Garrett Morris

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Garrett Morris (born February 1, 1937) is an American comedian and actor from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Morris was a church-choir singer from his youth, trained at the Juilliard School of Music, and soloed early in his career with the Harry Belafonte singers. He performed in a number of Broadway musicals, including Hallelujah, Baby! and Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. He also appeared as a high school teacher in the memorable cult classic film Cooley High.

Morris has appeared in numerous television shows and movies since the early 1970s, but is best known as one of the original cast members of NBC's Saturday Night Live. At least twice on SNL he sang classical music: once a Mozart aria when guest-host Walter Matthau designated him as a "musical guest...in place of the usual crap", and once a Schubert lied while the titles on the screen purported to express his colleagues' displeasure at having to accommodate a misguided request by him.

Morris' best known character on SNL was the Dominican baseball player Chico Escuela. Chico spoke only limited and halting English, so the joke centered on him responding to almost any question with his catch phrase: "Baseball... been berra berra good... to me."

According to the book Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, Morris was frequently unhappy during his tenure on SNL from 1975–1980, and expressed the opinion that he was usually typecast in stereotypical roles. In the late 1970s, he began to freebase cocaine on a regular basis, and began to experience hallucinations and symptoms of paranoia, telling other cast members and writers that an invisible hypnotist robot was following him. This culminated in a bizarre outburst in front of Kirk Douglas during rehearsals for a sketch in February 1980, when Morris allegedly stripped to the waist and began to scream at the top of his lungs.

African-American performers who have followed Morris on Saturday Night Live have at times been publicly concerned with not experiencing the same fate Morris did. Eddie Murphy, for example, told TV Guide in the early 1980s that SNL producer Jean Doumanian "had tried to Garrett Morris me... turn me into the little token."

In 1994, he was shot in an apparent robbery attempt but went on to make a full recovery. In a radio interview, he mentioned that the robber who shot him was eventually incarcerated, and in prison some fans of Garrett's who happened to be inmates there teamed up and beat up the robber in revenge.

Among later television performances, he had regular roles on Hunter, Diff'rent Strokes, The Jeffersons, Hill Street Blues, Martin, and The Jamie Foxx Show.

As of 2006, he continues to perform regularly in films.

Contents

  • Morris is the oldest living SNL cast member.
  • Was the second person to recite the famous phrase "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!" (Chevy Chase was the first)
  • Garrett Morris cameoed on an episode of Saturday Night Live in 2002 (host: Brittany Murphy; musical guest: Nelly) in Tracy Morgan's recurring sketch, Astronaut Jones.
  • Jamie Foxx has impersonated Garrett Morris on In Living Color.
  • Morris was played by Dean Bernard in the 2002 TV movie Gilda Radner: It's Always Something.
  • Garrett Morris had a cameo appearance on Family Guy in the episode "Barely Legal" reviving his "News For The Hard of Hearing" bit he did during Weekend Update with Chevy Chase in SNL's first season.
  • Garret Morris guest-starred in the second episode of Halfway Home as Jimmy the mailman.

  • Chico Escuela, a Dominican baseball player
  • Cliff, the streetwise friend to the Fenstruk Brothers (Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin)
  • Grant Robinson, Jr., one of the Nerds
  • Hodo, one of Miles Cowperthwaite's cronies
  • Merkon, the leader of the Coneheads
  • Weekend Update's "News For the Hard of Hearing" translator, who simply repeated each line while shouting.

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