Jonathan Harris
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| Jonathan Harris | |
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 Jonathan Harris in The Twilight Zone television episode "Twenty-Two" |
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| Born | Jonathan Daniel Charasuchin November 6, 1914 The Bronx, New York |
| Died | November 3, 2002 (aged 87) Encino, California |
| Years active | 1940s-2002 |
| Spouse(s) | Gertrude Bregman (1938-2002) |
Jonathan Harris (November 6, 1914 – November 3, 2002), was an American stage and character actor. Two of his best-known television roles were as the timid accountant Bradford Webster in The Third Man, and the comic villain Dr. Zachary Smith, in the popular 1960s sci-fi series, Lost in Space. Near the end of his career, he provided the voice of "Manny", a praying mantis in the animated feature A Bug's Life.[1]
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[edit] Biography
The second of three children, Harris was born Jonathan Daniel Charasuchin to a poor family, in The Bronx, New York, to a Russian – Jewish father, Sam Charasuchin, who was eking out a living in Manhattan's garment district and to Jennie Charasuchin, an estranged but practical stay-at-home mother. Jonathan was also of Polish descent. His family resided in a six-tenant apartment complex. To raise money, his mother took in boarders, some of whom were given Jonathan's bed, forcing Jonathan to sleep in the dining room. From the age of 12, he worked as a pharmacy clerk. While there was little money for luxuries, Jonathan's father took efforts to expand his son's cultural horizons. This included trips to the Yiddish Theatre, where he was encouraged by his father to listen to opera. Young Jonathan was enthralled. He discarded his Bronx accent and began to cultivate more sophisticated English tones.
Although he could seldom afford tickets, Broadway plays were also an interest. Before graduation from James Monroe High School in 1931 (at age 16), he had also become interested in archeology, Latin, romantic poetry and, inevitably, Shakespeare. He didn't fit amongst his peers with the exception of his girlfriend, Gertrude Bregman, whom he subsequently married.
In 1932, aged 17, he legally changed his named from "Charasuchin" to "Harris", apparently without informing his parents. That same year, Harris' work at the pharmacy led him to attending Fordham University in New York, where he majored in Pharmacology. He graduated in 1936, and worked in several drugstores.
[edit] Career
[edit] Stage
Acting was Harris's first love. At 24, he doctored a fake resume and tried out a repertory company at the Millpond Playhouse in Long Island, New York and appeared in several of this troupe's plays, prior to landing a spot in The Red Company. In 1942, Jonathan won the leading role of a R.F.D. officer in the Broadway play The Heart of a City. Adopting a Polish accent, he advised the producers that his parents were originally from Poland. In 1946, he starred in A Flag is Born, opposite Quentin Reynolds and Marlon Brando.
[edit] Film
He first worked on live television in 1948, and appeared in a non-speaking role as one of the scientists in the last scene of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). He debuted in a speaking role with Alan Ladd and James Mason in Botany Bay in 1953, the same year appearing on Broadway in Hazel Flagg. Another movie, Catch Me if You Can co-starring Gilbert Roland and Dina Merrill, shot in Cuba in 1958, nearly cost his life. At the time, Castro was on the verge of staging the coup. The production was literally caught in the crossfire. By the time filming was completed, Castro had seized power, and the new film was confiscated and never released.
[edit] Television
Harris became a popular character actor for 30 years on television, making his first guest-appearance on an episode of: The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre in 1949. The part led to other roles in such shows as: The Web, Lights Out, Goodyear Television Playhouse, 2 episodes of Hallmark Hall of Fame, Armstrong Circle Theatre, 3 episodes of Studio One, Telephone Time, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Climax!, Outlaws, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, The Rogues, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, among many others. He also guest-starred on The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, and his last series guest-starring role was on an episode of Fantasy Island.
Harris returned to television, where he landed a co-starring role opposite Michael Rennie in The Third Man, from 1959 to 1965. He played "Bradford Webster", an eccentric, cowardly assistant. Half the episodes were shot in London, England, the rest were filmed in Hollywood. His teenaged son would visit the set at this time and Harris did whatever he could to bridge the gap between father and son and made-up for lost time.
From 1963 to 1965, Harris co-starred in the sitcom The Bill Dana Show. He played "Mr. Phillips", the pompous manager of a posh hotel who is constantly at odds with his bumbling Mexican bellhop, "José Jiménez" (Dana). This formula presaged the popular John Cleese hotel comedy, Fawlty Towers.
Don Adams rounded out the cast as an inept house detective — his character, dialog, and other comedy bits would soon carry over into his "Maxwell Smart" role on Get Smart. In similar fashion, several of Harris' one-liners from the show (such as "Oh, the pain!"), along with many character mannerisms, became part of the Dr. Zachary Smith character on Lost in Space. In an apparent homage to his earlier role, Harris played a similarly pompous diplomat on Get Smart in 1970. His female assistant is named "Zachary."
[edit] Lost In Space
Harris beat two other actors for the role as conniving, cowardly agent, Dr. Zachary Smith on Lost In Space for CBS, after he did not appear in the pilot series. The series was already in production when he joined the cast and the starring/co-starring billings had already been contractually assigned, so Harris received a "Special Guest Star" credit on every episode. The show starred Guy Williams as Professor John Robinson, and June Lockhart as his wife, Maureen Robinson, Mark Goddard in the role of Dr. Smith's space partner, Maj. Don West, Marta Kristen, as elder daughter Judy Robinson, Angela Cartwright as younger daughter Penny Robinson, and child character actor from the Los Angeles suburb of San Gabriel, California, Bill Mumy, in the role of child prodigy and Dr. Smith's friend Will Robinson, who was also the youngest of John and Maureen's three children. A strong bond developed between Harris, Mumy, and the rest of the cast, during its three-year-tenure. By the time of its debut, it was an immediate hit and midway throughout the first season, it was also competing against another newcomer, Batman, which dominated the ratings. It was also the answer to such successful 1960s sci-fi series such as: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Star Trek. Midway throughout the first season, due to Harris's popularity on the show, he rewrote the dialogue, in favor of Allen, who gave him carte-blanche to become a writer. He in turn, also stole the show, mainly via a list of alliterative insults which soon worked their way into popular speech. When the show was renewed for its third and final season, the show remained focused on Harris's, Dr. Smith's character. While the series was still a big hit, the writers appeared to run out of fresh ideas and the show was unexpectedly cancelled in 1968, after 83 episodes.
Mumy said about Harris's guest role that for one show, "It was actually implied that this villainous character that sabotaged the mission and ended up with us, was going to be killed off after a while." said Mumy, "Jonathan played him as written which was this really dark, straight-ahead villain, who was trying to murder women and children." Mumy also said of Harris's work on Space, "And we'd start working on a scene together, and he'd have a line, and then in the script I'd have my reply, and he'd say, 'No, no, no, dear boy. No, no, no. Before you say that, the robot will say this, this, this, this, this, this and this, and then, you'll deliver your line.'" Bill also said of Harris' character that he portrayed, "He truly, truly singlehandledly created the character of Dr. Zachary Smith that we know --- this man, we love-to-hate, coward who would cower behind the little boy, 'Oh, the pain! Save me, William!' That's all him!" In addition, he said, "We were all just finding our groove. It turned out that the characters of both Dr. Zachary Smith and Will Robinson had a great chemistry together." During the third and final season, Mumy also said about Harris's character behaving so hip like many other kids who performed a 1960s dance, "There's an episode where Jonathan's like in this bad wig," he said, "We're going to freak out together. We're . . . We're going to . . . it's freaky, baby!" The last thing that Mumy said about the show's cancellation was, "I don't know what happened. All I know is that we were all told we're coming back. Then, you know we got a call that we weren't." The death of Harris's father in 1977 drew Harris and Mumy closer. The two also kept in touch for almost 35 years until Harris's death. In 1996, Mumy was reunited with Harris alongside Leonard Nimoy (of Star Trek fame), at a Disney World convention. It was also reported in 1997 that Mumy, Harris and the rest of the surviving cast appeared on the inside cover of TV Guide to promote the new movie, while the Sci-Fi Channel would feature a Lost in Space marathon.
[edit] Typecasting
Although he is considered something of a cult icon for this role, Harris became typecast as the effete villain. Allen cast him as a villainous "Pied Piper" in an episode of Land of the Giants. Approached by Irwin Allen, a second time, to star in a children series, Jumbalina and the Teeners Harris turned it down. In 1970, Harris played the role of another not-so-likeable villain, when he guest starred as the Bulmanian Ambassador in the Get Smart episode, "How Green Was My Valet". A more favorable guest role of Harris's was his portrayal of Charles Dickens in a 1963 episode of Bonanza. He also appeared in two 1961 episodes of The Twilight Zone.
[edit] Premier voice-over actor and guest starring roles
Harris spent most of the remainder of his career as a voice actor, appearing in television commercials as well as cartoons such as The Banana Splits, My Favorite Martian, Rainbow Brite, Darkwing Duck, Happily Ever After, Problem Child, Freakazoid! (reprising the Smith character and dialogue under the name "Professor Jones,") A Bug's Life, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Toy Story 2. He also had several cameo and guest appearances, including Zorro, Bewitched, and Uncle Croc's Block. Harris also provided the voiceover of the Cylon character "Lucifer" on the original Battlestar Galactica series. He starred in the Saturday morning children's series Space Academy in the mid-seventies, and was a well-known TV spokesman for the International House of Pancakes.
[edit] Later career
In 1990, Harris reunited with the cast of Lost In Space, to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the show's debut; an event attended by more than 30,000 fans. This reunion also helped spark renewed interest in the sci-fi genre. Harris also appeared in a 1995 television tribute (alongside June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Bill Mumy and Angela Cartwright) to Irwin Allen, who had died four years prior.
Harris reprised his role as Dr. Smith in the one-hour TV special Lost in Space Forever in 1998 and again in The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen. However, unlike his costars in the original show (June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen and Angela Cartwright) he refused to make a cameo appearance in the motion picture version of Lost in Space later that year. He announced, "I've never played a bit part in my life and I'm not going to start now!". Gary Oldman played the part of Dr. Smith in the film, but as a more genuinely menacing and less likeable character than Harris' on TV.
During the months leading up to the film's release, the Sci-Fi Channel aired Lost In Space marathons in many markets, in which each of the actors were interviewed. On April 9th 1998, Harris appeared as a guest on the talk show Late Night with Conan O'Brien, where Harris fondly reminisced about his Lost In Space days, admitting he would stay up nights thinking of new insults for the Robot because he enjoyed the interaction so much. Host Conan had one of his characters, Pimp-Bot 5000 (a robot pimp), come onto the set, and Harris went into character as Dr. Smith and proceeded to insult Pimp-Bot. Shying away from his usual dry and sarcastic (often self-deprecating) style, Conan confessed to Harris that he brought him on the show just to have him insult Pimp-Bot, and that the moment made his day.
[edit] Hobbies
Throughout his long life, Jonathan had several hobbies: cooking, watching movies, reading, traveling, painting, magic, playing piano, listening to opera, spending time with children, gardening and knitting. He also did some dancing in his spare time, as well. According to the A&E Biography, on one episode of Lost In Space, Jonathan's character did a groovy 1960s dance with John & Maureen's 2 younger children.
[edit] Personal life
Jonathan was married to his longtime high school sweetheart, Gertrude Bregman, from 1938 until his death. They have a son, Richard (born 1942.)
In late 2002, Harris and the rest of the surviving cast of the TV series were preparing for a two-hour movie entitled Lost In Space: The Journey Back Home.[2] However, just before the movie was about to film, he was taken to the hospital where he had a back problem, which led to his suffering heart failure.
Harris died on November 3, 2002, in Encino, California of a blood clot to the heart, just three days before his 88th birthday. He was survived by his son Richard. His wife Gertrude recently passed away. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
[edit] Quotes
- Jonathan on his characteristic accent: "I'm not British, just affected." (Source: Biography.com)
- Jonathan: "We used to like camping out." (Source: thinkexist.com)
- Jonathan: "I wish you well and I hope it will be a huge hit, because that would be very good for me. And if, God forbid, it's a terrible flop, well, that would be very good for me." (Source: thinkexist.com)
- Jonathan on receiving a guest-starring role for every episode of Lost In Space: "That was the first time ever in history that anybody got Special Guest Star. I started that whole nonsense." (Source: brainyquote.com)
- Jonathan on the cancellation of Lost in Space: "When the curtain comes down, you're disappointed. Always, the curtain comes down. I've done so much work, and then the curtain comes down and you go on to something else." (Source: Biography.com)
- Jonathan when his father finally arrived at the theatre to see his son: "He came to the dressing room, gave me a hug and a kiss; and said, 'You belong here.' I never forget it." (Source: Biography.com)
- Jonathan on trying his hand on being a leading man of the 1940s: "I thought I was Cary Grant. Oh, I looked into the mirror, and said, 'Yes, Yes. It's Cary Grant.' And then, I pulled myself together and said, 'Are you kidding?' You're a character man." (Source: Biography.com)
[edit] References
- ^ Jonathan Harris at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ http://www.hotkey.net.au/~nval/scifi/lostins4.htm LOST IN SPACE: THE JOURNEY HOME]
[edit] External links
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Charasuchin, Jonathan Daniel |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 6, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | The Bronx, New York |
| DATE OF DEATH | 2002-11-3 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Encino, California |
