Kathy Pinna
An Actor Is Remembered
What happens to a dream deferred? . . . does it explode? - Langston Hughes, Harlem
Since early childhood Morris Dave Erby dreamed of becoming a great and famous movie actor. He would be satisfied with no less. Those who recall him say he had the talent but never got the big break that would have catapulted him to stardom.
On January 8, Erby quietly died alone in his apartment on Westwood Avenue in Los Angeles at age 51. His family says he died a troubled, frustrated and bitter man. His mother charges bluntly that Hollywood killed him. "When he came home the last time he was so bitter." Mildred Erby recalls of her son. "We've just sorked up to this day when black men and black women could go to Hollywood and get good jobs and work in lovely offices," she says, sitting in the dining room of her comfortable South Sacramento home, the table before her covered with pictures, old letters and telegrams - memories of her eldes son. It was the difficulty he had as a black actor to find suitable roles that tore him apart, she observed. "I can't praise Hollywood at all. I think things happened to him that made him bitter," says Mrs. Erby in an emotion-choked voice. "I just feel kind of bitter too. They took my son away from me and destroyed him."
Maureen Ross, Morris Erby's sister and Mildred Erby's eldest daughter, agrees with her mother's assessment and notes that the whold family came to share Erby's bitterness to some extent. "The sad part of it was that my brother was before his time, " says Mrs. Ross, director of the Head Start program in Sacramento. "America still wants to see the black man singing and dancing," she declared. "They would prefer to put Sammy Davis in the lead role because he could sing and dance. My brother didn't dance and sin."
"All of us feel the bitterness of the kind of racism in the country . . . Before we were brainwashed into believing that you (as a black) could make your own destiny if you were smart." both mother and daughter agree that Morris Erby - called "Sonny" by them, ventured out into the world as a young, naive, small-town product who honestly believed that his extraordinary talent was enough to write him a ticket to fame and success. From earliest recollections, he was always an actor. And at an early age he decided that the stage and screen beckoned him. Oldest of the four Erby offspring, "he would entertain us by putting on one-man shows when our parents were away," reflects Mrs. Ross. "He was always an actor.
In September 1930, when he was all of three years and 11 months old, Erby made his public debut. He was a pupil at Holy Angels School, and the nuns who ran the school put together a student production. Donning a white wig and carrying a staff, Erby was cast as a shepherd. That was it, he was hooked by the smell of grease paint and the roar of the crowd. He acted in every school play he could and even began to write original plays at a young age. By the time he reached Lincoln Junior High school he was a budding actor and an equally promising playwright. He continued to develop his craft while a student at Sacramento High School.
Throughout his parents sought to dissuade him and encouraged him to become a lawyer or enter some other professional field. "With all the odds against him, I knew he would have trouble," his mother says. But Morris Erby was a marked man. After graduation from high school, he enlisted in the Navy. It was during World War II and the 17-year-old native Sacramentan left home for the first time. He served two years aboard a mine sweeper in the South Pacific and was stationed in Hawaii.
He returned home and attended Sacramento City College for a year but became restless and transferred to Grant Technical College. (The college was predecessor to American River College and was located on the site currently occupied by Grant Union High School." It was there that he met Lillian Allen, who became his drama coach and encouraged him to pursue and acting career. "I found him to be a brilliant young man - as a writer and a fine actor." says Mrs. Allen, who became his mentor. He stayed at the college about a year, mainly working in radio courses and with closed-circuit TV productions. He had wanted to become a radio or TV broadcaster, but the field was closed to blacks.
He and some school buddies formed their own theater group called the "Gaslight Players Guild." Eventually, he bowed to the urgings of his parents and enrolled in New York University, where he earned degrees in political science and general education. He considered studying law. While at NYU, he was introduced to the New York stage and renewed his yearning for acting. He met and impressed such entertainers as Sammy David Jr. And he was invited to work in some road productions. He worked with Davis several times. He returned to Sacramento and became active in local theater and gained great popularity for his masterful portrayals. Mrs. Allen directed him in several plays at the Eaglet Theater.
In 1955, he starred as Teiresias, the Oracle, in the Eaglet production of the Greek tragedy "Antigone." He played Cal in "The Little Foxes" and the Celestial Charioteer in an East Indian play called "Shakuntula." "when the theater staged "Of Thee I Sing", he was assistant stage manager. One day, his mother recalls, he announced he was going to Hollywood. There was no talking him out of it. "He said: 'Momma, I'm going to get my break'" Mrs. Erby recollects. "He said he didn't want to go there and be an Uncle Tom. He said he was going to make it." He joined a company headed by actor Howard Keel and spent two years on the road. Then he returned to New York and appeared in some Off-Broadway productions before he landed a part with Andy Griffin in the movie "Onion Head," his first film. He broke into television with several roles on the Matinee Theater.
Determined to make it in the movies, he journey back to Hollywood, where he landed numerous roles in TV dramas. He was cast by Jack Webb in the "Dragnet" series and with Raymond Burr on "Perry Mason" and then "Ironside." As a regular on the late-1950s detective series "Peter Gunn," and a full-length movie spin-off of the show, he played a police official name Sergeant Davis. In that rose, he became the first black actor to be portrayed killing a white man on TV. His credits also included a few appearances as a tribal leader on the "Tarzan" series. Still the big screen eluded him.
Back in New York, he joined the original cast of Jean Genet's popular play "The Blacks," which launched the careers of many black actors. Appearing as a character called Edgar Alas, Newport News, he opened May 5, 1963 at Her Majesty's Theater with a line-up that included such names as Louis Gossett, Esther Rolle, Moses Gunn, Thelma Olver, Harold Scott and Lincoln Kilpatrick. He played the leading role opposite Juanita Moore in "A Raisin in the Sun" at the Plyers Ring Theater.
By now the frustration and bitterness began to set in. His goal was motion pictures but the roles were not available. There were very few minor parts for black actors and the tend toward mass production of films with black themes was to be several years in the future. He began to drink. Jobs became scarce with more and more black actors arriving on the scene to compete for the few available roles. His drinking grew worse. He was committed to a hospital for treatment a few times. His calls and letters home became less frequent and often it would be months between contacts with his family. Once he disappeared for two years. When he did write, his letters were often dashed off hurriedly and undated. For a long time, he provided the family with no address or phone number where he could be reached - he would just let them know he was still trying.
His last major role came about six years ago - the lead in the San Francisco production of "Norman is that You"? And those were the last days he spent at home, working in his mother's flower garden, seething with growing rage. Most recently, he occupied himself teaching and coaching drama students. About four months ago, he made his final phone call home. Mrs. Erby says he still had "big ideas". Then came word of his death.
She had his body shipped home and at 2:30 on the afternoon of Friday, January 13 friends and relatives gathered at Camellia Memorial Lawn Field of Honor the final curtain. Morris Erby - a man who would not be court jester and could not be king.
- The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, California) on Saturday, February 4, 1978 on Page 13. By Byron Robertson, Bee Staff Writer
Since early childhood Morris Dave Erby dreamed of becoming a great and famous movie actor. He would be satisfied with no less. Those who recall him say he had the talent but never got the big break that would have catapulted him to stardom.
On January 8, Erby quietly died alone in his apartment on Westwood Avenue in Los Angeles at age 51. His family says he died a troubled, frustrated and bitter man. His mother charges bluntly that Hollywood killed him. "When he came home the last time he was so bitter." Mildred Erby recalls of her son. "We've just sorked up to this day when black men and black women could go to Hollywood and get good jobs and work in lovely offices," she says, sitting in the dining room of her comfortable South Sacramento home, the table before her covered with pictures, old letters and telegrams - memories of her eldes son. It was the difficulty he had as a black actor to find suitable roles that tore him apart, she observed. "I can't praise Hollywood at all. I think things happened to him that made him bitter," says Mrs. Erby in an emotion-choked voice. "I just feel kind of bitter too. They took my son away from me and destroyed him."
Maureen Ross, Morris Erby's sister and Mildred Erby's eldest daughter, agrees with her mother's assessment and notes that the whold family came to share Erby's bitterness to some extent. "The sad part of it was that my brother was before his time, " says Mrs. Ross, director of the Head Start program in Sacramento. "America still wants to see the black man singing and dancing," she declared. "They would prefer to put Sammy Davis in the lead role because he could sing and dance. My brother didn't dance and sin."
"All of us feel the bitterness of the kind of racism in the country . . . Before we were brainwashed into believing that you (as a black) could make your own destiny if you were smart." both mother and daughter agree that Morris Erby - called "Sonny" by them, ventured out into the world as a young, naive, small-town product who honestly believed that his extraordinary talent was enough to write him a ticket to fame and success. From earliest recollections, he was always an actor. And at an early age he decided that the stage and screen beckoned him. Oldest of the four Erby offspring, "he would entertain us by putting on one-man shows when our parents were away," reflects Mrs. Ross. "He was always an actor.
In September 1930, when he was all of three years and 11 months old, Erby made his public debut. He was a pupil at Holy Angels School, and the nuns who ran the school put together a student production. Donning a white wig and carrying a staff, Erby was cast as a shepherd. That was it, he was hooked by the smell of grease paint and the roar of the crowd. He acted in every school play he could and even began to write original plays at a young age. By the time he reached Lincoln Junior High school he was a budding actor and an equally promising playwright. He continued to develop his craft while a student at Sacramento High School.
Throughout his parents sought to dissuade him and encouraged him to become a lawyer or enter some other professional field. "With all the odds against him, I knew he would have trouble," his mother says. But Morris Erby was a marked man. After graduation from high school, he enlisted in the Navy. It was during World War II and the 17-year-old native Sacramentan left home for the first time. He served two years aboard a mine sweeper in the South Pacific and was stationed in Hawaii.
He returned home and attended Sacramento City College for a year but became restless and transferred to Grant Technical College. (The college was predecessor to American River College and was located on the site currently occupied by Grant Union High School." It was there that he met Lillian Allen, who became his drama coach and encouraged him to pursue and acting career. "I found him to be a brilliant young man - as a writer and a fine actor." says Mrs. Allen, who became his mentor. He stayed at the college about a year, mainly working in radio courses and with closed-circuit TV productions. He had wanted to become a radio or TV broadcaster, but the field was closed to blacks.
He and some school buddies formed their own theater group called the "Gaslight Players Guild." Eventually, he bowed to the urgings of his parents and enrolled in New York University, where he earned degrees in political science and general education. He considered studying law. While at NYU, he was introduced to the New York stage and renewed his yearning for acting. He met and impressed such entertainers as Sammy David Jr. And he was invited to work in some road productions. He worked with Davis several times. He returned to Sacramento and became active in local theater and gained great popularity for his masterful portrayals. Mrs. Allen directed him in several plays at the Eaglet Theater.
In 1955, he starred as Teiresias, the Oracle, in the Eaglet production of the Greek tragedy "Antigone." He played Cal in "The Little Foxes" and the Celestial Charioteer in an East Indian play called "Shakuntula." "when the theater staged "Of Thee I Sing", he was assistant stage manager. One day, his mother recalls, he announced he was going to Hollywood. There was no talking him out of it. "He said: 'Momma, I'm going to get my break'" Mrs. Erby recollects. "He said he didn't want to go there and be an Uncle Tom. He said he was going to make it." He joined a company headed by actor Howard Keel and spent two years on the road. Then he returned to New York and appeared in some Off-Broadway productions before he landed a part with Andy Griffin in the movie "Onion Head," his first film. He broke into television with several roles on the Matinee Theater.
Determined to make it in the movies, he journey back to Hollywood, where he landed numerous roles in TV dramas. He was cast by Jack Webb in the "Dragnet" series and with Raymond Burr on "Perry Mason" and then "Ironside." As a regular on the late-1950s detective series "Peter Gunn," and a full-length movie spin-off of the show, he played a police official name Sergeant Davis. In that rose, he became the first black actor to be portrayed killing a white man on TV. His credits also included a few appearances as a tribal leader on the "Tarzan" series. Still the big screen eluded him.
Back in New York, he joined the original cast of Jean Genet's popular play "The Blacks," which launched the careers of many black actors. Appearing as a character called Edgar Alas, Newport News, he opened May 5, 1963 at Her Majesty's Theater with a line-up that included such names as Louis Gossett, Esther Rolle, Moses Gunn, Thelma Olver, Harold Scott and Lincoln Kilpatrick. He played the leading role opposite Juanita Moore in "A Raisin in the Sun" at the Plyers Ring Theater.
By now the frustration and bitterness began to set in. His goal was motion pictures but the roles were not available. There were very few minor parts for black actors and the tend toward mass production of films with black themes was to be several years in the future. He began to drink. Jobs became scarce with more and more black actors arriving on the scene to compete for the few available roles. His drinking grew worse. He was committed to a hospital for treatment a few times. His calls and letters home became less frequent and often it would be months between contacts with his family. Once he disappeared for two years. When he did write, his letters were often dashed off hurriedly and undated. For a long time, he provided the family with no address or phone number where he could be reached - he would just let them know he was still trying.
His last major role came about six years ago - the lead in the San Francisco production of "Norman is that You"? And those were the last days he spent at home, working in his mother's flower garden, seething with growing rage. Most recently, he occupied himself teaching and coaching drama students. About four months ago, he made his final phone call home. Mrs. Erby says he still had "big ideas". Then came word of his death.
She had his body shipped home and at 2:30 on the afternoon of Friday, January 13 friends and relatives gathered at Camellia Memorial Lawn Field of Honor the final curtain. Morris Erby - a man who would not be court jester and could not be king.
- The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, California) on Saturday, February 4, 1978 on Page 13. By Byron Robertson, Bee Staff Writer
