As a child, Morris performed with his family in a vaudeville act. In his short 10-year career as a Hollywood character actor, he appeared in over 70 films, including Dirigible (1931), Me and My Gal (1932), Bureau of Missing Persons (1933), The Big Shakedown (1934), The Fighting Marines (1935), The Petrified Forest (1936), There Goes the Groom (1937), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Gone With the Wind (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), and Blood and Sand (1941).