The long, prolific but doubtlessly personally frustrating career of Garrett Morris offers some sobering lessons about the often problematic position of the African American character player in mainstream entertainment. As one of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players during the glory days of NBC's landmark youth-oriented comedy-variety series, "Saturday Night Live" (1975-80), Morris found fame and fortune but little respect. His on-air antics were deemed demeaning and stereotypical by many members of the black community. Eddie Murphy, his celebrated "SNL" successor turned superstar, has been particularly harsh in his public and private jokes and pronouncements regarding his less illustrious predecessor. Still, one hopes that the younger performer gives the elder some credit for priming late night audiences for his ascent. In any event, there were reasons why Morris' "SNL" persona took the unfortunate shape that it did. Not all of these were his fault and their roots extend far into his past.
Morris' first love was music and he displayed his devotion in church, growing up in his native New Orleans in the 1940s. Raised by his grandfather, a Baptist minister, Morris began singing at age five and soon became a fixture in the church choir. In 1958, he entered a northern music competition with the National Association of Negro Musicians. On his way back to New Orleans, Morris disembarked in NYC and found a room at the Harlem YMCA. There he joined the Harlem YMCA Drama Club through which a number of future notables--Cicely Tyson, Clarence Williams III, Isabel Sanford, Godfrey Cambridge and Diana Sands--had become involved with the theater. That same year, Morris got his first break in showbiz, becoming a soloist with Harry Belafonte. He remained with the Harry Belafonte Singers until 1968.
Morris branched out into acting in 1960, playing a character named Leroy in a play entitled "The Bible Salesman" at NYC's Broadway Congregational Church. He reprised the role off-Broadway after an eighteen month stint in the Army working as an x-ray technician. Considerable stage credits followed, mostly in musicals. Morris appeared both on and off-Broadway in such musicals as "Porgy and Bess", "Show Boat", "Finian's Rainbow" and Melvin van Peebles' "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death". His dramatic credits include "The Great White Hope" and "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel". Morris has worked with such theater companies as the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, City Center Light Opera Company, New York Shakespeare Festival and the Negro Ensemble Company. He made his debut as a playwright with a 1972 production of his "The Secret Place" at NYC's Playwrights Horizons.
Morris also continued his musical pursuits. Attending the prestigious Tanglewood Workshop in Lenox, Massachusetts on scholarship, he received awards for conducting. Morris also studied music at the Juilliard School.
The veteran stage performer segued to film in the 1970s with small roles in Carl Reiner's "Where's Poppa?" (1970) and Sidney Lumet's "The Anderson Tapes" (1971). Morris made his debut as a TV series regular on "Roll Out" (CBS, 1973-74), a short-lived sitcom about the mostly black 5050th Trucking Company, nicknamed the "Red Ball Express", in France during WWII. He made more of an impact on the big screen in a supporting role in the well-received "Cooley High" (1975). Marketed as a black "American Graffiti", the film featured Morris as an empathetic high school teacher.
Upon learning that young comedy writer-producer Lorne Michaels was developing a youth-oriented late night comedy variety show, Morris applied for a job as a writer though he had no significant experience as a writer or performer of sketch comedy. Impressed by his performance in "Cooley High", Michaels hired Morris as a cast member of "Saturday Night Live".
Morris never truly found his niche in the "SNL" power structure. Not only was he the only black but he was the only cast member with an extensive career on stage. Morris was also nearing 40, a good decade older than most of his colleagues. As such he was treated with a certain degree of contempt. Morris had difficulty getting the ear of Michaels and his few story ideas were ridiculed by such dominant writers as the late Michael O'Donoghue ("Mr. Mike"). He also lacked a facility with sketch comedy, that is, he had difficulty readily changing characters. Staff writers complained that they couldn't craft material for him due to his limitations as a performer. Nonetheless Michaels would often demand that they add Morris and Lorraine Newman (who also never fit in) to sketches so they would more to do in a given show. Consequently their characters were often tangential to the sketches in which they appeared.
There were bright spots such as the "News for the Hard of Hearing" segments of the Chevy Chase-era "Weekend Update". Simple and formulaic but sure-fire, this bit had Morris--on a video monitor--shouting out the "top story tonight", echoing the words of the anchor Chase (who, as a writer, dreamed up the idea). More often, Morris was given stereotypical roles, playing drug dealers, winos and domestics. He played Sammy Davis Jr in a Nixon sketch and Uncle Remus in "Mr. Mike's Least-Loved Bedtime Tales." Receiving wildly positive audience response for his energetic impersonation of Tina Turner, Morris was subsequently often put in a dress to play the likes of Diana Ross, Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey.
Despite the success of "SNL", Morris was not embraced by the black press. In interviews, he claimed to be fighting behind-the-scenes for better material and attributed his problems to a bad first season. When Bill Murray came aboard in the second season and quickly eclipsed him and Newman, Morris realized that his situation would not improve. He retreated into heavy substance abuse with freebasing cocaine his primary vice. Morris' behavior became so erratic that he was utilized even less by the show. (When John Belushi died of a drug overdose in 1982, insiders reportedly marveled that Morris hadn't died first.)
When Morris' old friend Cicely Tyson guest hosted a fourth season episode, she reportedly blew up at the writers and refused to do much of the material written for her. Tyson and Morris (dressed up as the actress) ended up doing a painful sketch together in which she berated him for the degrading roles he played on "SNL". Even this dark period presented Morris with one memorable character (created by Brian Doyle-Murray and later written by Alan Zweibel): retired black Latino baseball player Chico Escuela whose catchphrase was "Base-a-boll been berry berry good to me." This proved his most popular character.
Morris disappeared from public life for a few years after the original cast departed "Saturday Night Live" in 1980. Having apparently surmounted his drug problems, Morris resurfaced in the early 80s. His second play, "Daddy Picou and Marie Le Veau", was produced in 1982. He returned to TV in telefilms and guest shots before assuming a regular supporting role in the sitcom "It's Your Move" (NBC, 1984-85). Shifting to crime drama, Morris joined the cast of NBC's "Hunter" from 1986-89 as street hustler/informer Sporty James. He subsequently became a fixture playing regulars and recurring roles in sitcoms targeted to black audiences including "Roc" (Fox, 1991-92), "Martin" (Fox, 1992-94), "Cleghorne!" (The WB, 1995) and "The Jamie Foxx Show" (The WB, 1996-2001). Morris has come to specialize in playing overbearing blue-collar parents, natty professionals and other respectable black men. It was as if he had been "forgiven" by his successors and finally welcomed to take his place at the table. Morris endured much and survived to enjoy a happy ending, including a near fatal gunshot wound in 1994, incurred during a botched robbery.
