Aubrey Morris, a charming and talented British actor, was known for his versatility and ability to play a wide range of eccentric characters. Born Aubrey Steinberg to a Jewish-Ukrainian family, Morris was one of several siblings with artistic inclinations. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London on a scholarship and made his stage debut in 1944.
Throughout the 1950s, Morris acted regularly on the West End stage, at the Old Vic, and on Broadway. He was particularly skilled at using his Shakespearean-trained voice and his diminutive stature to bring characters to life on screen. Morris was adept at conveying a range of emotions and traits, including unctuousness, cunning, duplicity, civility, and obsession.
Morris's many memorable performances include his portrayal of Mr. Mybug, a Freud-fixated writer, in Cold Comfort Farm (1968); Mr. Deltoid, a sleazy probation officer, in A Clockwork Orange (1971); a sinister gravedigger in The Wicker Man (1973); Grosvenor, an oily manservant, in "The Curse of the Claw" episode of Ripping Yarns (1976); the jolly captain of the 'B-Ark' in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981); and Chesterton, an ancient thespian, in HBO's Deadwood (2004).
After residing in the U.S. since the mid-1980s, Morris continued to act until his death at the age of 89.
