Wonga Phil Harris is an American comedian, actor, singer, and jazz musician. Throughout his life, he managed to change many creative roles, but he owes his fame to his voice playing in animated films.
Biography
Phil Harris (1904-1910) was an American singer, songwriter, jazz musician, actor, and comedian. Born in Linton, Indiana, but raised in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of circus actors Harry and Holly Harris. As a southerner by birth, his speech had specific shades, which he exhibited as a kind of mockery of himself, as evidenced by the composition "That's What I Like About the South". Father - a member of the tent camp, who provided the start of Harris's labor activity, which was arranged as a drummer in a circus orchestra. The mother was of Irish descent.
Despite the abundance of work, Phil's personal life was also actively developing. On September 2, 1927, Phil Harris married actress Marcia Ralston in Sydney, originally from Australia, the couple met during a concert program "Phil Harris. Comedian, bandler". Later, the couple adopted Phil Jr. Harris and Marcia divorced in September 1940. The next was the relationship with Ellis Fey, for whom this marriage was also the second (Fay was married to singer-actor Tony Martin). Harris and Faye were married in 1941 and have been married for 54 years.
In 1942, Harris and then his group were enlisted in the US Navy, and they served until the end of World War II. Since 1946, Harris and his wife have been working on a joint comedy program, Fitch Bandwagon, which followed the Jack Benny Sunday Night Show. The program started out as a multi-stakeholder project, but then turned into a comedy, "The Phill Harris-Alice Faye Show," in which Phil killed a clumsy, pleasing husband and Faye a sarcastic but loving wife.
Phil Harris died of a heart attack at his Rancho Mirage home on August 11, 1995, and was buried in Forest LAwn Cementry, Cathedral City, California.
Career
The first big deal that kicked off Phil Harris's musical career was a partnership with Carol Lofner. Together they formed an orchestra that existed for a long time at the St. Francis Hotel. The partnership ended in 1932, after which the already experienced but as yet unknown musician became the singer and leader of one of the bands in Los Angeles.
In the 1920s, Harris played drums with Henry Halstead's Big Band Orchestra, 1930s - recording music for various artists. This is followed by participation in a large number of films: "So This Is Harris!" (1930), which won an Academy Award for Best Short Theme for Live Performance, "Melody Cruise", produced by the same team. He also starred in Love Love Bandleader (1945) with Leslie Brooks, where he played an amnesiac artist; appeared in The Wild Blue Yonderaka "Thunder At the Pacific" (1951), alongside Forrest Tucker and Walter Brennan; made a cameo appearance in the musical Starlift and was featured in The High and the Mighty with John Wayne in 1954. But the acting career does not end there, he has about 20 roles in various short and full-length films and participation in a large number of television programs.
Success was not only in the cinema, Harris developed in the radio sphere. In 1936 he became Music Director of The Jell-O Show Staring radio program, playing the role of Jack Benny and writing most of the music. He showed a knack for creating instant witticisms, which allowed him to join the cast as a poor, hard-drinking southerner. The musician gained wide popularity thanks to his work as a vocalist, his voice work in animation: the bear Baloo in the Disney Book, Thomas O'Malley in Cats of the Aristocrats, Little John in Robin Hood.
In 1956, Harris appeared in the film Good-bye, My Lady. He has appeared on numerous television series in the 1960s and 1970s, including The Steve Allen Show, Kraft Music Hall, Burke's Law, F Troop, The Dean Martin Show, The Hollywood Palace , and other music programs. He appeared on The American Sportsman, which has invited celebrities to hunt and fish all over the world.
Harris's songs include an early 1950s novelty "The Thing". The song describes an unfortunate seeker of a box with a mysterious secret and his attempts to get rid of it. Harris occasionally spent time from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, leading a music group that appeared frequently in Las Vegas, with former leader Harry James. Harris was a close friend and member of the Bing Crosby Association and appeared in an episode of the short comedy series The Bing Crosby Show. After Crosby died in 1977, Harris replaced him as a commentator for the annual Bing Crosby Pro-Am Golf Tournament.
Awards and honors
In addition to his active creative life, Phil Harris was the initiator of such socially significant causes: scholarships on his behalf for promising scary students, high school performances, golf tournaments for celebrities. Harris Palm and Fey donated some of their showbiz memorabilia and documents to the Linton Public Library. In 1994 he was awarded a gold star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.
