It's Not Easy Being Phil Harris

The Jack Benny radio show managed to assemble a terrific cast of players. One by one, most of them dropped away.

The biggest loss, in my opinion, was when Phil Harris left the show at the end of the 1951-52 season.

Philsie was one of a kind. He was over the top. No one could take his place. Bob Crosby was brought in to front what had been Phil’s orchestra, but Crosby was almost the opposite of Harris. He was low-key, maybe a little too low key for the Benny show. In the last season, he was dispensable. His spot was taken some of the time by arranger Mahlon Merrick or one of the musicians.

Harris had been on network radio before joining Benny in 1936. He, his orchestra and vocalist Leah Ray appeared on the NBC Red network in 1933. His comedy short So This is Harris won an Oscar. That was all forgotten after Benny’s writers figured out a personality for him after several months on the Jell-O show. He became a self-loving, party-loving, lady-loving leader of a group of degenerate musicians. That breezy personality stuck with him for the rest of his life.

Here’s a story from the Scranton Tribune of May 20, 1950. Not only does Harris explain how he had to cope in public with his radio persona, he explains how Jack Benny went out of his way to help him in his movie career. Incidentally, Paul Douglas, for a brief period, announced the Benny show in its first incarnation for Canada Day.

Harris Featured On Benny Show At CYC June 5
Phil Harris, who appears with Jack Benny and Rochester in person at the Catholic Youth Center on Monday night, June 5, disillusions everyone he meets. He is quite the antithesis of the hard-drinking, “Hi, Jackson” type he plays over the air.
Harris has a faint suggestion of a southern drawn and the manners of a southern gentleman, which he is. He would look much better with a mint julep in his hand than a bourbon, but he’s now Hollywood-ized enough to prefer the bourbon. He likes to talk about himself but never does, unless prodded, because he’s afraid people may think him the egomaniac he is on the radio. He says “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am” when he’s talking with women.

The Jack Benny program and his own radio show with movie star wife, Alice Faye, have made him into a fictional character, and now the movies are adding to the illusion. He plays a rough house character in the 20th Century Fox Technicolor musical “Wabash Avenue,” starring with Betty Grable and Victor Mature. The fictional character of Phil Harris has forced the real Phil Harris to lead an almost monastic life. “If I go some place for a cocktail,” says Phil, “I can see the customers nodding to each other. ‘Uh-huh,’ they say, ‘there he goes again.’ But when I leave a place after one drink, they think I’m sick!”
He doesn’t want anyone to think, however, that he doesn’t like the Phil Harris that Jack Benny created. He loves him.
Harris credits Benny for the role he has in “Wabash Avenue,” his first straight dramatic part in pictures. Benny was playing golf one day with William Perlberg when the producer seemed unduly disturbed and unable to concentrate. “What’s worrying you?” asked Jack. “A movie,” said Perlberg. “I’ve got one starting with Betty Grable, Vic Mature and Paul Douglas, only Douglas isn’t in it. The studio has taken him out for another film and I cannot find a replacement.” “Nothing to it at all,” said Benny. “Phil Harris can do it. He can do anything Paul Douglas can.”
Despite the obvious pessimism, Benny was persistent. He telephoned Perlberg several times, begging him to test Phil, which he eventually did—and decided Jack Benny was right.
Tickets for the local show are now on sale at the Spruce Record Shop and Reisman’s. They are available for both the 7 and 9:15 p. m. performances.
A portion of the shows proceeds will be donated to the Scrantonian-Tribune Charity Fund Foundation.