Okay, as Exeter he thinks the mutant is a Mute Ant, but Morrow was a flexible actor. Check out his role as the Roman Centurian Paulus in The Robe with Richard Burton and Victor Mature - he is the perfect rough soldier in total contrast to the cultured and literally-other-worldly Exeter.
shareThose roles *were* night and day, but he did them both well. If I hadn't known Exeter was also Paulus, I wouldn't have believed it. He carried himself entirely differently.
shareJeff Morrow was an excellent actor, I agree, and it's a pity he either started too late in films or was passed over for better films due to age, because he had the goods. I love his performance as Exeter in This Island Earth. As portrayals of civilized aliens go, Morrow's Exter is right up there with Michael (Klaatu) Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still. About a year ago I caught, almost by accident, an episode of Wagon Train Morrow guest starred in, The Clayton Tucker Story. He dominates every scene he's in and the entire episode, and not because he's hamming but because his performance is so good. It's from the third season, and worth checking out.
shareHi tel -- I like Jeff Morrow, but in all honesty I don't think he was an especially good actor. In too many roles he somewhat overdid the emoting at times. He was a competent, dependable actor who could be cast in a variety of roles and perform capably enough, but he wasn't usually an actor of great depth.
I think he proved as Exeter in This Island Earth that he could underplay a part and deliver a nuanced performance of some pathos. Part of his problem was that he seldom got roles that allowed him much dramatic leeway. I haven't seen the episode of Wagon Train you mentioned but I can believe that given the right part under the right circumstances Morrow could be quite effective.
I think you may be right that his age may have affected his film career. He only came to movies with The Robe in 1953, when he was 46, though he looked younger for quite a while. (During his career his birth year was given as 1913, when in fact it was 1907.) Still, I always found him likable and enjoyable to watch. One TV role I liked him in was in the series The Name of the Game, in a 1968 episode called "The Protector", in which he was a doctor who had lost his medical license but did special work (injecting people with poison and killing them) for a reactionary racist millionaire played by Robert Young, of all people.
Among my favorites of his movies, besides this one, are of course his two 1957 sci-fi opuses, Kronos and The Giant Claw...a film which I gather embarrassed him in front of his neighbors when he and they finally saw it! But it was still better than his 1971 turkey, Octaman, with Kerwin Mathews and poor Pier Angeli.
I guess we'll never know, really, how good or great Jeff Morrow might have been, Hob, given the parts he was offered,--I mean, The Giant Claw! On Wagon Train he was determined and towering,--a really big guy--was realistic in his being driven. Having watched, admittedly, just one episode of the later western TV series, Cimarron Strip, recently, I noticed what I felt was a similarity between Stuart Whitman and Jeff Morrow, who were both, btw, in the Biblical "epic" (small scale) The Story Of Ruth, which I loved in the theater as a kid, less so now. Whitman, too, was a big guy, had a great voice, a strong presence, like a superstar in the waiting. It's almost like he had or was trying to have the career Morrow didn't/couldn't have due in part to age. But that he-man type was going out of fashion, and when reinvented, many years later, would return in Terminator form (Sylvester Stallone never struck me as quite right for that but Schawarzenegger, whatever his acting deficiencies, struck me as more virile in looks and personality). All that aside, Morrow's Exeter. for my money, "owns" This Island Earth.
shareInteresting comparison between Jeff and Stu. Whitman was definitely the better actor, and in fact came close to superstar status. (I hate that term; it's so TMZ-ishly cheap.) He did have an Oscar nomination for The Mark in 1961, which proved he could be a serious dramatic actor, but though he had a bunch of good roles through the mid-60s, most were in action films, albeit good ones (The Comancheros, The Longest Day, Rio Conchos, Sands of the Kalahari), and he soon drifted back down into routine stuff and much TV. (Meanwhile he was an astute businessman who I understand made hundreds of millions and only acted as a sideline.) But at least he got the chances Morrow never had. However good he was in This Island Earth, no one was going to be handing out Oscar noms for that one.
All that aside, Morrow's Exeter. for my money, "owns" This Island Earth.