December 7 - Harry Morgan

Image courtesy of cbsnews.com

On this day, in 2011, Harry Morgan passed away in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles, California. Born April 10, 1915 in Detroit, Michigan as Harry Bratsberg, he did most of his growing up on the other side of the state in the city of Muskegon. Harry graduated from Muskegon High School in 1933 having distinguished himself as a state champion debater and traveled south to get a law degree from the University of Chicago. All went according to plan until his junior year when he started acting and completely forgot all about the law.

In 1937, Harry moved east to New York City and joined the Group Theatre. Working under Lee Strasberg, he enjoyed a number of roles on Broadway including being part of the original cast of Clifford Odets' Golden Boy. His summers were spent at the Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut performing alongside fellow Group members such as Karl Malden and Elia Kazan.

Image copyright United Artists

By 1942, Harry had made the leap to the big screen where he dropped his last name of Bratsberg and started using a stage name of Henry Morgan. Since there was a well known humorist of the time with that name, he quickly changed it to Harry Morgan. His first appearance in movies was with Maureen O'Hara in To the Shores of Tripoli. He would appear in dozens of films over the next 25 years including The Ox-Bow Incident with Henry Fonda, High Noon with Gary Cooper, The Glenn Miller Story with Jimmy Stewart, Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracy and Frankie and Johnny with Elvis Presley.

Image copyright NBC

Interspersed with all his film roles, Harry also appeared regularly on television. He had recurring parts on such series as Have Gun - Will Travel, The Richard Boone Show and Kentucky Jones. His first big starring role came in 1967 as Sgt. Joe Friday's partner, Bill Gannon, on the NBC drama Dragnet. Harry and his co-star, Jack Webb, worked well together. They'd been in three films together prior to Dragnet and would be in two shows together after, The D.A. and Hec Ramsey. In 1974, Harry made a guest appearance on a show called M*A*S*H as an eccentric Major General. The following season, he joined the show permanently as a completely different character, Colonel Sherman T. Potter. Harry won an Emmy Award in 1980 for his portrayal of the kind Colonel and would continue the role in a short lived spin-off show, AfterMASH.

Image copyright Disney

Harry became part of the Disney family when he appeared in a string of Disney movies throughout the Seventies. His roles include: E.J. Crampton in The Barefoot Executive (which also happened to be John Ritter's film debut), Jesse McCord in Snowball Express, The Angel in Charley and the Angel (Fred MacMurray's last Disney film), Homer McCoy in The Apple Dumpling Gang, General Stilton in The Cat From Outer Space (which also featured McLean Stevenson whose character Harry replaced on MASH) and Major Gaskill in The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again.

Harry would continue working throughout the Nineties. He did a series of made-for-tv movies with Walter Matthau. He reprised his role from Dragnet for a comedic movie of the same name and an episode of The Simpsons. He also had a recurring role on 3rd Rock From the Sun. After the turn of the millennium, Harry gave up acting for a quiet life at home. In 2006, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. When he passed away in 2011, he was 96 years old.