Sympathy for Mr. Morgan

As I rummage through I've Got a Secret clips on YouTube, it's hard not to fixate on good old Henry Morgan. The invaluable Richard Carson keeps uploading new doses of the sort of lovable curmudgeon every week. Morgan clearly reveled in his role as the dark side of the show, a perfect counterweight to the endlessly sunny Bill Cullen.

Born Henry Lerner Van Ost, and always irritated by his anglicized stage name, Morgan honed his sarcastic persona in radio during the thirties and forties before crossing over to the box with pictures. He relished his constant run-ins with execs and sponsors and never scrupled to bite the commercial hand that fed him. In his darkest moment he punched his first wife, which really made the suits nervous.

I've Got a Secret was his biggest break and he didn't flub it, helping the show to top ten status in the late 1950s. After Secret finally folded, Morgan took his cantankerous act to magazine columns, talk shows and any other venue that could tolerate him. His 1994 memoir, Here's Morgan! The Original Bad Boy of Broadcasting, veered towards unrelieved bitterness about many of his fellow performers. Always a heavy smoker, Morgan died in May of that year from lung cancer.

Henry could be what's delicately called an acquired taste. Luckily, he wasn't afraid to laugh at himself, which did make his sourness more palatable. At his worst he was plain annoying. At his best he was funny as hell.