Please Rewind Talent Wall

Aubrey Morris

Aubrey Morris was a British actor whose career extended across stage, film and television. Born in Portsmouth on 1 June 1926, he came from a large Jewish family and was one of nine children born to Becky, née Levine, and Morry Steinberg. His elder brother, Wolfe Morris, also became an accomplished actor. The family’s roots carried a longer history. Morris’s grandparents came from Kiev and escaped the Russian pogroms, arriving in London around 1890. The family later moved to Portsmouth at the turn of the 20th century, and it was there that Morris attended Portsmouth Municipal College before going on to RADA. Theatre provided the foundation of his working life. Morris made his first stage appearance in 1944, performing in The Winter’s Tale at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park. From 1954 to 1956, he was at The Old Vic, a period that also included an appearance on Broadway. Those early credits place him firmly within the classical theatrical tradition before his work expanded across different parts of the acting profession. Morris is associated not simply with acting in general, but specifically with film, television and stage performance. That range is an important part of his career: he belonged to a generation of British performers for whom the theatre was not separate from screen work, but part of the same craft. His path from Portsmouth to RADA, Regent’s Park, The Old Vic and Broadway gives the shape of a career grounded in performance rather than celebrity. Morris lived from 1926 to 2015. While no Aubrey Morris film is currently connected to the Please Rewind collection, his long association with stage and screen makes him a fitting presence on the Talent Wall.