had become stereotyped as that character. "I had to do it," he said. "People began to stop thinking of me as Morgan Conway. All they could seem to remember was that I was Dick Tracy in the movies."[5]

In 1948, Conway began an independent production company, planning to make one film per year.[6]

==Later life==[7]

Conway left the motion picture industry with his second wife Lilian Anna Conway (nee Karp), whom he married in 1946, and they returned to New Jersey, where he resumed working in commercial real estate, and a limited amount of acting on stage. He eventually died of lung cancer at the age of 81. He was survived by Lilian (who died in 1995). Back in 1926, Syd had been briefly married for about 3 years to a divorcee from the southern USA, Aurelia Blassingame Fitzpatrick (whose grandfather Benjamin Fitzpatrick had been Gov. of Alabama and US Senator, and who descended from an ancient line of Fitzpatrick ancestors in Ireland). She bore and raised Syd's only child, a son, Ben Fitzpatrick Conway.[8]Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). Syd and Ben, and later Ben's wife and children, shared quality time in the late 1940s and early 1950s after Ben returned to New York from his military service in post-war Japan. It's notable that from the early 1960s to early 1990s, Ben was a prominent literary agent in Hollywood, helping launch a number of writing and directing careers in the same industry in which his father had worked.

Partial filmography

References

  1. ^ a b Coons, Robbin (March 13, 1940). "Morgan Conway Mixes Business With Actor Job". Argus-Leader. South Dakota, Sioux Falls. Associated Press. p. 7. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
  2. ^ https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/191339427/person/172487150866/facts
  3. ^ a b Backer, Ron (January 10, 2014). Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood. McFarland. p. 262. ISBN 978-0-7864-5700-7. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  4. ^ "Morgan Conway". Internet Broadway Database. The Broadway League. Archived from the original on September 19, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
  5. ^ McPherson, Virginia (April 26, 1948). "Morgan Conway Quit Rather Than Be Dick Tracy at Home". Tucson Citizen. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Morgan Conway Enters Independent Production Field". Valley Times. March 19, 1948. p. 8. Retrieved March 16, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/191339427/person/172487150866/facts
  8. ^ https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/191339427/person/172487150866/facts

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Morgan Conway.
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