Don Morrow
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Don Morrow | |
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| Occupation | Announcer |
Don Morrow (born January 29, 1927) is an American actor and announcer. He started his broadcast career while a student at Syracuse University on the GI Bill shortly after World War II. His first job was with Syracuse's first TV station "WHEN" as newscaster and announcer. He heard of greener fields in Texas and in the late summer of '49 signed Dallas's 2nd TV station on the air as KBTV. While at the station, he also graduated from Southern Methodist University in his spare time. By the Spring of 1951, Morrow was working a freelance syndicated show with baseball Hall of Fame's Dizzy Dean who got Morrow to quit WFAA and come to New York where Dizzy broadcast play by play for the Yankees. When owner Del Webb had other plans, Diz got Morrow a job on The Liberty Broadcasting System, a Dallas based outfit with 536 radio stations across the country.
A Dallas roommate sold a show to ABC and Morrow was on network television as announcer on-camera for Personality Puzzle. Next came CBS Radio's "Fun For All" and a string of others through the decade. In 1954 he was seen on the detective series Martin Kane, Private Eye as the owner of the tobacco shop where Kane bought the sponsor's cigarettes. In 1954, he became Walter Cronkite's announcer on CBS's "The Sunday News Special". He appeared several times on the Ed Sullivan Show in comedy skits, was an on-camera announcer on The Jackie Gleason Show, was making commercials voice over and on-camera for Zest, Crest, Nabisco and scores of others. By the end of the fifties, he had also been spokesman for 4 major tobacco companies and then was signed as the Camel spokesperson.
During the rest of the decade Morrow worked on such shows as Masquerade Party, GE College Bowl, Rin Tin Tin, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. In 1957, he became announcer for Lowell Thomas on CBS which continued into the next decade. During the 1950's, he was the announcer for the legendary Gunsmoke, Ozzie and Harriet, The Guy Lombardo Show and many others.
His first regular network hosting job was with ABC's Camouflage (Morrow had subbed for Allen Ludden on GE College Bowl on several occasions) which led to NBC's Let's Play Post Office (1965-66) produced by Merv Griffin. Morrow also served as a fill-in announcer on another Griffin produced game show, Wheel of Fortune.
Then came the show that Morrow wishes was still on the air, Science All-Stars on ABC (1964-65)which brought him together with the National Science Show winners and the leading scientists and astronauts of the era.
In the early 1970's, Morrow sold his popular West Hampton restaurant, moved his family to the south of Spain, and commuted to New York and Los Angeles for the next several years. In 1973, he came back on one trip, to do, among other things, an uncredited cameo role in Charles Bronson's first Death Wish. At the same time, he ran into a friend at J. Walter Thompson Advertising who put him on the Ford Motor account for the next 18 years. Business accelerated to the extent that Morrow moved back from Spain, continuing to visit the farm there over the following 30 years. In the late 1970's, Morrow landed the job as "The Shell Answer Man".
Morrow continued commercial voice-overs, and also worked again on TV game shows, including Sale of the Century from 1988 to 1989, Now You See It in 1989, The Challengers in 1990, and Winning Lines in 2000.
In the 1990's, Morrow landed a job with James Cameron voicing commercials for the blockbuster film Titanic (1997 film).
Morrow's historical narrations on A&E's Biography, The History Channel and other channels are heard worldwide, along with The E! True Hollywood Story and Emmy Award documentaries from NBC and PBS.
Currently an octogenarian, Morrow now teaches voice over, and has dozens of commercials running throughout the country.