Morrow was born Victor Harry Morozoff in the Bronx, New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants Harry Morozoff, an electrical engineer, and Jean (née Kress).[5] Morrow dropped out of high school when he was 17 and enlisted in the United States Navy.[6] Morrow and his family lived in Asbury Park, New Jersey for many years.[7]
He was cast in the early Bonanza episode "The Avenger" as a mysterious figure known only as "Lassiter" – named after his town of origin – who arrives in Virginia City. He helps save Ben and Adam Cartwright from an unjust hanging, while eventually gunning down one sought-after man, revealing himself as the hunter of a lynch mob who killed his father. Having so far killed about half the mob, he rides off into the night, in an episode that resembles the later Clint Eastwood film High Plains Drifter. Morrow later appeared in the third season Bonanza episode "The Tin Badge".[9]: 44
Morrow was cast as soldier-engineer Lt. Robert Benson in the 1962 episode, "A Matter of Honor", on the syndicatedanthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. The story focuses on Benson's fiancé, Indiana (Shirley Ballard), who tries to persuade him to boost their income by selling inside Army information to criminal real estate moguls like Joseph Hooker (Howard Petrie). Trevor Bardette and Meg Wyllie were cast in the roles of Captain and Mrs. Warner.[9]: 124
Morrow was cast in the lead role of Sergeant "Chip" Saunders in ABC's Combat!, a World War II drama, which aired from 1962 to 1967.[11] Pop culture scholar Gene Santoro has written:
TV's longest-running World War II drama (1962–1967) was really a collection of complex 50-minute movies. Salted with battle sequences, they follow a squad's travails from D-Day on – a gritty ground-eye view of men trying to salvage their humanity and survive. Melodrama, comedy, and satire come into play as top-billed Lieutenant Hanley (Rick Jason) and Sergeant Saunders (Vic Morrow) lead their men toward Paris ... The relentlessness hollows antihero Saunders out: at times, you can see the tombstones in his eyes."[12]
His friend and fellow actor on Combat!, Rick Jason, described Morrow as "a master director" who directed "one of the greatest anti-war films I've ever seen". He was referring to the two-part episode of Combat! entitled Hills Are for Heroes, which was written by Gene L. Coon.[13]
Deathwatch and A Man Called Sledge
Morrow also worked as a television director. Together with Leonard Nimoy, he produced the 1965 film Deathwatch, an English-language film version of Jean Genet's play Deathwatch (title in French: Haute Surveillance), adapted by Morrow and Barbara Turner, directed by Morrow, and starring Nimoy.[14]
After Combat! ended, Morrow played the lead in Target: Harry (1969), the pilot for a proposed series that was not picked up; Roger Corman directed.
In 1969 he set up his own company, Carleigh, which was named after his daughters Carrie Ann and Jennifer Leigh.[15]
In the 1970s Morrow starred in some television movies including A Step Out of Line (1971), Travis Logan, D.A. (1971) (playing the title role), River of Mystery (1971), The Glass House (1972), The Weekend Nun, Tom Sawyer (1973), and Nightmare (1974).
From 1957 to 1964, Morrow was married to actress and screenwriter Barbara Turner.[16] They had two daughters, Carrie Ann Morrow and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. He married Gale Lester in 1975; they separated just prior to Morrow's death in July 1982.[citation needed]
Morrow fell out with his daughter Jennifer after his divorce from her mother. She changed her last name to Leigh and they were still estranged at the time of his death.[17]
Rick Jason, co-star of Combat!, wrote in his memoirs that Morrow "had an absolute dislike of firearms. He used a Thompson submachine gun in our series, but that was work. In any other respect he'd have nothing to do with them."[13]
In 1982, Morrow was cast in a feature role in Twilight Zone: The Movie in a segment directed by John Landis. Morrow was playing the role of Bill Connor, a racist who is taken back in time and placed in various situations where he would be a persecuted victim: as a Jewish man in Vichy France, a black man about to be lynched by the Ku Klux Klan and a Vietnamese man about to be killed by U.S. soldiers.
In the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, Morrow and two child actors, seven-year-old Myca Dinh Le and six-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were filming on location in California in an area that was known as Indian Dunes near Santa Clarita. They were performing a scene for the Vietnam sequence, in which their characters attempt to escape out of a deserted Vietnamese village from a pursuing U.S. Army helicopter.[3] The helicopter was hovering about 24 feet (7.3 m) above them when the heat from special effect pyrotechnic explosions reportedly delaminated the rotor blades[18] and caused the helicopter to plummet and crash on top of them, killing all three instantly. Morrow and Le were decapitated and mutilated by the helicopter rotor blades, while Chen was crushed by a helicopter skid.[19]
Morrow's daughters sued several parties for negligence and wrongful death and were each awarded an out-of-court settlement of $850,000 by Warner Bros. Studios.[20] Landis and four other defendants, including the helicopter pilot Dorcey Wingo, were charged with involuntary manslaughter but were ultimately acquitted after a ten-month trial.[21] The parents of Le and Chen also sued and settled out of court for $2 million each.[22]
^MacMINN, A. (January 13, 1963). "Camera angles". Los Angeles Times.
^Humphrey, Hal (September 20, 1964). "Combat' Star Finds It's Hard to Sleep on the Set". Los Angeles Times. p. B22.
^Santoro, Gene (March–April 2011). "Infantrymen on the Small Screen". World War II. 25 (6). Leesburg, Virginia: Weider History Group: 69. Retrieved August 24, 2013.
