Advertisement

Wiki

Chester Morris (February 16, 1901 – September 11, 1970) was an American actor, who starred in the Boston Blackie detective series of the 1940s.

He was born John Chester Brooks Morris in New York City, the son of Broadway stage actor William Morris and the performer Etta Hawkins. He made his Broadway debut at 17 in Lionel Barrymore's The Copperhead. At 17, he billed himself as "the youngest leading man in the country". His film career began in 1917 in An Amateur Orphan. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Alibi (1929) directed by Roland West. He also starred in The Bat Whispers (1930) and Corsair (1931), both directed by West.

He starred in the early prison film The Big House (1930). His career gradually declined in the late 1930s, with roles in B-movies such as Smashing the Rackets with Edward J. Pawley (1938) and Five Came Back (1939). His career revived when from 1941 to 1949 he played the character Boston Blackie in 14 low-budget movies produced by Columbia Pictures, starting with Meet Boston Blackie, and one season of radio shows.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Chester Morris."