At our BBQ, we're serving up fresh portions of the "big, burning questions" we've always wanted to know about Morgan's life, work and hobbies. So, if we could "grill" Morgan in an interview, what would we like to know?

Well, recently, we got some of our answers. Morgan graciously gave Julie an interview in July. When she discovered a technical glitch that rendered the original interview recording unusable, he agreed to a second interview in August (which makes him in our estimation even cooler than Luke!). Some of the original interview will be featured here with answers in text, other parts with the audio from the second interview.

Audio Part 1 - Morgan reminisces about Arlington before suburbia, and favorite places in Texas:

Audio Part 2 - Parades, pride and sidewalk sales:

Question from the original interview: Tell me about the turquoise pin we see you wearing in so many photos.

Morgan: " It was originally a bolo tie, but I took the leather piece out and started wearing it as a pin. It represents a buffalo, and was made for me by an old Indian man, his name was Frank. I bought this from him, he made several pieces for me."

Audio Part 3 - Morgan talks about the first car he had restored:

Audio Part 4 - The first airplane:

Morgan told Julie a humorous story about this plane in the original interview. It seemed he wanted to impress a girl, so he offered to take her up in his plane. He bought as much fuel as he could afford, at 25 cents per gallon, and so up they went. The problem was, Morgan had forgotten to put the fuel switch onto the correct tank, and the plane began to run out of gas well before he had intended. He brought the plane safely down, but the girl never let him take her up again. Perhaps he should have just settled for flowers.

Audio Part 5 - Morgan and music: It's fairly well known that Morgan originally wanted to be an opera singer, but that a recurring sinus problem that prevented him from pursuing this dream. With that in mind, Julie asked questions in both interviews regarding music. In the original interview, she asked him what his favorite all-time pop song and classical aria was. His response to the pop song was "I'll Be Seeing You" by Jo Stafford, whom he also named as his favorite singer when he was young. (Sadly ironic was, Julie learned later that day, after the interview, of Jo's passing.) His favorite aria was "Vesti la giubba" ("Put on the costume"), the famous aria from "Pagliacci". However, he couldn't remember the name of the aria, but remembered how it went, and sang a few bars for Julie, who did recognize it.

During the second interview, Julie asked if he had any recordings of him singing, and if so, would he allow them to be heard today:

Audio Part 6 - Name dropping! Who Morgan worked with and would have liked to work with:

Audio Part 7 - About the theater where Morgan had his first professional work:

Audio Part 8 - On doing comedy and "being the original":

Audio Part 9 - "We know many people have enjoyed your roles, especially on Gunsmoke and in 'Cool Hand Luke', but what was YOUR favorite role?"

Audio Part 10 - Some of Morgan's earliest roles were done for Disney movies. "Did you have a chance to meet Walt Disney, and if so, what were your impressions?"

Audio Part 11 (conclusion) -- "What do you think it would surprise people to know about you?"

Thank you, Morgan, for the great conversation!