The Catacombs The Merchandise Guide
Annual 1975

Meeting Point
Barry Morse -
 Professor
VICTOR BERGMAN
Morse: How does it feel being the
father-figure, so to speak, of the
key personnel on Moonbase
Alpha?

Bergman: How does it feel to be
playing the father figure?

Morse: Oh, it's find for me. I've
been all sorts of people in my time,
from a vindictive police inspector
to a Romanian drug-smuggler,
from a hopeless drunk to--of all
things--a belly dancer!

Bergman: People about whom I,
personally, would know very little,
I fear.

Morse: You're not an observer of

Victor Bergman in his Lab		 human life, sir?

Bergman: I am a scientist, Mr.
Morse. I deal in facts. Hard,
scientific facts. And in my ex-
perience in life that facts are
responsible for human behaviour.
Therefore, I am a humanist.

Morse: A mighty cold on, I'd
guess! I had plenty oppurtunity of
observing human life at its teeming
best, you know--when I was a
youngster in East London. Oh yes,
I'm a proper cockney, despite my
acting-trained voice. I used to be
an errand boy, cycling round with
glass-manufacturer's samples for
potential customers.

Bergman: And what fact took you
from such a beginning to the
stage, for heaven's sake?

Morse: A talent for mimicry! And
good old London cheek! I
thought, "I'll be an actor" . . . so I
pedalled along to the Royal Aca-
demy of Dramatic Art, and de-
manded an audition. I passed it,
too--so they took me on and
gave me a student grant at £3 a
week! It was a fortune compared
to what I'd been getting in wages!

Bergman: A most interesting case.
For myself, I could never have
made such a rash step. My mind is
very precise, you know, and I am
not often urged to spontaneous
emotional behaviour.

Morse: Surely that's because of
your heart . . .

Bergman: Ah! My heart! An
early illness led to my having a
mechanical replacement for that
organ, Mr. Morse. And because it
responds more slowly to nervous
stimuli than does a normal human
heart, my reactions to most em-
otional stresses are apparently		 reduced. In short, I don't panic.

Morse: It's an old adage that
actors have "gotta have heart" . . .

Bergman: Ha! I can laugh at a
joke, you see! Actually, my mech-
anical box-of-tricks is a source of
worry on many occasions. It
might be feasible for some ruthless
or desperate person to interfere
with the workings of it, and so
entirely upset my whole metabol-
ism. Similarly, unknown condi-
tions in outer space could repre-
sent a danger to its workings.

Morse: Now we're getting morbid.
Let me tell you about my career.
My first professional job was at
the People's Theatre, London, in
"If I were King". After that, I
had four years of repertory, before
my West End debut in "School for
Slavery". Later, I went into films,
acting beside another newcomer,
Peter Ustinov. I was very early into
television work, and played a
considerable number of films.

Bergman: A busy man! Are you
married?

Morse: I married early, to Can-
adian actress Sydney Sturgess,
who was in repertory with me. We
had a son, Hayward--now an
actor himself--and a daughter
Malanie, who's an artistes' agent.
I went to Canada with Sydney,
and there I entered Canadian
television, which was just starting
up. I became a producer, director
and actor. I won the Best TV
Actor Award five times, as a
matter of fact.

Bergman: You must be extremely
versatiles. What happened next?

Morse: Hollywood. I had guest
roles in series like "Doctor Kil-
dare" and "Wagon Train", and of
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