RIP Harry Morgan

Actor Harry Morgan, best known for his roles as officer Bill Gannon in the TV series Dragnet and Colonel Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H, died today at his home in Los Angeles. There are 159 acting credits listed in Morgan's IMDb entry. He began acting on stage in 1937 and tackled a wide variety of roles over the next half-century.
Mr. Morgan attracted attention almost immediately. In “The Ox-Bow Incident” (1943), which starred Henry Fonda, he was praised for his portrayal of a drifter caught up in a lynching in a Western town. Reviewing “A Bell for Adano” (1945), based on John Hersey’s novel about the Army in a liberated Italian town, Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Morgan was “crude and amusing as the captain of M.P.’s.”

He went on to appear in “All My Sons” (1948), based on the Arthur Miller play, with Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster; “The Big Clock” (1948), in which he played a silent, menacing bodyguard to Charles Laughton; “Yellow Sky” (1949), with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter; and the critically praised western “High Noon” (1952), with Gary Cooper. Among his other notable films were “The Teahouse of the August Moon” (1956), with Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford, and “Inherit the Wind” (1960), with Spencer Tracy and Fredric March, in which he played a small-town Tennessee judge hearing arguments about evolution in the fictionalized version of the Scopes “monkey trial.” In “How the West Was Won” (1962), he played Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

After a personable performance as Glenn Miller’s pianist, Chummy MacGregor, in “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954), starring James Stewart, he often played softer characters as well as his trademark hard-bitten tough guys. There were eventually a number of comedies on his résumé, among them “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home” (1965), with Shirley MacLaine and Peter Ustinov; “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967), with George C. Scott; “Support Your Local Sheriff!” (1969), with James Garner and Walter Brennan; and “The Apple Dumpling Gang” (1975), a Disney movie with Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

Harry Morgan was 96. Link -via Metafilter

Comments (11)

Newest 5
Newest 5 Comments

Re; Slavery being edited out. He was not mad that slavery was excluded in general. He was mad because he had written the King himself was responsible for bringing slavery to the colonies. That accusation of the King is what got edited out, not just the idea of slavery.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Actually, DeRoest - there wasn't a United States, just 13 united States. A slight but significant distinction (it was 13 separate but united states that declared independence, not a country named "United States")
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
In answer to the "when did it become the United States, basically it was after the Civil War. Before that people would say " the united states are..." and after they would say " the Umited States is...". ( credit to late historian Shelby Foote for that)
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Frank, I think the point is that the document itself was declaring our independence from the monarchy and therefore we would no longer be "subjects" but "citizens" of a new government despite the fact that the final form of that actual government would not be completed until the Constitution was ratified.

It demonstrates that Jefferson had to even change his mindset seeing this was the first declaration of its kind against the British throne.

Overall it's just a neat fact that allows historians to get all excited. And they deserve to get excited once in a while. :)
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Login to comment.
Email This Post to a Friend
"RIP Harry Morgan"

Separate multiple emails with a comma. Limit 5.

 

Success! Your email has been sent!

close window
X

This website uses cookies.

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using this website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

I agree
 
Learn More