Chester Morris

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John Chester Brooks Morris (born February 16, 1901 in New York , NY - † September 11, 1970 in New Hope , Pennsylvania ) was an American actor .

Life

Chester Morris with Mae Marsh in The Beloved Traitor (1918)

Chester Morris was the son of actor William Morris (1861-1936) and comedian Etta Hawkins (1865-1945). He started filming as early as 1917. A year later he appeared on Broadway alongside Lionel Barrymore in The Copperhead . In the 1920s he made only a few films, but was successful on Broadway. At the end of the 1920s, with the start of talkies , Morris turned to Hollywood cinema. In 1930 he received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in Alibi (1929), but it was only his role in the prison drama Hell Behind Bars (1930) that spurred his career. He subsequently shot with some of Hollywood's great female stars, including Norma Shearer for The Woman for All (1930) and Jean Harlow for Feuerkopf (1932).

From the mid-1930s, interest in Chester Morris decreased significantly and he mostly had to be content with leading roles in B-movies. He had further success between 1941 and 1949 with the detective film series Boston Blackie , produced by Columbia Pictures , in which he played the title character. The role of Boston Blackie, however, also became his curse. Committed to this figure, he hardly received any role offers in the 1950s and 1960s. Instead, he increasingly worked as a performer on US television, including hosting the series Captured (1960). He made his last appearance in 1970 in The Great White Hope by Martin Ritt .

Shortly afterwards, the 69-year-old actor, who had cancer, died of a sleeping pill overdose . It remained unclear whether it was an accident or a suicide. Morris was married to Suzanne Kilbourne from 1926 until their divorce in 1940, the couple had a son and a daughter; and from 1940 until his death with Lillian Kenton Barker, from this marriage he had another son.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chester Morris at Allmovie
personal data
SURNAME Morris, Chester
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Morris, John Chester Brooks (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH New York , NY , USA
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1970
Place of death New Hope , Pennsylvania , USA