Dennis Morgan

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Dennis Morgan (left) in Reno 1960

Dennis Morgan (born December 20, 1908 in Prentice , Wisconsin , † September 7, 1994 in Fresno , California , actually Earl Stanley Morner ) was an American singer and film actor .

Life

Morgan was born in 1908 to Grace J. (née Vandusen) and Frank Edward Morner in Prentice, Wisconsin. His father was of Swedish descent. While at school in Wisconsin, Morgan starred in plays and was a member of a choral society. He later went to Carrol College in Waukesha , where he was on the football team. He then studied singing at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee and then at the American Conservatory in Chicago . After his vocal training, he worked as a radio announcer and traveled with an opera troupe, with whom he performed Bizet's Carmen , among others . In 1936 he appeared in film, initially under his real name Stanley Morner, in small supporting roles in productions for MGM and Paramount Pictures .

When Warner Brothers signed him in 1939, he was given his stage name Dennis Morgan. A year later he had his breakthrough in Miss Kitty (1940) at the side of Ginger Rogers . The 1.88 meter tall Morgan then advanced to become a popular singer and actor in American films. He and his best friend Jack Carson have appeared together in more than ten films, such as Wings of Eagle (1942) and Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). From the 1950s onwards, he worked frequently in television productions, including the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1958). When his friend Errol Flynn died on October 14, 1959, he sang the song Home Is the Sailor at his funeral .

In the 1960s, Morgan increasingly withdrew from show business and then worked successfully as a businessman. Morgan was married to his wife Lillian Vedder, whom he led to the altar in 1933, until his death. The marriage resulted in two sons, Stanley Jr. and James, and daughter Kristin. The latter starred alongside her father in the film My Wild Irish Rose (1947) as an eight-year-old . Dennis Morgan died of respiratory failure in Fresno in 1994 . He was buried in Oakhill Cemetery in Oakhurst , California .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Dennis Morgan  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Searcher . Vol. 35-36, Southern California Genealogical Society, 1998, p. 283.
  2. ↑ Richard Lamparinski: Whatever Became Of ...? . Crown Publishers, 1982, p. 283.
personal data
SURNAME Morgan, Dennis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Morner, Earl Stanley (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Prentice , Wisconsin
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1994
Place of death Fresno , California