A Few Words About Phil Harris

Phil Harris started his career with Jack Benny as just another bandleader and ended it as a unique character that followed him the rest of his life.

Jack spent his early years at odds with the guys who led the orchestra on his show—in one, he and whiny-voiced Frank Black had a duel—and it was no different when Harris replaced Johnny Green. The studio audience in the early Harris shows seems awkward as Jack is petty and childish toward him; the laughter is very uncomfortable at times. But Benny and writers Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin were no dummies. They decided to expand on the lady-killer aspect they had given Harris’ character and turned him into a relaxed party hound, one who reveled in bad jokes, cheerfully self-congratulated himself and was oblivious to his inability to spell or read.

This was a new kind of character on radio. Benny and the writers had to be careful not to upset the network by glorifying drinking. Harris was never, ever drunk on the show. Effects of any imbibing were commented on some time after the fact, all of them ridiculous. How much of this reflected this real Harris has been debated; but he loved the easy lifestyle of hunting, fishing and golfing. And he was known to have a drink or two.

This improved Harris was loved by listeners. When he married Alice Faye, he still had his eye for the ladies, but more characteristics were piled on. Their young daughter was smarter than he was and commented on his preening and extreme self-confidence. He parlayed all that into a show of his own, first as a summer replacement for Kay Kyser, then as a permanent replacement for Cass Daley on The Fitch Bandwagon. Walt Disney picked up on the easy-going, carefree part of the Harris character about 20 years later and started casting him in feature cartoons.

Here are a couple of random Harris stories. The first one is part of a column in the Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star of November 27, 1949.

Radio In Review
BY REX L. GRIMMELL
PHIL HARRIS is a very busy man every Sunday evening. He not only appears on succeeding programs, but must dash from one studio to another to do it. He is featured on the Jack Benny show at 6:00 over CBS and then stars in his own NBC show at 6:30.
Since the two studios lie three-tenths of a mile apart on a crowded thoroughfare, this would seem to pose a problem. But, through the co-operation of Jack Benny, Harris appears during the first half of the former's show and is free to leave by 6:15.
It then takes him about four minutes—via the parking lots which separate the studios—to reach the rear door of the NBC building. Thus, by 6:20, he is on his own stage performing the all-important task of "warming up" his audience. Next year will be different. Because of the heavy competition of the CBS Sunday night lineup, NBC is planning to switch Harris to Tuesday nights. There, his audience will be all set up for him—he'll follow Bob Hope and Fibber McGee and Molly.

If you’re wondering about the distance from NBC to CBS, check out this map.



Harris seems to have settled down to a family life in Palm Spring with Alice and the kids (he forsook a television show) when he and Bing Crosby (or whomever) weren’t armed with reels after elusive trout or British Columbia salmon. There was a time before that he, like Benny until his death, took to the road to put on some shows. In August 1940, he and his band appeared in Fort Worth, Galveston and Amarillo. At the time, he was appearing in a half-hour late-evening music show on the Texas Quality Network/Mutual Broadcasting System. Philsie was front page news in these towns. The paper in Lubbock even announced the time of his brief stop at the local Santa Fe station. This story is from the Galveston Daily News from Aug. 12, 1940.

Phil Harris Delights 15,000 With Concert
BY BOB NESBITT.
Phil Harris, fugitive from Jack Benny's Jell-O program and the nation's No. 1 band leader in the eyes of many Galvestonians made yesterday afternoon memorable on Galveston beach with another of his swing concerts which delighted possibly 18,000 people who gathered at the beachfront center around the Buccaneer Hotel and Murdoch's pavilion.
The personable, smooth-talking orchestra maestro was neatly attired in a tan coat, gray trousers, sport shoes and red socks, but he soon got around to shedding his coat and loosening his tie.
It wasn’t too hot, though, for the crowd, fortunately shaded by the tall, majestic Buccaneer, was cool.
But Harris who apparently had more fun than anyone else more fun than anybody else, chooses to lead his easy-to-listen-to hand by the jump and jive method rather by the less strenuous process of wielding a baton. That he should shed his coat soon was inevitable.
Not only that, but he had many of his audience swinging to his rhythms — moderately, of course — shortly.
Though booked as a swing concert for the enjoyment of alt who could crowd within ear's range of the canopied bandstand on the upper deck of Murdoch's, the occasion was actually Harris’ home-coming from the minute Mayor Brantly Harris (no relation to Phil) introduced the leader and his band to the crowd as “a man who is as much a part of Galveston as the sea breeze, the beach and the one-piece bathing suit.”
After experiencing difficulty edging himself to the microphone through the rows of closely arranged chairs on the bandstand, Galveston’s genial, portly chief executive presented the famous bandsman with a special card as Galveston's ambassador of goodwill.
The mayor set a record for himself by saying not a word about Galveston's pleasure pier plans, but this may have been just an oversight on his part.
Responding, Harris, who is now nationally known as comedian Jack Benny's irrespressible and ungrammatical stooge over the nation's airwaves on winter Sunday nights, said that he owes a lot to Galveston because it was here he got his real start to success about nine years ago and that it was in Galveston too that Jack Benny first called upon him to appear on the Jell-O program.
Starting with a tricky arrangement of "The Wolverine Blues," the Harris aggregation made the hour between 4:30 and 5:30 appear very short indeed. Aided by Ruth Robin, girl singer, and Harry Stevens, banjoist-singer from Georgia, Harris put on a fast-moving show.
Although his orchestra was at its best, Phil was even better. A smooth artist before the microphone, he seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly yesterday afternoon and the audience ate it up.
Best of all was Harris' presentation of several of the songs for which he is best-liked here. These included "My Galveston Gal," a nationwide hit in 1933, "That's What I Like About the South," and "Nobody."

Less than five week later, actress Marcia Ralston was granted a divorce from Harris, claiming he never took her anywhere and “embarrassed her” socially. His marriage to Alice Faye ticked away for more than 50 years until his death in 1995.

His departure from the Benny show in 1952 was under circumstances that may be considered cloudy because there were several explanations at the time. One was Harris now had an exclusive contract with NBC which covered television; Benny was on CBS. Another was radio was dying; the big sponsors moved their money into television and cut radio budgets, including salaries. Harris wouldn't talk about it at the time. Bob Crosby was brought in. He had a very low-key CBS television show. He was very low-key with Benny. Benny didn't need low key. He needed Phil Harris. His radio show was never quite the same.