Eric Morley
English businessman (1918–2000)
Eric Douglas Morley (26 September 1918 – 9 November 2000) was an English television host and the founder of the Miss World pageant and Come Dancing programme. His widow, Julia Morley, is now head of the pageant and his son, Steve Douglas, is one of its presenters.
Life and career
Morley was born in Holborn, London, England. He said that his father "was at Oxford and spoke nine languages" but he died young. He attended Whitstable Grammar School in Kent. London County Council sent him to the Royal Navy training ship HMS Exmouth, which was moored at Grays. Here, he broke bars of chocolate to sell to his peers. He joined the Royal Fusiliers at 14 and played french horn in the band. During the war he became a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps, organising entertainment for the troops and fighting in Dunkirk.
Mecca
Morley started his career in the entertainment business in 1945 when he resigned his commission to manage a travelling show in Scotland.
The public source identifies “Eric Morley” as english businessman (1918–2000). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Eric, Morley and English.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2629783. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2000 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eric Morley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.