Biografia

In the last years of his life, he became somewhat estranged from his son, Sheridan Morley, following the latter's divorce from his first wife, Margaret. Robert Morley was especially fond of this daughter-in-law, a well-known novelist who was also his biographer.

When asked to give a talk at his old school, Wellington, he said the only reason he would return to the school would be to burn it down.

He allegedly declined a knighthood in the 1975 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.

His love of horse-racing was famous for decades, and he died on Derby Day.

He got the part of Cedric Page in Topkapi (1964) after Orson Welles had declined it. Before hiring Morley, however, director Jules Dassin interviewed Peter Bull (one of Morley's closest friends) for the part, on the recommendation of Peter Sellers, who had recently worked with Bull in Il dottor Stranamore - Ovvero: come ho imparato a non preoccuparmi e ad amare la bomba (1964), and was being sought by Dassin for another leading role in the film. Bull later said that he knew as soon as he met Dassin that he had no hope of getting the part, and that Dassin was merely going through the motions to appease Sellers (who later dropped out of the project anyway). When Morley signed for the part, Bull cheekily told him that he'd got it because "I turned down the part months ago.".

It is a great help for a man to be in love with himself. For an actor it is absolutely essential.

Show me the man who has enjoyed his schooldays and I will show you a bully and a bore.

Anyone who works is a fool. I don't work; I merely inflict myself on the public.

Actors live in a cocoon of praise. They never meet the people who don't like them.

If you want me to do a film it's £500,000. But if you want me to read the script first it's £750,000.