1908-1966
Charles Morton was an actor of stage, screen and tube; both and leading man and a supporting character actor during his long career; he was also a stunt man for a time. He was born on this day in the state of Illinois, where specifically is a matter of mystery. We do know that he grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and started acting on the late vaudeville stages around the age of seven. From there he graduated up through theater appearances while still in school all the way through attending the University of Wisconsin; eventually making his professional stage debut in the 1920's. He was handsome and athletic, so it is hardly surprising that the studios took early notice of him. And, he, for his part, was also determined to break into pictures. It's a bit unusual for someone born in 1908 to get their start in silent cinema, but this is precisely what Morton did in 1927. He was cast in the top supporting role of the Fox comedy Rich But Honest, with the now almost unknown "flapper" Nancy Nash and actor John Holland, who had a very short lived film career. He quickly graduated to leading man, appearing next in Colleen (July 1927) opposite Madge Bellamy. He finished off his debut year in films with the human male lead in Wolf Fangs, starring Fox's answer to Rin Tin Tin: Thunder the Dog in the animal male lead. He was next cast in his first big Fox production and his first sound film, John Ford's Four Sons (1928) as the son Johann. This film is a partial silent with musical scoring and war sound effects by Movietone; it had to be one the first Fox films with a orchestrator and music arranger, even if they did go uncredited (it also had an props guy that went without a credit....a young man that went by the name "Duke" Morrison, aka John Wayne). Morton appeared in two more fully silent films, Dressed to Kill (1928, with Mary Astor) and None But the Brave (1928, with Sally Phipps), before he appeared in his next film with sound: Murnau's famously lost 4 Devils, with Mary Duncan in a late "vamp" role. He followed this by again appearing with Mary Astor in the partial silent New Year's Eve in 1929; next landing the leading role The Fall Call, a full talkie. His role opposite Janet Gaynor in Christina, released in December of 1929, brought to a close the number of films that he made during the decade; the fact that it was a partial silent also underscores how late Fox as studio was in the race to bring full sound to films. His first film in the new decade, the southern period melodrama Cameo Kirby, saw him in a supporting role, with J. Harold Murray in the lead. It would be an indication of how his career was headed. Morton was a strange case, in that he became a late silent era star whose career began to falter with the coming of the sound era in the 1930's. It's really unusual for a popular actor entering films so late in the 1920's to have their career so negatively impacted by the coming of sound, but Morton was never a genius actor and he also had a number of personal problems that began to mount into the early 30's...that certainly could not have helped. He had no high profile leading roles in the 1930's and after 1933, he had trouble even getting larger supporting roles. Soon enough, he was put into tiny uncredited roles, such as "Party Guest" in Universal's The Invisible Man (November 1933). He had no roles (even in stunt work) for 1934 or 1935, returning to work in a bit part in the short crime film Foolproof in 1936. Every single role that he had during the rest of the decade went without a formal credit; even the stunt work, which he started in 1938, was uncredited. He appeared in nearly 40 films during the 1940's, never once getting a named role. The same went for his work during the 1950's. Morton made his television debut in 1955 in the season 3 episode The House Always Wins of the variety show "Four Star Playhouse," which aired on the 28th of April--again uncredited as a "gambler." It was in the 1950's when he managed to get a bit "type cast" by playing bartenders in a string of films; this is something that continued into the 1960's, even appearing as such in several episodes of series such as "Tate" and "Maverick." And, it was in the role of "bartender" in 5 episodes of "F Troop" in 1966 that represent his last acting role. Morton's stunt had cone to an end four years earlier. Charles Morton died of heart disease at the age of just 58 on the 26th of October in Hollywood. He was cremated and interred in an in ground grave left unmarked at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood.
A publicity shot used by Fox and dating from 1927
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