Harry Morgan

“He listened.” The Siren says good-bye to Harry Morgan.

Since I was a little kid, I was a Harry Morgan fan, mainly, I think, because he resembled my Grandfather Mannion. And I’m very proud of this: way back when, I somehow knew, well before it was announced, that the new commander of the 4077th was going to be Harry Morgan. In fact, I predicted it as soon as I heard McLean Stevenson was leaving the show.  I was going by Morgan’s guest appearance on M*A*S*H as the lunatic General Bartford Hamilton Steele in the episode “The General Flipped at Dawn.”  Even though he was playing crazy, Morgan seemed to fit right in with the rest of the cast.  Impressed the horse hockey out my friends and relations when it turned out I was right.

Abyssinia, Colonel Potter.

Comments

[El Jefe]

I'll always remember, though of course M*A*S*H was one of the shows that bobbed in and out of the prime-time evenings of my childhood (along with The Rockford Files and WKRP in Cincinnati and the like), his surprisingly faultless performance playing a straight man *to* a straight man (Dan Ackroyd) in the movie version of Dragnet when I was in high school. And the unexpected music of his voice (a good description of it, I think) that along with Jack Elam's anchored the inimitable Support Your Local Sherriff still one of my five favorite movies and a linchpin of what's good about my relationship with my own father.

Nicely done back then, Lance. Portrait of the Critic as a Young Whippersnapper, then ;)

[actor212]

Bill Gannon.

Also, Judge Mel Coffey

If you knew nothing of Harry Morgan, those two characters would really be all you needed to see.

[GregN]

I go back to December Bride with him. (Though I was a child of course!)
Funny man then, great actor, and seemed a nice guy. And what a great run: 96 years!

[Leo Leahy]

Harry Morgan really was a great straight man -- from Bill Gannon to Sherman Potter.