Background and career
Wayne Morris (born Bert DeWayne Morris Jr. February 17, 1914 – September 14, 1959) was an American film and television actor, as well as a decorated World War II fighter ace. He appeared in many films, including Paths of Glory (1957), The Bushwackers (1952), and the title role of Kid Galahad (1937).
Morris was born in Los Angeles County, California, to Bert DeWayne Morris and Anna Lorea Morris (née Fitzgerald). He attended Los Angeles City College and was a fullback on that school's varsity football team. He gained acting experience through his work at the Pasadena Playhouse. His film debut was in the China Clipper (1936). He played the title character of Kid Galahad (1937), a story of a young prizefighter that featured some of Hollywood's biggest stars, Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. His career flourished in films like Brother Rat, which starred Ronald Reagan, and in Bogart's only horror film, The Return of Doctor X (1939).
While filming Flight Angels (1940), Morris became interested in flying and became a pilot. With war in the wind, he joined the United States Naval Reserve and became a United States Navy aviator in 1942, leaving his film career behind for the duration of World War II. Morris was considered by the Navy as physically 'too big' to fly fighters. After being turned down several times as a fighter pilot, he went to his uncle-in-law, Commander David McCampbell, imploring him for the chance to fly fighters. McCampbell said "Give me a letter." He flew the F6F Hellcat off the aircraft carrier USS Essex with Fighter Squadron 15 (VF-15), the famed "McCampbell Heroes." A December 15, 1944, Associated Press news story reported that Morris was "credited with 57 aerial sorties, shooting down seven Japanese Zeros, sinking an escort vessel and an antiaircraft gunboat and helping sink a submarine and damage a heavy cruiser and a minelayer." He was awarded four Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals.
After the war, Morris returned to films, but his nearly four-year absence had cost him his burgeoning stardom. He continued to act in movies, but the pictures, for the most part, sank in quality. Losing his boyish looks but not demeanor, Morris spent much of the 1950s in low-budget westerns, but also appeared as the cowardly Lieutenant Roget, one of the main characters, in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957). In 1957, Morris made his Broadway debut as a washed-up boxing champ in William Saroyan's The Cave Dwellers. On television, Morris starred in a 1956 episode of Science Fiction Theater, "Beam of Fire". In 1958, Morris appeared in Gunsmoke as "Nat", a groom almost shot to death. Wayne Morris played "Captain Hathaway" in 1959 on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (in the episode "The Sea Captain"), and posthumously as Sheriff Sam Cloggett in 1960 on New Comedy Showcase (in the episode "They Went Thataway").
Morris was first married to tobacco heiress Leonora (Bubbles) Schinasi; the couple later divorced. Eighteen months later, Morris married the 19-year-old Patricia Ann O'Rourke at the Long Beach, California Naval Air Base February 25, 1942. He had two daughters and a son.
Aged 45, Morris died of a coronary occlusion on September 14, 1959, aboard the attack aircraft carrier USS Bon Homme Richard.
