Jeremiah Morris was an American actor and television and theater director. Morris, influential in Los Angeles theater, appeared in Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 plays and on popular television series for close to 40 years and directed television and theater productions.

Career

A New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 native, Morris began working in the theater in the 1950s, appearing as an actor in a number of Broadway plays including a 1961 production of Daughter of Silence by Morris West

Morris West

Morris Langlo West AO was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels The Devil's Advocate , The Shoes of the Fisherman , and The Clowns of God . His books were published in 27 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide...

 and based on West's novel. He also appeared in Jennie

Jennie

For the Douglas Preston novel, see Jennie .For the name, see Jennifer Jennie is a musical with a book by Arnold Schulman, music by Arthur Schwartz, and lyrics by Howard Dietz, and starred Mary Martin....

, a 1963 musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 starring Mary Martin

Mary Martin

Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...

. During that period, he worked as a television actor, making guest appearances on Naked City

Naked City (TV series)

Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format....

, The Honeymooners

The Honeymooners

The Honeymooners is an American situation comedy television show, based on a recurring 1951–'55 sketch of the same name. It originally aired on the DuMont network's Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network's The Jackie Gleason Show hosted by Jackie Gleason, and filmed before a live...

, Car 54, Where Are You?

Car 54, Where Are You?

Car 54, Where Are You? is an American sitcom that ran on NBC from 1961 to 1963. Episodes had various directors, the most recognized being Al De Caprio. Stanley Prager and Nat Hiken also directed several episodes. Most of its filming was on location in The Bronx, and at Biograph...

, WKRP in Cincinnati

WKRP in Cincinnati

WKRP in Cincinnati is an American situation comedy that featured the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based upon his experiences working in advertising sales at Top 40 radio station WQXI in Atlanta...

. He continued his television acting career through the 1990s, with guest roles on Cheers

Cheers

Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...

, Mad About You

Mad About You

Mad About You is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from September 23, 1992 to May 24, 1999. The show starred Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as a newly married couple in New York City. Reiser played Paul Buchman, a documentary film maker. Hunt played Jamie Stemple Buchman, a public relations specialist...

, NewsRadio

NewsRadio

NewsRadio is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from 1995 to 1999. The series was created by executive producer Paul Simms, and was filmed in front of a studio audience at CBS Studio Center and Sunset Gower Studios...

and Frasier

Frasier

Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.A spin-off of Cheers, Frasier stars...

. He also directed episodes of Barney Miller

Barney Miller

Barney Miller is a situation comedy television series set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village. The series originally was broadcast from January 23, 1975 to May 20, 1982 on ABC. It was created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker...

, Fish

Fish (TV series)

Fish was a spin-off television series of the sitcom Barney Miller. It starred Abe Vigoda as New York Police Department Detective Phil Fish and Florence Stanley as his wife Bernice.- Overview :...

, Diff'rent Strokes

Diff'rent Strokes

Diff'rent Strokes is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from November 3, 1978 to May 4, 1985, and on ABC from September 27, 1985 to March 7, 1986...

, Too Close for Comfort

Too Close for Comfort (TV series)

Too Close for Comfort is an American television sitcom which ran on the ABC network and later in first-run syndication from November 11, 1980 to September 27, 1986. It was modeled after the British series Keep It in the Family, which debuted nine months before Too Close for Comfort debuted in the U.S...

, Quincy, M.E.

Quincy, M.E.

Quincy, M.E., also called Quincy, is a United States television series from Universal Studios that aired from October 3, 1976, to September 5, 1983, on NBC...

and Tony Orlando and Dawn

Tony Orlando and Dawn

Tony Orlando and Dawn was a pop music group that was popular in the 1970s. Their signature hits include "Candida", "Knock Three Times", "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree", and "He Don't Love You ".-History:...

, among other series.

In his theater work, Morris focused on directing from the early 1970s. One of his first major assignments was directing the touring production of Neil Simon

Neil Simon

Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...

's The Gingerbread Lady

The Gingerbread Lady

The Gingerbread Lady is a 1970 play by Neil Simon, written specifically for actress Maureen Stapleton, who won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for her performance....

in 1972. All in all, he helmed hundreds of productions, on and off Broadway, on national tours and in regional theaters, directing legends such as Al Pacino

Al Pacino

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...

, Jose Ferrer

José Ferrer

José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...

 and Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

.

In 1989, Morris accepted a job as artistic director of the Actors Alley theater in the San Fernando Valley

San Fernando Valley

The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...

. During his more than 10 years with the company, the eclectic program list featured works by George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 and Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 as well as modern plays, including Susan Sandler

Susan Sandler

Susan Sandler is an American writer and currently a professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She has numerous writing credits but is probably best known for her play Crossing Delancey, which she also adapted into a movie with the same name starring Amy Irving and directed by...

's Crossing Delancey

Crossing Delancey

Crossing Delancey is a romantic comedy film starring Amy Irving and Peter Riegert released in 1988. It is directed by Joan Micklin Silver and based on a play by Susan Sandler, who also wrote the screenplay...

, produced in partnership with the University of Judaism

University of Judaism

The American Jewish University, formerly the separate institutions University of Judaism and Brandeis-Bardin Institute, is a Jewish, non-denominational educational institution in Los Angeles, California....

 (now the American Jewish University). The Actors Alley moved into the historic El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood in 1995 and performed in a small space for several years until the main stage was renovated. Morris left the artistic director post in 2000.

External links