Eric Morris (born November 19, 1931) is an American actor, acting teacher and author who developed his own theory of acting based on the works of Lee Strasberg and Martin Landau. Morris created the Eric Morris System of Acting, which provides actors with concrete techniques to explore their own psychology as the underlying source of their challenges.
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Early life
Morris's parents were Russian Immigrants. His father emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1912. Morris lived with his family in various apartments in a neighborhood inhabited chiefly by Jewish immigrants from Russia or Poland until he was in seventh grade, when his father bought a house.
He spent some years as a Boy Scout, attaining the rank of Star Scout. He was a soda jerk at Walgreens, and at age fourteen spent some Saturdays doing stand-up comedy at a mafia nightclub. After a false start and a detour in therapy, Morris returned to Wright Junior College in 1950 and took up drama. He enrolled at Northwestern University School of Speech in 1952, as a junior theater major. Alvina Krause taught him acting, though he reports she did not like him; he earned a "C" in the class. In 1978 he bought a house at Lake Arrowhead, fulfilling a wish he had made as a ten-year-old in 1941.