The Tony-winning Broadway star of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying who got a late-career boost thanks to his role as Bertram Cooper on AMC's Mad Men has died. The death of his friend producer Larry Karaszewski was confirmed by Variety, who referred to him as a huge talent and a beautiful spirit.
After graduating high school in New York City, Morse wanted to be an actor and moved to Massachusetts. He got his first acting role in 1949 in Our Town, after studying acting with his brother at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He appeared in The Matchmaker on Broadway in 1955 and his first movie role was in the film adaptation of the play.
He was nominated for a Tony for Best featured actor in a play for his work in Say, Darling. He won the Best actor in a musical award in 1962 for How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, after being nominated the year before for Take Me Along. The musical, which is about a window washer with grander career ambitions, ran on Broadway for four years before getting a movie adaptation in 1967.
After starring in the musicals Sugar, based on Some Like It Hot, and So Long, 174th Street, his Broadway career stopped. He won a Tony in 1989 for his performance in the one-man show Tru about Truman Capote, and later picked up an award for his performance in the American Playhouse adaptation of the show.
His work on Mad Men earned him more than a half-dozen additional nominations. He didn't win an award for the role, but he did get a trophy for the cast at the Screen Actors Guild awards. In the show's seventh season, the character of Bert Cooper died while watching the moon landing, and later reappeared to Jon Hamm in a vision where he sang and danced to "The Best Things in Life Are Free."
His wife and five children are survivors of the role of Santa Claus on Teen TITANS GO!
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