I grew up watching M*A*S*H. The finale of the show destroyed me so utterly I cried myself to sleep and then woke up the next day sick and my mother let me stay home from school. I was despondent. Harry Morgan had a long career, back to the days of film noir, and he is one of those people who is so wrapped up in my childhood memories that it seems like I actually knew him. I watched M*A*S*H before I knew what “good” was, before I even thought about why I liked what I liked, and what was good about it. It was just a show I adored, and the war aspect of it was intriguing to me as a child (I had uncles who were in the service, it helped me to understand them better.) It wouldn’t be until much later that I discovered the scope of his career. His comedic timing was second to none, but there was always something about his face that suggested deep veins of emotion, so when he was required to show that, to tap into that, it was always killer, because I had sensed it there all along.
Of course, he was in Frankie and Johnny, with Elvis Presley, and even sings a couple of numbers with him, so randomly Harry Morgan’s crazy bassline voice will show up on my iPod shuffle. In the clip above, he talks about working with Elvis. “I never met a more polite kid in my life.”
RIP, wonderful actor. I will miss you.
Just last week I caught a little of the “MASH” retrospective special I’d seen before, and it was a few outtakes of the hilarious scene in “The General Flipped at Dawn” where Morgan, as Gen. Steele, warmly asks Radar where he’s from and hollers “No talking in rank!” when he answers. They had to shoot the scene several times because Burghoff and Stevenson kept cracking up at Morgan’s bellowing. Somebody today on Facebook wrote that he was one of the best shouters in movie and TV history. I love that assessment, and what made Morgan’s shouting so funny was he did it strategically. Rather than shout all the time and dilute the impact, he’d let his voice go soft for part of the time, setting you up for the kill. I was always amazed at the number of times he’d pop up in a random movie I’d be watching. Great character actor, you put it very well.
Craig – ha! Yes, he was HILARIOUS when he would lose it. Calculated – in the best way – very very funny. All of these tributes have made me want to revisit MASH, first of all (it’s been a while) and also all of his other great work.
And he also had the depth to be a dramatic actor. His serious stuff on MASH always hit me like a ton of bricks – it’s like he drew back the veil to reveal his heart, all in one whoosh. Powerful stuff, I still remember some of those moments.
Yes, excellent range as a dramatic actor as well. And wonderfully expressive either way. Another of his funniest moments on “MASH” was when, as Potter, he listens to Frank Burns declare “I love it here!” Morgan’s silent* reaction shot is utterly priceless and speaks volumes.
*Actually, I just remembered it’s not completely silent. Morgan holds it for several seconds before saying, “I know this much: Either you or Klinger is crazy. Now I have to figure out which.”
God, he was such a good ba-dum-CHING kind of guy (it’s almost a lost art now). You have two lines that are the “ba” and the “dum” and you HAVE to have a good “ching” or the whole thing falls flat. Even if the “ching” is a silent reaction shot – it must be there. So many sitcoms now don’t get that. Harry Morgan was a master at the “ching” part of the comedic equation.
The “ching” is often underrated – the “ba” and the “dum” are often more flashy, get more attention, they’re more obviously funny. The straight man gives the “ching”. George Burns knew it like the back of his hand – so did Morgan.
He’s in a league with Jackie Gleason – and that is a very rarefied atmosphere.
That’s a great way to put it – his rhythm and timing was very Vaudevillian. (I don’t know if Morgan had any ties to Vaudeville but obviously the style rubbed off on him in some way.) What makes that reaction that I mentioned so funny is you can feel Frank withering before Potter’s eyes, as if he’s saying, “I didn’t think you could sink any lower in my estimation, yet here we are.”
Right – it’s the REACTION that makes the whole bit!!
I’m with Craig…Can’t believe how may of my favorite movies he was in and how indelible he was in every one of them. He’s sort of like my other fave Ward Bond in his ability as a “character” actor to play–or, more accurately, inhabit–a crazy range of roles and still project a strong, reliable persona. There’s no ability rarer than that…RIP indeed.
Ward Bond! Just the BEST!
He’s right there strong in the Ox Bow Incident ensemble, too.
M*A*S*H is the first non-Sesame Street, non-Nickelodeon show I have memories of. My grandfather was a Korea vet, and I was at my grandparents’ house every day after school before my mom remarried and quit work. I still watch the show all the time, at least up to the post-Radar episodes, and I especially love the Frank Burns years (Patton Oswalt recently said in an interview that, were the show made today, people would be gunning for the Burns part, not Hawkeye, and I think that’s so right on). Now that my grandfather has severe Alzheimer’s, M*A*S*H has an even dearer place in my heart, and Morgan’s a big reason. His range on the show just left everyone else behind. The rest of the cast sort of had to leap between the comedy and the drama, but Morgan could freely move between the two areas. I loved that the writers made him a complete professional, career Army man to be at the opposite end of Blake’s bumbling farce. And yet, he’s also perhaps the one most disgusted with war, having seen far more of it than the rest of the unit. Morgan played that part beautifully; he could be just as silly as the other cast members, but he gave that show an unforced gravity it previously lacked, which made the serious moments work a lot better.
Oh, and I totally agree with Craig re: the Gen. Steele episode. It’s a brilliantly madcap performance, up there with Stephen Fry’s Gen. Melchett in the last series of Blackadder as one of the most hilariously screwy military officers. I still laugh at his outbursts. “THERE ARE NO ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES!” And poor Mulcahy just softly responds, “I’ve heard that.”
LOVE these comments.
Actually, just to have played General Steele and Colonel Potter (and on the same show at that) is pretty staggering…you don’t need both hands to count the actors who could have pulled that off.