Robert Morse, Impish Tony-Winning Comedy Star, Is Dead at 90

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  Robert Morse, whose impish, gaptoothed grin and expert comic timing made him a Tony-winning Broadway star as a charming corporate schemer in the 1961 musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” who later won another Tony for his eerily lifelike portrait of the writer Truman Capote in “Tru,” and who capped his long career with a triumphant return to the corporate world on the television series “Mad Men,” died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90.

His death was confirmed by his agent, David Shaul.

Small in stature but larger than life as a performer, Mr. Morse was still a relative newcomer to the stage when he took Broadway by storm in “How to Succeed.”  Directed (and partly written) by Abe Burrows, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, and based on a book by Shepherd Mead, the show, a broad satire of the business world, was set in the headquarters of the World Wide Wicket Company, ruled by its peevish president, J.B. Biggley (Rudy Vallee).

The plot revolved around the determined efforts of an ambitious young window washer named J. Pierrepont Finch, played with sly humor by Mr. Morse, to climb to the top of the corporate ladder. Among the show’s many high points was the washroom scene in which Mr. Morse delivered a heartfelt rendition of the song “I Believe in You” while gazing rapturously into a mirror.

“How to Succeed” ran for more than 1,400 performances and won seven Tony Awards, including one for Mr. Morse as best actor in a musical, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama. A 1967 film adaptation, with Mr. Morse and Mr. Vallee repeating their roles, was a hit as well, and the show has been revived on Broadway twice.

Mr. Morse always seemed more at home on the stage than on the screen. Five years before “How to Succeed” opened, he made an uncredited and virtually unseen Hollywood debut (his face was swathed in bandages) in the World War II drama “The Proud and Profane.” With no other screen roles in the offing, he returned to New York, where he had earlier studied acting with Lee Strasberg.

Soon he was auditioning for the director Tyrone Guthrie and given his first Broadway role, in “The Matchmaker,” Thornton Wilder’s comedy about a widowed merchant’s search for a new wife. Ruth Gordon played the title role, and Mr. Morse and Arthur Hill played clerks in the merchant’s shop. Mr. Morse would reprise the role in a 1958 film adaptation.