Morton Selten, was he the son of Bertie the Prince of Wales?

On 27 July 1939 the 79-year old actor Morton Selten was suddenly taken ill and died from a heart attack at his home, 34 Fairfax Road in South Hampstead.

His obituaries said he was the oldest working actor with a career spanning 60 years. Just two days before, he had finished filming ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ directed by Michael Powell and starring the young Indian actor 15-year old Sabu Dastagir with whom Morton developed a good working relationship.

Morton Selten with Sabu in The Thief of Bagdad

Selten was wheeled on set in a bathchair by his elderly valet. He played the Old King who dies gracefully as the magic carpet carrying Sabu flies into the sky. Their scenes were shot at Alexander Korda’s Denham Film Studios, but the outbreak of War meant the film was finished in Hollywood. It was released in December 1940 and was very successful, both critically and financially.

Morton began his stage career in London but soon went to New York where he starred in numerous Broadway productions. He returned to the London stage in 1919 and made the first of his 25 films the following year. He frequently played crusty but loveable old aristocrats, and appeared with major stars such as Laurence Oliver and Vivien Leigh in ‘Fire Over England’ (1937) about The Spanish Amarda. Vivien's performance in the film helped to convince David O Selznick to cast her as Scarlett O'Hara in 'Gone With the Wind'. Morton also made the musical comedy ‘Shipyard Sally’ with Gracie Fields in 1939.

Morton with Laurence Oliver and Vivien Leigh in ‘Fire Over England’

He married fellow English actor Kate Pattison in Boston on 16 December 1887. After her death in 1912, he married Dora Blanche Pennell in Manhattan on 8 February 1914. Mrs Dora Selten-Stubbs, his widow is last listed living at Fairfax Road in the 1962-63 directory, immediately prior to the house being demolished. 

In January 1890 Morton Selten had been named in a divorce case between Charles Fitzroy Bagot and his wife the actress Grace Otway (aka Emily Oldfield). Fitzroy claimed that Selten had an affair with Grace while they were on tour in Melbourne in 1884, and he was the father of a daughter called Viva who was born in 1885 in 40 Grove End Road St John’s Wood. In her 2017 book ‘Life on the Victorian Stage’ Nell Darby says that Grace claimed Charles had forced her to obtain large sums of money from different men and give it to him, knowing it had been obtained by ‘immoral intercourse’. The court granted Charles his divorce because Grace had committed adultery and they failed to believe her story of being forced into prostitution. 

After Selten’s death, Michael Powell said it was widely believed in the theatre world that Morton was the illegitimate son of Bertie the Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII. Perhaps Selten started the rumour to gain notoriety as he was a great storyteller.

Selten was his stage name. He was born as Morton Richard Stubbs on 5 January 1860 and baptised at St George’s Hanover Square as the son of Morton Stubbs and Elizabeth Harriet Mackey. They had married less than a month earlier on 9 December 1859 at St Mary le Strand in Westminster. He was 56 and she was 25 and they were living at 12 Queen’s Street in Mayfair. Morton Stubbs was a wealthy attorney, well-known in the horse racing and sporting world as ‘Ginger’ Stubbs. 

Was it possible that Morton Selten was the son of Bertie the Prince of Wales? Working back from his date of birth gives an approximate conception date at the end of March 1859. We know that 18-year old Bertie went to Rome in January 1859 and when the Italian war of unification began in April he was still there. He was later sent to Edinburgh for preparation for his entrance to Oxford university in October 1859. Clearly, the dates indicate he couldn’t be the father of Morton Richard Stubbs. 

Bertie in 1860 (Wiki Commons)

We now know that Bertie’s first sexual experience was when he was sent with the Grenadier Guards to their annual camp in the Curragh about 25 miles from Dublin. There, he slipped out of the window and went into the hut of a fellow officer where they had arranged that Nellie Clifden, a prostitute who had followed the guards from London, would be waiting. In his diary Bertie wrote: ‘6, 9 and 10 September 1861, N. C. 1st time, 2nd time, 3rd time.’

Despite their age difference and late marriage, it seems that Morton Richard was the son of Morton and Elizabeth Stubbs. But it probably did no harm to Selten’s career to be thought of as Bertie’s illegitimate son.

We thank Anthony Camp, former director of the Society of Genealogists, for his help with this story.