HAYWARD B. MORSE
~Actor of Stage & Screen~

Hayward B. Morse
Actor


Antoinette Perry "Tony" Award Nominee
for the original Broadway Production of Simon Gray's Butley

NEWS

Hayward starred in the N.C. Hunter play A Day By The Sea at London's Finborough Theatre. N.C. Hunter has been called �the English Chekhov�, and this delicate, poetic, autumnal play captures a Chekhovian sense of loss, shattered ambitions and personal isolation, but amongst a distinctly English group of characters. Set in Dorset after the Second World War, A Day by the Sea is both gently comic and profoundly tragic. It was directed by Tom Cooper and featured the following cast: Juliet Aykroyd, David Barnaby, William Maxwell, Hayward Morse, Stephen Omer, Lucy Russell, Andrew P Stephen, Romy Tennant, Daniel Galvin-Law, and Christie Galvin-Law.

BIOGRAPHY OF HAYWARD B. MORSE


Hayward Morse began his career as a child actor with work in a number of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) television productions, and numerous stage performances in Canada and the USA. He made his U.S. television debut with Ingrid Bergman in the critically acclaimed The Turn of the Screw. This was the first teleplay to be broadcast in color on the NBC network.

The Morse Family at home in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
From left: Hayward, Sydney, Barry, and Melanie


Hayward is the son of actors Barry Morse and Sydney Sturgess. Like his father before him, he won a scholarship at the age of 16 to the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, where upon graduation he was awarded the prestigious 'Silver Medal' award. Other awards include the Arthur Wontner Prize for Voice. He worked extensively in Canadian, U.S., and British regional theatre, making his London West End debut in the original production of Joe Orton's What The Butler Saw at the Queen's Theatre with Sir Ralph Richardson, Stanley Baxter, Coral Browne and Julia Foster.

In "Butley" with Holland Taylor and Alan Bates


Since then, Hayward has appeared in many stage, television, radio, and film productions in Britain and abroad, including Agency with Robert Mitchum and Death Wish 3. He received a Best Supporting Actor Antoinette Perry 'Tony' award nomination for his performance in Simon Gray's Butley on Broadway, was in the first version of The Rocky Horror Show, the Bristol Old Vic production of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, Canterbury Tales, and has appeared in many of Shakespeare's plays internationally.

Nanny Daphne Madison with baby Hayward and sister Melanie, in 1949

Hayward has recorded hundreds if audio books, including the works of Edgar Allen Poe, Harold Robbins, Bernard Cornwell, Jackie Collins, Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, and The Killing Man by Mickey Spillane. Other stage roles include highly successful performances as 'Hercule Poirot' in Alibi, the dual roles of 'Aunt' and 'Nephew' in Travels With My Aunt, Sleuth, and The Knack. Other theatre work includes I Ought to be in Pictures, Stage Struck, Relatively Speaking, and Don't Misunderstand Me.

The North American debut of Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship took place at the University of South Florida in Sarasota. The play was presented as a part of the GBS By The Bay: An International Shaw Conference and marked the first time the men have appeared together since their run in the hit Canadian production of Sleth.



Bernard and Bosie is a two-handed, two act play is based on the correspondence between playwright George Bernard Shaw and poet Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas over a decade and a half late in their lives.


Click here for information on Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship starring Barry Morse and Hayward Morse, written by Anthony Wynn.

Photos from "The Turn of the Screw"
with Ingrid Bergman
(Pictures courtesy Life Magazine
and scans courtesy Ingrid and Isabella)

Drawing of Hayward as a child

Hayward at the age of 18

Hayward was in the original West End production of Joe Orton's What The Butler Saw. In his introduction to the Complete Plays of Joe Orton, author John Lahr writes:

"By the time What the Butler Saw opened in the West End...there was no Lord Chamberlain to censor the play. But Orton's phallic fun was edited out just the same and the missing part of Sir Winston Churchill was turned into a cigar... What was intended as an image of triumphant and mischievous stage anarchy turned into a giggle. Although launched with a star-studded cast (Ralph Richardson, Stanley Baxter, Coral Browne and Julia Foster) the production was a fiasco. On opening night the gallery barracked the farce with cries of "filth!" Critics mistook the flaws in the production as limitations in the play and Orton's best work became the most underrated."



"To specialize in bad taste requires exceptional refinement, and no one understood this better than the late Joe Orton..."
- Irving Wardle, The London Times

Credits of Hayward Morse

STAGE

A Day By The Sea (2008)
The Caretaker (2007) (Tramp)
Corpse! (2007)
London Suite (2005)
The Devil's Disciple (2004) (General Burgoyne)
The Apple Cart (2003) (Prime Minister)
Don't Misunderstand Me (2002) (Charles)
And Then There Were None (2002) (Wargrave)
Someone Waiting (2001) (Fenn) (UK Tour)
Travels With My Aunt (2001) (Aunt/Nephew)
Alibi (2000) (Hercule Poirot)
Relatively Speaking (2000) (Philip)
Stage Struck (1999) (Robert)
Travels With My Aunt (Aunt/Nephew) (UK Tour) (1998)
The Mousetrap (Mr. Paravicini) (London West End) (1997)
As You Like It (Dukes Frederick/Senior) (1996)
Deathtrap (Sidney) (1995)
Sweet Revenge (Julian) (1995)
I Ought to Be in Pictures (1994) (Herb)
Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan (1990) (Mr. Dumby)
Sleuth (with Barry Morse) (Canada)
The Canterbury Tales (Franklin)
The Railway Children (Dr. Forrest) (UK Tour)
Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth (with Lauren Bacall)
See How They Run (Clive)
The Hollow (John)
Are You Lonesome Tonight? (The Englishman)
The Taming of the Shrew (Pedant, etc.)
Antony and Cleopatra (Dollabella, etc.)
Othello (Othello)
Macbeth (Macbeth)
Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio)
Henry IV, Pt. 1 (Henry IV)
Twelfth Night (Malvolio)
Coriolanus (Menenius)
Hamlet (Cladius)
Slueth (Milo) (UK)
Much Ado About Nothing (Don Pedro) (London West End)
Simon Gray's Butley (Joey) (Broadway) (Tony Award Nominee)
The Rocky Horror Show (Brad) (Original London West End production)
The Merchant of Venice (Bassanio)
The Glass Menagerie (Gentleman Caller)
Unaccompanied Cello (Mark)
The Canterbury Tales (Nicholas) (London West End)
Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw (Nick) (Original London West End production)
The School For Scandal (Charles Surface)
King John (The Dauphin)
Romeo and Juliet (Tybalt)
George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (Brother Martin)
The Knack (Tom)
The Merchant of Venice (Lorenzo)
Peter Pan
Stratford Festival Season
Stratford Festival Season
The Merry Wives of Windsor





FILM & TELEVISION

Heading Home (Man in Pub) (TV)
The Wars (Churchgoer)
Haunting Harmoney (Gary) (TV)
Arthur Hailey's Strong Medicine (Tony Redmond) (TV)
Death Wish 3 (Doctor)
Agency (Tony) (with Robert Mitchum)
Tam Lin (Andy) (with Ava Gardner)
Sebastian (Gavin)
The Puppet Man (Intellectual) (TV)
The Great Detective (Ronald Skinner) (TV)
Shadow of the Tower (Thomas Astwood) (TV)
Send Foster (Foster) (TV Series)
Trapped (Cliff) (TV)
The Turn of the Screw (Miles) (with Ingrid Bergman) (TV)
Leonard Bernstein Presents (Guest Star) (TV)
Macbeth (Young Macduff) (TV)
Noises In The Nursery (TV)





RADIO

The Tempest (Ferdinand)
The Archers (Lester) (Series)
The Little Prince (Prince)
Cuckoo Clock House (Various)






RECORDED BOOKS

Robert Ludlam
The Prometheus Deception

James Pattinson
Contact Mr. Delgado

Charlie Freemantle
See Charlie Run

Paula Gosling
Underneath Every Stone

Mark Bannerman
Escape to Purgatory

Pauline Bell
Stalker

Tom Clancy
Red Storm Rising

Arthur C. Clarke
Rendezvous With Rama

Jackie Collins
Hollywood Husbands
Hollywood Kids
Hollywood Wives

James Fenimore Cooper
The Last of the Mohicans

Bernard Cornwell
Battle Flag
The Bloody Ground
Copperhead
Rebel

Clive Cussler
Sahara

Brian Freemantle
Charlie Muffin

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
The Outcast: The Moreland Dynasty

Dennis Lehane
Sacred

Robert Ludlum
The Hades Factor

Paula Marshall
A Strange Likeness

Ed McBain
Gladly The Cross-Eyed Bear
There Was a Little Girl

Herman Melville
Moby Dick or The Whale

Edgar Allen Poe
The Fall of the House of Ushser
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

Harold Robbins
The Secret

Mickey Spillane
The Killing Man

Rex Stout
Second Confession


Accents:
American Southern States, Cockney, French, German, London, New York, RP (native), Spanish, Standard American, Standard Scots.

Languages:
English, French, Spanish

Music:
Singing (Baritone), Dancing (Classical Training)

Special Skills:
Riding, Fencing


AGENT

Simon Sharkey
Sharkey & Co.
44 Lexington Street
London, W1F 0LW
Phone: 020 7287 1923
Website: Sharkey & Co.

Another shot from "The Turn of the Screw"
with Ingrid Bergman (Picture courtesy Life Magazine and scan courtesy
Ingrid and Isabella)

Visit Hayward's co-star at Ingrid and Isabella

Visit Hayward's Father at The Official Barry Morse Website
Visit his Mother at A Tribute to Sydney Sturgess
Visit his Sister at Melanie Morse MacQuarrie



The Hayward B. Morse Webpage is maintained
by playwright and author Anthony Wynn