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Frank Morgan

 
American Theater Guide: Frank Morgan
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Morgan, Frank [né Francis Philip Wupperman] (1890–1949), character actor. The son of a well‐to‐do New Yorker, he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making his professional debut in 1914. Despite his suave appearance he excelled at befuddled characters, playing variations of them in, among others, the musical Rock‐a‐Bye Baby (1918), Seventh Heaven (1922), The Firebrand (1924), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1926), Rosalie (1928), Topaze (1930), and the revue The Band Wagon (1931). His last years were spent in films. Actor Ralph Morgan was his brother.

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Artist: Frank Morgan
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Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Pop Artists
Frank Morgan

Similar Artists:

Phil Woods, Charlie Parker, Gene Quill, Frank Strozier, Art Pepper, Gigi Gryce

Performed Songs By:

Thelonious Monk, Oscar Hammerstein II, Duke Ellington, McCoy Tyner, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, George Cables, Hoagy Carmichael

Worked With:

John Snyder, Danny Kopelson, Kenny Clarke, Wardell Gray

Formal Connection With:

Kenny Drew, Jr.
  • Born: December 23, 1933, Minneapolis, MN
  • Died: December 14, 2007, Minneapolis, MN
  • Active: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s
  • Genres: Jazz
  • Instrument: Sax (Alto)
  • Representative Albums: "Frank Morgan," "Listen to the Dawn," "Easy Living"

Biography

It is a real rarity for a jazz musician to have his career interrupted for a 30-year period and then be able to make a complete comeback. Frank Morgan showed a great deal of promise in his early days, but it was a long time before he could fulfill his potential. The son of guitarist Stanley Morgan (who played with the Ink Spots), he took up clarinet and alto early on. Morgan moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947 and won a talent contest, leading to him record a solo with Freddy Martin. Morgan worked on the bop scene of early-'50s Los Angeles, recording with Teddy Charles (1953) and Kenny Clarke (1954), and leading his own album for GNP in 1955. But then 30 years of darkness intruded. A heroin addict (following in the footsteps of his idol Charlie Parker), Morgan was arrested for possession of drugs and was in and out of jails for decades. He performed locally on an occasional basis, but it was not until 1985 when he had an opportunity to lead his second date. Morgan managed to permanently kick drugs and after an initial period, during which he sounded very close to Charlie Parker, he developed his own bop-based style. Frank Morgan has recorded a string of excellent sets for Contemporary, Antilles, and Telarc, and has become an inspiring figure in the jazz world. His most recent albums include Tribute to Charlie Parker(2003), City Nights: Live at the Jazz Standard (2004), Raising the Standard (2005), and Night in the Life: Live at the Jazz Station (2007). ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
Actor: Frank Morgan
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Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Jun 01, 1890 in New York City, New York
  • Died: Sep 18, 1949
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: teens, '30s-'40s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
  • Career Highlights: The Wizard of Oz, The Affairs of Cellini, Naughty Marietta
  • First Major Screen Credit: Manhandled (1924)

Biography

Years before he played The Wizard (and four other roles) in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Frank Morgan had a long career in silent film and was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for The Affairs of Cellini (1934). Although adept at flustered and bewildered comic roles, Morgan was also an excellent dramatic actor; he was an ever-present figure in many of MGM's classiest films of the period. Highlights of his career include: Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (1931), When Ladies Meet (1933), Bombshell (1933), Cat and the Fiddle (1934), The Good Fairy (1935), Naughty Marietta (1935), Dimples (1936), The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937), Saratoga (1937), Rosalie (1937), Boom Town (1940), Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940), and The Three Musketeers (1948). He was especially effective in The Shop Around the Corner (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), The Human Comedy (1943) and Summer Holiday (1948), the musical remake of Thornton Wilder's Ah, Wilderness. Morgan died while filming Annie Get Your Gun, in which he would have played Buffalo Bill. The most famous anecdote about Morgan is that while rehearsing for The Wizard of Oz, he went looking for a coat to help him feel like Prof. Marvel; the one he found in a second-hand shop turned out to have originally belonged to Wizard author L. Frank Baum. ~ All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Frank Morgan
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
For other persons named Frank Morgan, see Frank Morgan (disambiguation).
Frank Morgan

from the trailer for Sweethearts (1938)
Born Francis Phillip Wuppermann
June 1, 1890(1890-06-01)
New York City, New York, United States
Died September 18, 1949 (aged 59)
Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California
Years active 1914 – 1949
Spouse(s) Alma Muller
(1914 – 1949) (his death) 1 son

Frank Morgan (June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949) was an American actor best known for his portrayal of the title character in the film The Wizard of Oz.

Contents

Early life

Born as Francis Phillip Wuppermann in New York City, the youngest of eleven children (six boys and five girls) to the wealthy family which distributed Angostura bitters, he attended Cornell University where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. He then followed his older brother Ralph Morgan into show business, first on the Broadway stage and then into motion pictures.

Acting career

His first film was The Suspect in 1916. His career expanded when talkies began, his most stereotypical role being that of a befuddled but good-hearted middle-aged man. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1934's The Affairs of Cellini, where he played the cuckolded Duke of Florence and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1942's Tortilla Flat, where he played a simple Hispanic man.

Morgan's most famous performance was in The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which he played the carnival huckster "Professor Marvel", the gatekeeper of the Emerald City, the driver of the carriage drawn by "The Horse of a Different Color", the armed guard leading to the wizard's hall, and the Wizard himself. Like Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West, his characters only appear on-screen for a few minutes in total, but they are show-stoppers. He was so popular that MGM gave him a lifetime contract. Other movies of note include The Shop Around the Corner, The Human Comedy, The Mortal Storm, The White Cliffs of Dover and his last movie, Key to the City, which was released after his death, in Beverly Hills, California.

He also recorded a number of children's records, including the popular Gossamer Wump, released in 1949 by Capitol Records.

Like most character actors of the studio era Frank Morgan had numerous roles in many motion pictures. One of his last roles was as a key supporting player in The Stratton Story, a true story about a ballplayer (played by James Stewart) who makes a comeback after losing a leg in a hunting accident.

Personal life

Morgan married Alma Muller in 1914; they had one son. They were married until his death in 1949.

The much beloved actor was widely known to have a drinking problem, according to several who worked with him, including actress Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, 1939) and "Oz" historian Aljean Harmetz. Morgan sometimes carried a black briefcase to work fully equipped with a small mini bar.[1]

Frank Morgan's niece, Claudia Morgan (née Claudia Wuppermann) was a stage and film actress, most notable for playing the role of Vera Claythorne in the first Broadway production of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.

Morgan was also a brother of playwright Carlos Wupperman, who was killed in the Rhineland in 1919 while on duty there with the Army of Occupation. Wupperman had only one play produced on Broadway. The Triumph of X opened at the Comedy Theatre in New York City on August 24, 1921[2], but ran only 30 performances. The production is notable for several reasons; besides starring Frank Morgan, the play's female lead was Helen Menken (who would marry Humphrey Bogart in 1926), and in his first Broadway outing, [3] character actor Robert Keith, father of actor Brian Keith and one-time husband of Theatre Guild actress Peg Entwistle, who committed suicide by jumping from the Hollywood Sign in 1932.

Death

Morgan died after suffering a heart attack in 1949 (while filming Annie Get Your Gun). He was the one major player from The Wizard of Oz who did not live to see the film become both a television fixture and an American institution. He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street.

Filmography

References

  1. ^ "Frank Morgan at Hollywood's Irish Mafia". http://www.irishmafia.us/morgan.html. Retrieved 18 September 2009. 
  2. ^ Theater Review by Alexander Woollcot New York Times, August 25, 1921.
  3. ^ {{cite web |title=Internet Broadway Database |url=http://www.ibdb.com/index.php |

External links

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Copyrights:

American Theater Guide. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Actor. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Frank Morgan".  Read more

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