Morris Barry

Born: 9th February 1918 (as Morris Randolph Barry)
Died: 20th November 2000 (aged 82 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1967-1968, 1979

Biography

Morris Barry was born in Northampton, and grew up in Potterspury, Northamptonshire. From the late Thirties, Barry worked as an actor, chiefly in repertory theatre. His career was put on hold in 1940, when he began wartime service in the army. In the early Fifties, Barry began to move into directing, principally with the Theatre Royal, Bath. He married actress Sally Lahee in 1952. In 1957, Barry joined the BBC on a temporary assignment as a floor manager, but soon found himself with a permanent job as a production assistant. It was in this capacity that he got his first taste of directing for television, handling film sequences on Escape.

Promoted to staff director in 1958, Barry was initially assigned to Starr And Company. He both directed and produced 1959's The Common Room. The early Sixties saw Barry mainly working as a producer-director on soap operas like Compact and The Newcomers. Eager to move away from melodramas, he directed episodes of Quick Before They Catch Us before making three Doctor Who serials for Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor in less than a year and a half, starting with The Moonbase in 1967.

In the early Seventies, Barry was a director on shows like Z Cars and The Doctors. He then returned to producing, working on such programmes as Spy Trap and Poldark. Before his retirement in 1978, Barry's final credits -- as both producer and director -- came on Angels. Although his career behind the camera had now concluded, Barry decided to return to occasional acting. This brought him back to Doctor Who in 1979, with Barry appearing as the engineer Tollund alonside Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor in The Creature From The Pit. He also had roles in everything from Blake's 7 to Are You Being Served? to All Creatures Great And Small, while continuing to direct for the theatre. Barry's last acting role came on a 1986 episode of Mapp & Lucia. He died on November 20th, 2000.

Credits
Director
The Moonbase
The Tomb Of The Cybermen
The Dominators
Actor, Tollund
The Creature From The Pit

Updated 25th June 2020