Adrian Morris

Adrian Michael Morris (January 12, 1907 – November 30, 1941) was an American actor of stage and film, and a younger brother of Chester Morris. As a child, Morris performed with his family in a vaudeville act. In his short career as a Hollywood character actor, he appeared in over 70 films, including Dirigible (1931), Me and My Gal (1932), Bureau of Missing Persons (1933), The Big Shakedown (1934), The Fighting Marines (1935), The Petrified Forest (1936), There Goes the Groom (1937), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Gone With the Wind (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), and Blood and Sand (1941). Early life and family Adrian Morris was born in Mount Vernon, New York, one of four surviving children of Broadway stage actor William Morris and stage comedic actress Etta Hawkins. His siblings were screenwriter-actor Gordon Morris (1898–1940), actor Chester Morris (1901–1970), and actress Wilhelmina Morris (1902–1971). Another brother, Lloyd Morris (1892–1902), had died young. As a six-year-old, Morris served as assistant to Chester who, by the time he was twelve, had developed an interest in performing magic tricks which often went wrong, to everyone's amusement. Both brothers also attended the same dancing school. In 1923, the whole Morris family teamed up to perform William Morris' original sketch called All the Horrors of Home, which premiered at the Palace Theatre, New York, then on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit for two years, including Proctor's Theatre, Mount Vernon, New York, and culminating in Los Angeles in 1925.