Aubrey Morris

Once hailed as the finest small-part player in London, versatile character actor Aubrey Morris regularly stole the show from his more high-profile co-stars thanks to a magnetic screen presence which blended the comically camp with the strangely sinister. Born in Portsmouth, Hampshire in 1926, Morris attended his hometown's Municipal College before landing a scholarship at London's prestigious RADA, making his acting debut in a Regent's Park Theatre production of "A Winter's Tale." Morris devoted most of his early career to the stage including a two-year stint at The Old Vic, but switched his attention to TV and film in the '60s, guest starring in some of the decade's most iconic shows including "The Avengers" (ITV, 1961-69), "The Saint" (ITV, 1962-69) and "The Prisoner" (ITV, 1967-68), and appearing in "The Quare Fellow" (1962), "City Beneath the Sea" (1962) and "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" (1969). Morris' signature wide smile, sideways glances and drawn-out speech pattern then graced a number of landmark films, most memorably as Alex's pervy correction officer in "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) and the eerie gravedigger in "The Wicker Man" (1973). After adding Woody Allen's Russian literature satire "Love and Death" (1975) and Ken Russell's campy "Lisztomania" (1975) to his resume, Morris moved to America. Parts in "My Girl 2" (1994) and "Bordello of Blood" (1996), as well as a three-episode stint in "Deadwood" (HBO, 2004-06), and a guest spot on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (FX, 2005- ) then followed, before Morris died in 2015 aged 89.