Kevin O’Morrison, a playwright and actor who got his start in Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre nearly 80 years ago, has died. He was 100.
He died on December 11 at a senior living facility in Lynnwood, Washington, a relative told The Hollywood Reporter.
O’Morrison played a prizefighter in the boxing drama The Set-Up (1949), directed by Robert Wise and starring Robert Ryan, and was another pugilist in The Golden Gloves Story (1950). In Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle (1993), he portrayed Meg Ryan’s father, Cliff.
A native of St. Louis, O’Morrison arrived in New York City in May 1937. He later recalled the Welles-directed Federal Theatre production of “Voodoo” Macbeth was the hottest show in town.
After Welles and John Houseman formed the Mercury Theatre, O’Morrison was hired as an assistant casting director. Numerous accounts of his life mention a walk-on role in Caesar, but a December 17, 1950 report in The Cincinnati Enquirer also noted his participation in Shoemaker’s Holiday and Danton’s Death.
In a Jan. 23, 2000 letter to The New York Times regarding the Federal Theatre production of The Cradle Will Rock, O’Morrison recalled the politics and labor movement of the late 1930s. “Many of the people who made up our audiences at the Mercury Theater often came to us straight from such picket lines, and stayed after the curtain to buy ambulances for those fighting Franco in Spain.”
Among the plays O’Morrison published or had produced were The Long War, A Party for Lovers, The Morgan Yard, Ladyhouse Blues and Dark Ages.
He was a founding member of the nonprofit organization PEN Washington, which worked to protect freedom of expression for writers everywhere, and served as an artist in residence at several colleges and universities.
O’Morrison is survived by his wife, Linda, and several cousins.
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