Sheridan Morley
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Sheridan Morley (5 December 1941 − 16 February 2007) was an English author, biographer, critic, director, actor and broadcaster. He was the eldest son of actor Robert Morley and grandson of actress Dame Gladys Cooper, and wrote biographies of both. Nicholas Kenyon called him a "cultural omnivore" who was "genuinely popular with people".
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[edit] Early life
Morley was born in Ascot, Berkshire, in a nursing home opposite Ascot Racecourse. He was named after Sheridan Whiteside, a character his father was playing in The Man Who Came to Dinner. He has close family connections to stars of the stage: in addition to his father and his maternal grandmother, his aunt married actor Robert Hardy, and Joanna Lumley was a cousin. His maternal grandfather, Herbert Buckmaster, invented the Buck's fizz cocktail. His godparents were dramatist Sewell Stokes and actor Peter Bull; his son Hugo was one of Noël Coward's many godchildren.
Morley grew up in Wargrave in Berkshire, and in Hollywood and New York, where his father was working. His father placed an advertisement in The Times, seeking a suitable school for his son: "Father with horrible memories of own schooldays at Wellington is searching for a school for his son, where the food matters as much as the education and the standards are those of a good three-star seaside hotel." The successful reply came from Sizewell Hall in Suffolk, run in laissez-faire style by Harry Tuyn, where subjects such as maths and Latin were not tought on the grounds that they were too boring. After attending a crammer, Morley went on to read modern languages at Merton College, Oxford, from 1960, and became involved in student drama alongside Michael York, David Wood, Sam Walters and Oliver Ford Davies. He graduated with a Third, and then spent a year teaching drama at the University of Hawaii.
[edit] Career
He worked as a late-night newscaster for ITN from 1965, before moving to the BBC to present Late Night Line-Up for BBC Two from 1967 to 1971, alongside Joan Bakewell and Tony Bilbow. He also presented Film Night for BBC Two in 1971 and 1972. He presented Kaleidoscope for BBC Radio 4, and The Arts Programme for BBC Radio 2 from 1990 to 2004.
From 2004, he presented Melodies For You, also on BBC Radio 2. He also made frequent appearances as the guest in Dictionary Corner on the Channel 4 game show Countdown.
He published a biography of Noël Coward, A Talent to Amuse, in 1969. Coward gave his full blessing, providing Morley with a list of his friends, and another of his enemies, and telling him to start with the second first to make a better book.
Morley joined The Times as deputy features editor in 1973, and then joined Punch in 1975 as its drama critic and arts editor, remaining with the magazine until 1989. In the late 1980s, he became a regular arts diarist for The Times and was its TV critic from 1989 to 1990. He then worked as drama critic for The Spectator from 1990; he was replaced in 2001 by Toby Young. Then, after a short period at the New Statesman, where he was replaced by Michael Portillo, he joined the Daily Express in 2004, where he remained until 2007. Meanwhile, he was also a drama critic for the International Herald Tribune from 1979 to 2005, and film critic for the Sunday Express from 1992 to 1995. In 1990, he was Arts Journalist of the Year, and was also nominated for a Grammy.
For a while in the 1990s Viz magazine ran a strip named after and featuring a hypochondriac character called Sheridan Poorly, an obvious skit on his name, although the character bore no other resemblance to him.
His play, Noël and Gertie, about Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, opened in London in 1983, starring Simon Cadell and Joanna Lumley, and ran for nine years. It was performed in the US with Twiggy in the lead role. He also wrote a show based on the songs of Vivian Ellis, Spread a Little Happiness, which played in 1992.
[edit] Family
Morley married twice, first to Margaret Gudejko, whom he met in Hawaii, in 1965, and then to Ruth Leon, the critic and television producer, in 1995, who he had known since his days at Oxford. He suffered depression and then a stroke in his later years. He is survived by Ruth, and by the son and two daughters of his first marriage, which was dissolved in 1990.
[edit] Selected works
[edit] Biographies
- A Talent to Amuse: The Life of Noël Coward (1969)
- Oscar Wilde (1976)
- Marlene Dietrich (1977)
- Sybil Thorndike (1977)
- Gladys Cooper (1979)
- Gertrude Lawrence (1981)
- Katharine Hepburn (1984)
- Ingrid Bergman (1985)
- Other Side of the Moon (David Niven) (1985)
- Elizabeth Taylor (1988)
- Odd Man Out: The Life of James Mason (1989)
- Robert: my father (Robert Morley) (1993)
- Audrey Hepburn (1993)
- Gene Kelly (1996)
- Dirk Bogarde (1996)
- Marilyn Monroe (1998)
- Hey, Mr Producer (Cameron Mackintosh) (1998, with Ruth Leon)
- Judy Garland: Beyond The Rainbow (1999, with Ruth Leon)
- John Gielgud (2002)
[edit] Other works
- Tales from the Hollywood Raj (1981)
- The Noel Coward Diaries (1992, with Graham Payn)
- Asking For Trouble, his memoirs. (2002)
- The Stephen Sondheim Songbook
- The Great Stage Stars
- An Evening with Sheridan Morley & Michael Law with Judy Campbell (CD)
[edit] References
- Broadcaster and critic Sheridan Morley dies, The Times, 16 February 2007
- Obituary, The Times, 16 February 2007
- Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 17 February 2007
- Broadcaster Sheridan Morley dies, BBC News, 17 February 2007
- 'Insatiable curiosity' of Morley, BBC News, 17 February 2007
- Obituary, The Guardian, 19 February 2007
- Obituary, The Independent, 19 February 2007
- Profile by Norman Phillips
- Sheridan Morley at the Internet Movie Database
