Theater Morgan began his acting career in theater. An aspiring vaudevillian following in his brother's footsteps, he changed his name from Wuppermann to Morgan. He made his acting debut in the show
Mr. Wu on October 14, 1914. After many years of starring in theater productions, he finally caught the attention of critics with his role as Count Carlo Boretti in
The Lullaby alongside
Florence Reed. In 1927, he played Henry Spoffard in
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Following that, he starred in
Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1917) as
Bunny Manders, alongside costar
John Barrymore. In 1934, Morgan received an
Academy Award nomination for Best Leading Actor for his performance as
Alessandro, Duke of Florence in
The Affairs of Cellini. In the next year, he starred as a multimillionaire wooing
Margaret Sullavan in
The Good Fairy and as Jack Billings in
The Great Ziegfeld. In 1936, Morgan played alongside
Shirley Temple as Professor Appleby in
Dimples. Speaking about Morgan, Temple wrote, " . . Dimples pitted me against an accomplished veteran of the legitimate stage who was not about to let any little curly headed kid steal his scenes. Competition for camera attention had always been a fact of life for me. The kid and the expert could not help but collide." in the
MGM feature film
The Wizard of Oz (1939) In
The Wizard of Oz (1939), Morgan played five roles:
the Wizard, the carnival huckster "Professor Marvel", the "bust my buttons" Gatekeeper (who initially refuses to let Dorothy and her friends into the city), the "horse of a different color" carriage driver of Emerald City, and the Palace Guard (who refuses to let Dorothy and her friends in to see the Wizard). Morgan was cast in the role on September 22, 1938.
W. C. Fields was originally chosen for the part of the Wizard, but the studio ran out of patience after protracted haggling over his fee. An actor with a wide range, Morgan was equally effective playing comical, befuddled men such as Jesse Kiffmeyer in
Saratoga (1937) and Mr. Ferris in
Casanova Brown (1944), as he was with romantic leads and more serious, troubled characters such as Hugo Matuschek in
The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Professor Roth in
The Mortal Storm (1940) and Willie Grogan in
The Human Comedy (1943). MGM's musical comedy film
The Great Morgan (1946), is a compilation film featuring Frank Morgan supposedly as himself but playing the familiar bumbler. Occasionally a co-star (as in
The Human Comedy, and, once established, invariably a featured player), he also saw the occasional lead deep in his Hollywood career, as the philanthropic tycoon falsely accused of murder in 1941's
Washington Melodrama and
The Great Morgan (in which he is the Morgan of the title, the picture's central player). During the 1940s, Morgan appeared in such diverse genres and roles as an oil
wildcatter in
Boom Town (supporting
Clark Gable,
Spencer Tracy, and
Claudette Colbert);
Tortilla Flat in 1942 (based on the
John Steinbeck book, again supporting Tracy); a jungle doctor in
White Cargo (supporting
Walter Pidgeon and
Hedy Lamarr); a shepherd in the
Courage of Lassie in 1946; a doctor again in
Green Dolphin Street in 1948 in support of
Lana Turner,
Van Heflin, and
Donna Reed; King Louis XIII in
The Three Musketeers in 1948, supporting
Gene Kelly and Turner again; and as
Jimmy Stewart’s boss in
The Stratton Story in 1949. He played a fire chief in his final picture,
Key to the City, filmed in 1949 but released posthumously in 1950.
Radio Morgan also had a career in radio. In the 1940s, Morgan co-starred with
Fanny Brice in one version (of several different series) of the radio program
Maxwell House Coffee Time, aka
The Frank Morgan-Fanny Brice Show. During the first half of the show Morgan would tell increasingly outlandish tall tales about his life adventures, much to the dismay of his fellow cast members. After the Morgan segment there was a song, followed by Brice as 'Baby Snooks' for the last half of the show. When Brice left to star in her own program in 1944, Morgan continued solo for a year with
The Frank Morgan Show. In 1947, Morgan starred as the title character in the radio series
The Fabulous Dr. Tweedy. He also recorded a number of children's records, including the popular
Gossamer Wump, released in 1949 by
Capitol Records. ==Personal life and death==