Vic Morrow: COMBAT! Star & Great Film and TV Villain (BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, THE BAD NEWS BEARS, THE GLASS HOUSE, ROOTS, CIMARRON, KING CREOLE)

Vic Morrow, star of the hit 1960's WWII series COMBAT!,

was born in The Bronx, N.Y. on February 14th, 1929, the day of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago.

Tragically, he died on July 23rd, 1982 while filming TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE for director John Landis.

Morrow and 2 young extras, Myca Ding Le (age 7) & Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6), were filming an escape scene (instead of stunt people) in the Vietnam sequence of the movies Time Out segment, when a helicopter hovering 24 feet above them was damaged by a pyrotechnic explosion. The helicopter crashed on top of Morrow and the children, killing them instantly.

The Jewish born Morrow's (his real name was Morozoff)

final role was Bill Connor, an anti-Semitic racist, in

TZ: THE MOVIE

He burst on the big screen in Richard Brooks 1955 groundbreaking juvenile delinquency hit BLACKBOARD JUNGLE--as the definitive high school punk JD,

Artie West

Morrow threatens teach Glenn Ford as Sidney Poitier and other students look on in

BLACKBOARD

Morrow's first film role helped typecast him to a career on the big screen as one of the best unsmiling heavies we ever had.

Well, when he did smile (or sneer), it was usually while enjoying seeing a person in pain!

TV was where Morrow got his first chance to play a hero.

COMBAT! kicked off one helluva of a Tuesday night of classic ABC TV

He shined in his Emmy Nominated role of Sgt. Chip Saunders on the fan favorite

ABC series COMBAT! (1962-67), which cracked the Top 10 in ratings once and snared the show 3 Emmy nods, including an Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Series (Lead) for Morrow in 1963. He lost to E.G. Marshall (THE DEFENDERS).

Morrow with his COMBAT! co-star

Rick Jason, who played Lt. Gil Hanley

COMBAT! was everywhere in the 1960's, making Morrow a household face.

You needed an extra green & red crayon for this coloring book!

After COMBAT!, Morrow's career had it's ups (THE BAD NEWS BEARS) and downs (FUNERAL FOR AN ASSASSIN), but he always kept working, giving some really excellent performances and doing some directing as well.

My other favorite Morrow film and TV roles include:

Uber-competitive Little League Coach Roy Turner, the jerk of a manager for the much-hated Southern California Yankees (not to mention abusive father of his teams star pitcher), in the original THE BAD NEWS BEARS

Morrow with Joyce Van Patten, Walter Matthau, Ben Piazza, Tatum O'Neal, Jackie Earle Hailey and the rest of the Bears (and 1 damn Yankee)

Maybe his best performance, cruel and cunning inmate leader Hugh Slocum, antagonist of Alan Alda, in Tom Gries still powerful and brutal 1972 prison drama THE GLASS HOUSE--the climax is a stunner!

Morrow with his lockup Lieutenant Scott Hylands putting the squeeze on Alda in HOUSE

Tough cop Sgt. Joe LaFrieda in 3 episodes of POLICE STORY

Lawman Capt. Everett Franklin, obsessed with catching

DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY

Shark, club owner Walter Matthau's top henchman in KING CREOLE with

Elvis Presley

Kill-crazy gangster Dutch Schultz in Joseph Pevney's PORTRAIT OF A MOBSTER

With Norman Alden in MOBSTER

The title role in TARGET: HARRY

Unbalanced outlaw Wes Jennings in the 1960 version of CIMARRON

With Russ Tamblyn and George Brenlin in CIMARRON

Robert Ryan's youngest son Shaw Walden in the 1958 adaptation of Erskine Caldwell's bestseller GOD'S LITTLE ACRE, directed by Anthony Mann

Morrow, Ryan and Jack Lord (as Vic's older bro) in ACRE

The despicable slave overseer Ames in the classic 1977 mini-series adaptation of

Alex Haley's ROOTS

The battle-fatigued Corporal Zwickley in Anthony Mann's MEN IN WAR

Murderous Sheriff Roy Childress in the excellent 1974 tele-film

THE CALIFORNIA KID with Martin Sheen

Joe Rawlins, one of a trio of unlikely bank robbers in the 1971 TV film A STEP OUT OF LINE

Crip, the menacing leader of a quartet of old west death row escapees in the 1961

Audie Murphy oater POSSE FROM HELL

Morrow and his cutthroats: Lee Van Cleef, Henry Wills and Charles Horvath in

HELL

Hysteria stricken husband & father Hank Muldoon in the tele-film recreation of Orson Welles infamous 1938 radio broadcast of H.G. Wells WAR OF THE WORLDS on THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA

No-good Capt. Spangler in the 1976 Disney family adventure

TREASURE OF MATECUMBE

Tom Hennessy in the epic, sprawling 1976 mini-series of Taylor Caldwell's best seller CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS

Jake Rudd in the 1979 horror film THE EVICTORS

Town jerk Hank Slattery in the slimy 1980 sci-fi monster flick

HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP aka MONSTER

With Doug McClure and others in DEEP

Black market arms dealer Joseph Collins, tricked into believing he's alive 28 years after a nuclear war has devastated the country, in the unbelievable MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE episode Two Thousand

The gang boss Manso in THE TAKE with Billy Dee Williams

Benny Mungo, another baleful creep in the ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS episode

A Little Sleep with Broadway star Barbara Cook

After COMBAT!, the only other regular series role Morrow played was
Capt. Eugene Nathan, boss of the B.A.D. CATS (ABC 1980), a cop action series which ran for 6 (aired) episodes. Michelle Pfieffer was a CAT.

Morrow's many other film & TV credits include:

The title role in the failed pilot TRAVIS LOGAN D.A., THE WEEKEND NUN, THE SEEKERS, 1900: THE BRONX WARRIORS, THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1973 TV version of TOM SAWYER (as Injun' Joe), WILD AND WOOLY (Warden of a wild west prison for ladies), THE LAST SHARK aka GREAT WHITE, MESSAGE FROM SPACE, THE LAST CONVERTIBLE, GREATEST HEROES FROM THE BIBLE, CHARLIE'S ANGELS, CLIMAX!, TRACKDOWN, another crazy bad guy in HELL'S FIVE HOURS, THE RIFLEMAN, NAKED CITY, JOHNNY RINGO, McCLOUD, IRONSIDE, MANNIX, RIVER OF MYSTERY (I've never seen this 1971 TV movie, but I hear Vic is great in it), SARGE, HAWAII FIVE-O, NIGHTMARE (1974 TV film), DEATH STALK (as escaped con Leo Brunner), SCAR TISSUE, THE GHOST OF CYPRESS SWAMP, THE MAN WITH THE POWER, THE HOSTAGE HEART, HUNTER (1977 series with James Franciscus), THE LITTLEST HOBO, FANTASY ISLAND, THE TALL MAN, MAGNUM P.I., DEATH VALLEY DAYS, THE UNTOUCHABLES, BONANZA, OUTLAWS, DEATH AT THE STOCK RACES, SUSPENSE, DAN AUGUST, THE EVIL TOUCH, and more.

MAGNUM P.I.

DEATH STALK

THE LAST SHARK

1900: THE BRONX WARRIORS

Morrow directed several excellent episodes of COMBAT!, as well as

one shot directing jobs for the shows QUINCY M.E., LUCAN, WALT DISNEY'S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR, and THE EVIL TOUCH.

For the big screen, Morrow directed the ahead-of-it's time film version of Jean Genet's play DEATHWATCH (1966), which he also produced and co-wrote (with ex-wife Barbara Turner).

The cast included Leonard Nimoy, Paul Mazursky (Vic's old BLACKBOARD JUNGLE classmate), Micheal Forest & Gavin McLeod (!).

Morrow directed and co-wrote the violent 1970 spaghetti western

A MAN CALLED SLEDGE with James Garner, Dennis Weaver & Claude Akins.

Morrow on location in Italy directing SLEDGE

Did you know...?

Morrow dropped out of high school at age 17 and joined the U.S. Navy.

His first wife, from 1957 to 1964, was Barbara Turner, an Emmy & Writers Guild of America Nominated screenwriter (HEMINGWAY & GELLHORN, THE WAR BETWEEN THE TATES, THE COMPANY, GEORGIA) and actress (MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL, WINK OF AN EYE, OPERATION EICHMANN).

Morrow and Turner had 2 daughters, Carrie Ann Morrow, and 2-time N.Y. Film Critics Circle Award Winning actress Jennifer Jason (Morrow) Leigh (GEORGIA, MIAMI BLUES, WEEDS, LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, MRS. PARKER AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE, ROAD TO PERDITION, THE HATEFUL EIGHT).

Morrow used the G.I. Bill to study pre-law at Florida State, but gave it up after appearing in a university production to pursue an acting career.

He studied directing at USC.

After Morrow's death on the set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, director John Landis and four other defendants were acquitted of involuntary manslaughter after a nearly nine-month trial. The parents of the 2 children killed in the helicopter accident, Myca Dinh Le & Renee Shin-Yi Chen, sued and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Morrow's daughters also sued and settled for an undisclosed amount.

Morrow at work: