Philip Morris may own one of the nation's largest wholesale costume retailers, but in his heart the 70-year-old is still a suave magician and storyteller.Now, one of Morris' stories has put him at the center of a debate over one of America's most enduring legends -- Bigfoot.Since starting his Charlotte business in the early 1960s, the entrepreneur has built Morris Costumes into an empire, whose costumes have appeared in big Hollywood films. Some 10,000 businesses buy his costumes, props and other stage products. On Friday he'll hold court at his Monroe Road store to host a dinner and tour of its haunted house for HauntCon, a trade and convention show for the amusement industry at the Adams' Mark this weekend.Although a giant in his field, the tale of one of his gorilla suits is generating buzz outside the amusement industry and has some Bigfoot believers stomping mad.In "The Making of Bigfoot: The Inside Story," (Prometheus Books) published in March, author Greg Long devoted a chapter to telling Morris' alleged connection to the famed Bigfoot film shot by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. The film, which has aired on TV specials, shows a grainy image supposedly of Sasquatch walking in a Northern California national forest in October 1967.Morris says the Patterson-Gimlin film depicts a man wearing a gorilla suit, which had been hand-sewn in the basement of his Kistler Avenue home.When he started his costume business more than 40 years ago, Morris, a Michigan native, was a touring magician who recruited his wife and her friends to help make gorilla suits from their Charlotte house.
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