Robert Morley photographed by Allan Warren.

Actor, wit, author and bon viveur Robert Morley dazzles in this interview with Simon Dee, from the Swinging Sixties chat show Dee Time, in 1969.

Morley was always a brilliant guest—charming, witty, entertaining, self-deprecating with a wealth of stories that would have made Scheherazade nervous.

His strengths eventually worked against him. By the 1970s, when his acting career slowed, Morley became such an habituee of the British chat show that on one of his (many) appearances on Parkinson, a disgruntled member of the audience called out, ‘Oh, not him again!’ as the great man was being introduced. Of course, this kind of fickleness gave rise to multi-channels and the TV remote controller, where the promise of decent entertainment is (always) only a hop away.

As for Morley’s interviewer? Well, this was Simon Dee, who had a meteoric rise and fall as a TV host—mainly because he was no bloody use. Here is the famous cringe-worthy moment, when Dee, either because he was bored or not sufficiently knowledgeable about the delightful Mr. Morley, turned to the audience and asked if they had a questions for his esteemed guest:

“Has anybody got a question for Robert Morley?...Any one person in the audience? Any one person? Come on! Now, look, one! One?”

It’s a painful moment, and thankfully, a question is eventually asked, saving some of Dee’s embarrassment and giving the audience a welcome opportunity to break the tension with laughter. However, the question isn’t as amusing, or as blunt, as the one Morley is gracious enough to suggest:

“Why are you so fat?”

Morley didn’t need an interviewer, he could have easily sat and regaled the audience without the feckless, pen-chewing Dee.

However, this clip is more than just an amusing piece of sixties TV archive, it marks the moment when two world’s collide—the grace and wit of Mr. Morley, against the arrogance and mediocrity of Mr Dee. For this is the birth of modern TV chat shows, where attitude and appearance counts more than intellect and talent.
 

 
H/T Patrick Douglas-Hamilton