http://www.tvland.com/obits/morris/index.jhtml Howard Morris, best remembered as the poetry-spouting Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show, died on Saturday, May 21, 2005. He was 85.
Born on September 4, 1919, Morris was raised in New York City and educated in the public school system. He was in his teens when he befriended another aspiring actor named Carl Reiner while attending the National Youth Administration's radio workshop in New York City. The two were reunited in Honolulu during World War II, when Morris was Reiner's sergeant in an entertainment unit headed by Maurice Evans, the distinguished classical actor who would later play Samantha's father on Bewitched. Both Morris and Reiner played supporting roles in Evans' army-camp tour of Hamlet and MacBeth.
After the war, Morris and Reiner toured in the musical Call Me Mister before joining the cast of Sid Caesar's classic Your Show of Shows. The 90-minute show, with scripts written by such luminaries as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Woody Allen, was one of the most heralded of television's Golden Age. When the series was canceled in 1954, Morris joined Caesar and Reiner in another TV classic, Caesar's Hour. After that show ended in 1957, Morris moved to Hollywood where he played comedic characters in such films as Boys' Night Out and 40 Pounds of Trouble. He appeared with Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor and Way... Way Out and with Brooks in High Anxiety and History of the World, Part I.
Morris also acted in sitcoms, and he played sad-sack George P. Hanley on the memorable episode of The Twilight Zone entitled I Dream of Genie, but it was the role of Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show that brought him fame and the adoration of fans. Although he appeared in only a handful of episodes, his character remains warmly remembered, and his fan website--
http://www.ernestt.com --is named for the character.
Eventually Morris moved from acting to directing, and he made his feature film directing debut in 1967 with Who's Minding the Mint? Some of his other directing credits include With Six You Get Egg Roll, Don't Drink the Water, and Goin' Coconuts. He also directed the TV pilot for the classic 1960s spy spoof Get Smart.
Morris had a versatile voice and a knack for characterization, and was placed under contract by Hanna-Barbara Productions in the 1960s. He created hundreds of voices for shows such as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Archie Show, My Favorite Martians, Cow and Chicken, and DuckTales.
Morris was married and divorced five times. His son David, 39, is a director of TV commercials.
TV Land will air a tribute to Morris on Wednesday, May 25, from 7 p.m.-10 p.m., which will feature five episodes of The Andy Griffith Show in which Morris appears as Ernest and one episode directed by him. Please join us in celebrating the life, and marking the passing, of this TV Land legend.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
