Chester Morris was the son of actors William Morris and comedienne Etta Hawkins; Morris' siblings, Adrian and Wilhelmina, later became performers as well. Reportedly in silent films at the age of nine, Morris' certified Broadway debut, at 15, was in Lionel Barrymore's The Copperhead; that same year (1917), Morris graduated from the New York School of Fine Arts. He billed himself as "the youngest leading man in the country" -- which, at 17, he may very well have been. He was Oscar-nominated for his first talking-picture role in Alibi (1929). Morris spent the 1930s alternating between tough-guy stuff like The Big House (1930) and tux-and-tails assignments in films like The Divorcee (1930). From 1940 through 1949, Morris starred as Boston Blackie in a lively series of Columbia B-pictures, a role which gave him opportunities to indulge his fondness for elaborate makeups and sleight-of-hand.