Actor Robert Morse, of Mad Men and Broadway stages, dead at 90

Actor Robert Morse, who won a Tony Award as a hilariously brash corporate climber in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and a second one a generation later as the brilliant, troubled Truman Capote in Tru, has died. He was 90.

Morse died at his home Wednesday after a brief illness, said David Shaul of BRS/Gage Talent Agency.

The boyishly handsome Morse first made his name on Broadway in the 1950s, and landed some roles in Hollywood comedies in the 1960s. "I consider myself an actor shyly," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1964. "I love acting. It's a great use of body and mind... With all humility, you hope that you are doing something worthwhile."

More recently, he played the autocratic and eccentric leader of an advertising agency in Mad Men, AMC's hit drama that debuted in 2007. The role earned him an Emmy nomination in 2008 as best guest actor in a drama series.

Morse was already well-established on Broadway, with two Tony nominations to his credit, when he became nationally famous at age 30 as the star of Abe Burrows and Frank Loesser's smash 1961 Broadway satire of corporate life, "How to Succeed...". The show won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony for best musical and ran for more than three years.

Morse's bright-eyed J. Pierrepont Finch was a master of corporate backstabbing with a toothy grin as he went from Manhattan window washer to titan at the World Wide Wicket company with the help of a little "how-to" paperback on office politics.

The musical's song titles suggest the button-down, pre-feminist business world: The Company Way, a theme song for yes-men; A Secretary Is Not a Toy, a song that winks at office dalliance; Coffee Break, a tribute to caffeine; and the hymn Finch sings to himself: I Believe in You. Finch toadies up to the aging boss, played by 1920s crooner Rudy Vallee, by joining in the old man's college fight song, Grand Old Ivy.

"Imagine a collaboration between Horatio Alger and Machiavelli and you have Finch, the intrepid hero of this sortie into the canyons of commerce," The New York Times wrote. "As played with unfaltering bravura and wit by Robert Morse, he is a rumpled, dimpled angel with a streak of Lucifer."

The 1967 film version of How To Succeed dropped some songs but otherwise kept close to the stage original. Morse was back, as was Vallee.

But Morse's film career largely failed to take off.

He was back on Broadway in 1972 and picked up another Tony nomination for Sugar, producer David Merrick's musical version of Some Like It Hot. Morse starred as Jerry, the part played by Jack Lemmon in the Billy Wilder comedy about two male musicians who disguise themselves as women to get away from murderous gangsters.

Tru, a one-man show based on Capote's writings, revived Morse's stage career in 1989.

In 1993, the televised version of Tru on PBS won Morse an Emmy for best actor in a miniseries or special.

Television's Mad Men returned Morse to the milieu of Manhattan office politics, 1960s-style.

Career ups and downs

Morse was born May 18, 1931, in Newton, Mass., and made his Broadway debut in 1955 in The Matchmaker.

He received back-to-back Tony nominations for his next two roles: in 1959 for best featured actor in a play for Say, Darling, and in 1960 for best actor in a musical for Take Me Along, which also starred Jackie Gleason.

Among his films was The Loved One, a 1965 black comedy about an Englishman's encounter with Hollywood and the funeral industry, based on the satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh.

Reviewing his career, Morse told The New York Times in 1989: "Things change. I never got a chance to be in a play or picture where I played a father, or had a family, or where I could feel or show something. The wild child in me never had a chance to grow up."

He said he had successfully battled alcohol and drug abuse, but added, "I don't think drinking got in the way of my work. I did my job. It was the other 22 hours I had a problem with."

Still, he said of his career, "I didn't think it was going to end or not end. I just plowed on. One day you hear `We love you, Bobby.' The next day you're doing voiceovers."

He is survived by five children, a son Charlie and four daughters, Robin, Andrea, Hilary and Allyn.