Vic Morrow

Vic Morrow
File:Vic Morrow in Blackboard Jungle Trailer.jpg Film debut in Blackboard Jungle (1955)
Born	Victor Morozoff (1929-02-14)February 14, 1929 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	Indian Dunes, Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Accidental decapitation
Resting place	Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California
Other names	Victor Morrow
Occupation	Actor, director
Years active	1955–1982
Spouse(s)	Barbara Turner (1957–1964; divorced; two children) Gale A. Lester (1975–1979; divorced)
Children	Jennifer Jason Leigh Carrie Morrow

Victor "Vic" Morrow (February 14, 1929 – July 23, 1982) was an American actor and director, whose credits include a starring role in the 1960s television series Combat!, prominent roles in a handful of other television and film dramas, and numerous guest roles on television. Morrow and two child actors were killed in 1982 by a stunt helicopter crash during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie.

Personal life

Morrow was born Victor Morozoff in the New York City borough of the Bronx, to a middle-class Jewish family, the son of Jean (née Kress) and Harry Morozoff, an electrical engineer. When he was 17, Morrow dropped out of high school and joined the United States Navy.

In 1958, Morrow married actress and screenwriter Barbara Turner, with whom he had two daughters: Carrie Ann Morrow (b. 1958) and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh (b. 1962). Morrow's marriage to Barbara lasted seven years and ended in divorce in 1964 or 1965. Morrow did not remarry until 1975, over a decade later, when he courted Gale Lester (currently Gale Morrow Butler). They were married for five years and were separated just prior to Morrow's death.

Morrow had a falling out with his daughter Jennifer Jason Leigh following his divorce from her mother; Leigh changed her last name as a teenager to avoid being publicly associated with Morrow. They remained estranged at the time of his death.

Rick Jason, co-star of Combat!, wrote in his memoirs,

Vic Morrow had an absolute dislike of firearms. He used a Thompson submachine gun in our series, but that was work. In any other respect he'd have nothing to do with them. On one of the few days we got off early while there were still several hours of daylight left, I said to him, "I've got a couple of shotguns in the back of my station wagon. You want to shoot some skeet?" Without so much as a pause he responded, "No, thanks. I can't stand to kill clay." He knew he could always break me up and during our five years together he did it quite a bit. His sense of humor happened to tickle my funny bone and he knew he had my number."

Career

Morrow's first movie role was in Blackboard Jungle (1955). In 1958, he starred alongside Elvis Presley in an all-star supporting cast in the movie King Creole, directed by Michael Curtiz.

Morrow's career then expanded after which he went into television. Later, he guest-starred on John Payne's NBC western series, The Restless Gun. On April 16, 1959, he appeared in the premiere of NBC's 1920s crime drama The Lawless Years in the episode "The Nick Joseph Story". Morrow then appeared from 1960–1961 as Joe Cannon in three episodes of NBC's The Outlaws with Barton MacLane. On October 6, 1961, he appeared in an episode of the ABC drama series Target: The Corruptors! with Stephen McNally and Robert Harland. He appeared in two episodes of The Untouchables, The Rifleman and Bonanza. He was cast in the early Bonanza episode "The Avenger" as a mysterious figure known only as 'Lassiter' - named after his town of origin - who arrives in Virginia City, and helps save Ben and Adam Cartwright from an unjust hanging, while eventually gunning down one sought-after man, revealing himself as a hunter of a lynch mob who killed his father; having so far killed about half the mob, he rides off into the night (an episode that resembles the later Clint Eastwood film High Plains Drifter). Morrow later appeared in the third season Bonanza episode The Tin Badge.

Combat!

As Sgt. Saunders in Combat!

Morrow was cast in the lead role of Sergeant "Chip" Saunders in ABC's Combat!, a World War II drama, which aired from 1962–1967. Pop culture scholar Gene Santoro has written, "TV's longest-running World War II drama (1962-67) was really a collection of complex 50-minute movies. Salted with battle sequences, they follow a squad's travails from D-Day on--a gritty ground-eye view of men trying to salvage their humanity and survive. Melodrama, comedy, and satire come into play as top-billed Lieutenant Hanley (Rick Jason) and Sergeant Saunders (Vic Morrow) lead their men toward Paris... The relentlessness hollows antihero Saunders out: at times, you can see the tombstones in his eyes."

His friend and fellow actor on Combat!, Rick Jason, described Morrow as "a master director" who directed "one of the greatest anti-war films I've ever seen." He was referring to the two-part episode of Combat! entitled Hills Are for Heroes, which was written by Gene L. Coon.

Other work

Morrow also worked as a television director. Together with Leonard Nimoy, he produced a 1966 version of Deathwatch, an English -language film version of Jean Genet's play Haute Surveillance, adapted by Morrow and Barbara Turner, directed by Morrow, and starring Nimoy.

After Combat! ended, he worked in several films. Morrow appeared in two episodes of Australian-produced anthology series The Evil Touch (1973), one of which he also directed. He memorably played the wily local sheriff in director John Hough's road classic Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, as well as the homicidal sheriff, alongside Martin Sheen, in the 1974 TV film The California Kid, and had a key role, as aggressive, competitive baseball coach Roy Turner, in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears. He also played Injun Joe in the 1973 telefilm Tom Sawyer, which was filmed in Upper Canada Village. A musical version was released in theaters that same year.

Morrow wrote and directed a 1970 Spaghetti Western, produced by Dino DeLaurentiis, titled A Man Called Sledge and starring James Garner, Dennis Weaver, and Claude Akins. After Deathwatch, it was Morrow's first and only big screen outing behind the camera. Sledge was filmed in Italy with desert-like settings that were highly evocative of the Southwestern United States.

Morrow also appeared in Hawaii Five-O, The Streets of San Francisco, McCloud, and Sarge, among many other TV guest roles.

In 1971 Vic Morrow starred in a T.V. movie, produced by QM Productions for CBS entitled Travis Logan, D.A.. This movie was a pilot for a proposed weekly legal series in which he was to star. While many critics liked the show, ratings were low, and the pilot was never sold as a series. It has never released to home video.

Twilight Zone: The Movie and death

Main article: Twilight Zone accident

In 1982 Morrow was cast in a feature role in Twilight Zone: The Movie, directed by John Landis. Morrow was playing the role of Bill Connor, a racist who is taken back in time and placed in various situations where he would be a persecuted victim: as a Jewish Holocaust victim, a black man about to be lynched by the Ku Klux Klan, and a Vietnamese man about to be killed by U.S. soldiers.

In the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, Morrow and two children, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le, and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were filming on location in California in what had been known as Indian Dunes, which is near Santa Clarita. They were performing in a scene for the Vietnam sequence in which their characters attempt to escape from a pursuing U.S. Army helicopter out of a deserted Vietnamese village. The helicopter was hovering at about 24 feet (7.3 m) above them when pyrotechnic explosions damaged it and caused it to crash on top of them, killing all three instantly. Morrow and Dinh were decapitated by the helicopter rotor. Chen was crushed by a helicopter strut.

Landis and four other defendants, including pilot Dorsey Wingo, were ultimately acquitted of involuntary manslaughter after a nearly nine-month trial. The parents of Le and Chen sued and settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Morrow's children also sued and settled for an undisclosed amount.

Morrow is interred in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Partial TV and filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1955	Blackboard Jungle	Artie West
1956	The Millionaire	Joey Diamond	TV, 1 episode
	Tribute to a Bad Man	Lars Peterson
	Climax!	Ted	TV, 1 episode
1957	Men in War	Corporal James Zwickley
	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Benny Mungo	TV, 1 episode
1958	King Creole	Shark
	Richard Diamond, Private Detective	Joe Rovi	"The Ed Church Case" (CBS-TV)
	God's Little Acre	Shaw Walden
	The Rifleman	Johnny Cotton	ABC-TV, 1 episode, "The Angry Gun"
1959	Naked City	David Greco	ABC-TV, 1 episode
	The Rifleman	Brett Stocker	TV, 1 episode, "The Letter of the Law"
	Johnny Ringo	Bill Stoner	CBS-TV, 1 episode, "Kid With a Gun"
1960	Bonanza	Lassiter	TV, 1 episode, "The Avenger" (3/1960, episode 26)
	The Barbara Stanwyck Show	Leroy Benson	NBC-TV, 1 episode
	Cimarron	Wes Jennings
	The Brothers Brannagan	Locke	Syndicated TV, series premiere, "Tune in for Murder"
	The Untouchables (1959 TV series)	Collier	TV, 1 episode, "The Tommy Karpeles Story" (12/1960, episode 11)
1961	Portrait of a Mobster	Dutch Schultz
	Posse from Hell	Crip
	The Tall Man	Skip Farrell	NBC-TV, 1 episode, "Time of Foreshadowing"
The Law and Mr. Jones	Dr. Bigelow	ABC-TV, 1 episode, "A Very Special Citizen"
1962	The New Breed	Belman	ABC-TV, 1 episode
	The Untouchables (1959 TV series)	Vince Shirer	TV, 1 episode, "The Maggie Storm Story" (3/1962, episode 20)
1962–1967	Combat!	Sergeant Chip Saunders	ABC-TV, 152 episodes
1969	Target: Harry	Harry Black	Alternative titles: What's In it For Harry?, How to Make It
1970	The Immortal	Sheriff Dan W. Wheeler	TV, 1 episode
	Dan August	Steve Harrison	ABC-TV, 1 episode
1971	Hawaii Five-O	Edward Heron	CBS-TV, 1 episode, "Two Doves and Mr. Heron"
	Mannix	Eric Latimer	CBS-TV, 1 episode
	Sarge	Lt. Ross Edmonds	TV, 1 episode
1972	McCloud	Richard	NBC-TV, 1 episode
	Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law	Andy Capaso	ABC-TV, 1 episode
	Mission: Impossible	Joseph Collins	CBS-TV, 1 episode
1973	Love Story	Dave Walters	NBC-TV, 1 episode, "The Cardboard House"
1973–1974	Police Story	Sergeant Joe LaFrieda	NBC-TV, 3 episodes
	The Evil Touch	Purvis Greene	TV, 2 episodes
	The Streets of San Francisco	Vic Tolliman	ABC-TV, 1 episode
1974	Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry	Cpt. Franklin
1974	The California Kid	Roy Childress
1975	Wanted: Babysitter	Vic, the kidnapper
	The Night That Panicked America	Hank Muldoon	Television movie
1976	Captains and the Kings	Tom Hennessey	Miniseries
	The Bad News Bears	Coach Roy Turner
	Treasure of Matecumbe	Spangler	Disney movie
1977	Hunter		CBS-TV, 1 episode, "The K Group (Part One)"
	Roots	Ames	ABC-TV miniseries
	The Hostage Heart	Steve Rockewicz	Television movie
1978	Wild and Wooly	Warden Willis	Television movie
	Message from Space (Ucyuu karano messeiji)	General Garuda	Japanese (Toei) movie
1978–1980	Charlie's Angels	Lt. Harry Stearns	ABC-TV, 2 episodes
1979	Greatest Heroes of the Bible	Arioch	TV, 1 episode
	The Evictors	Jake Rudd
	The Seekers	Leland Pell	Television movie
1980	Humanoids from the Deep	Hank Slattery	Alternative titles: Humanoids of the Deep, Monster
	B.A.D. Cats	Capt. Eugene Nathan	TV, 9 episodes
	The Last Shark	Ron Hamer	Alternative titles: Great White
1981	Magnum, P.I.	Police Sergeant Jordan	CBS-TV, 1 episode
1982	Fantasy Island	Douglas Picard	ABC-TV, 1 episode
	1990: The Bronx Warriors	Hammer	Penultimate movie
1983	Twilight Zone: The Movie	Bill Connor	Died in an on-set accident during filming; death scene deleted from film

Award nominations

Year	Result	Award	Category	Film or series
1963	Nominated	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Series (Lead)	Combat!

External links

• Vic Morrow at the Internet Movie Database
• Filmography
• Article on Twilight Zone tragedy, written by friend and COMBAT! co-star Dick 'Little John' Peabody
• Vic Morrow at Find a Grave