on 10 June 1918, in the Hammersmith area of west London (he later claimed to have been born in Shoreditch in London's East End, but publicly-accessible birth records confirm Hammersmith), a son of Charles Hayward Morse and Mary Florence Hollis Morse. His parents owned a tobacco shop.

Morse was a 15-year-old errand boy when he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He performed the role of the