Terence Morgan
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| Terence Morgan | |
| Born | 8 December 1921 Lewisham, London, UK |
|---|---|
| Died | 25 August 2005 (aged 83) Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK |
Terence Ivan Grant Morgan (8 December 1921 - 25 August 2005) was an English actor in theatre, cinema and television.
Terence Morgan was born in Lewisham and started work as a shipping clerk at Lloyd's of London before winning a scholarship to RADA. After training at RADA, Morgan began as a repertory theatre actor. His career was interrupted by two years in the army in WWII before he was invalided out. In 1948 he joined the Old Vic Company alongside Laurence Olivier, and played the role of Laertes in the 1948 film of Hamlet. He was the first actor in such a role to get fan mail from teenage girls.
In his third role he played a support to Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo in Captain Horatio Hornblower in 1951. In Mandy (1952) he played the insensitive father of a deaf girl and in Encore in 1953 he played a cad risking the life of his wife. In 1953 he again played a villain in Turn the Key Softly as a crook who gets his girlfriend a prison sentence for helping him in a burglary.
More nasty roles quickly followed with Always A Bride (1953) where he played a Treasury Investigator who turns bad as well as Forbidden cargo in 1954 as a smuggler and Tread Softly Stranger (1958) where he is an embezzler). March Hare (1955) was a break in that he played an impoverished aristocrat riding a horse for the Derby. One of his nastiest roles was in 1959, The Shakedown when he played a pornographer and blackmailer. 1960 saw him as a petty thief in Picadilly Third Stop.
Success came to Morgan when he landed the part of Sir Francis Drake but roles dried up after that as he was no longer seen as "the bad guy".
He was in 20 films as well as television, perhaps most notably Sir Francis Drake in an ITV series of the same name and as the villainous brother of the mummy (Rameses VIII) in Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964) and the 1967 shocker The Penthouse where he is an estate agent who is forced to watch as his girlfriend is abused by thugs. The Lifetaker in 1975 has him back as the bad guy again where as a wealthy business man he plans ritualistic revenge on his wife and her lover. As roles dried up, Morgan bought a small hotel in Hove (near Brighton) and ran that for some years before becoming a property developer.
