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Height: 5' 6" (1.68 m) Siblings: Arnold L. Bratsburg (Feb 27.1919-Jan 4. 2001) Marguerite M. Bratsburg (b. 1924) Marriages: (1) Eileen Ann Detchon (Sep 1. 1940 - Feb 4. 1985, her death). They had four sons: Christopher Thomas, TV producer (b.Aug 31 1942), Charles Timothy (b.May 1. 1944) attorney (actor under the name Charley Morgan), Twins: Paul Anthony, attorney (b.Dec 23. 1946) and Daniel Howard (Dec 23, 1946 - Nov 13.1989) (2) Marcella Barbara Bushman Quine (Dec 17, 1986 - 2011, his death) |
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Above right: Picture from Harry Morgan taken when The Muskegon High debating team won a state championship in 1932. | |
Young Harry was a popular
classmate at Muskegon High School, being named class president in his
senior year (1933). His specialty was debating and
in his junior year he and and fellow debaters went all the way to a
state championship, defeating Oxford in the finals at the University of
Michigan campus in Ann Arbor. Curiously, the boy who would become the
high school's most accomplished thespian did not even participate in
plays produced at the school. After graduating from JC in 1935, he joined the sales dept. at Shaw-Walker Company and soon relocated to Washington D.C. He was selling (or not selling, as he clarifies) office equipment making $20 a week selling office supplies, in 1937. "I only made $10 a week as an actor" he recalled bitterly, "and the week after I quit my job a fellow I was working with made $200,000 - selling all the filing cabinets to the Social Security office." He tried out for some summer stock parts with local theater groups. This led to roles and try-outs with more important companies, and then to summer stock companies outside New York City. He successfully auditioned for a part in The Petrified Forest (1937), a play with Frances Farmer, and she helped him get an interview with The Group Theater, comprised of a great many of the finest dramatic talents ever in U.S. history: Clifford Odets, Howard Clurman, Elia Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, Sanford Meisner, John Garfield, Karl Malden. Morgan was accepted into the Group, and appeared in a very successful Odets play called Golden Boy (Nov 1937), in which he played a boxer, Pepper White. (he used to have a nasty family dog by that name.) It played Broadway for a year and then another six months in London, where the cast spent some time with Paul Robeson and met Winston Churchill. A host of successful Broadway roles followed. Morgan also did summer stock at the Pine Brook Country Club located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut. Frances Farmer was from Seattle,
where she had grown up with Eileen Detchon, another aspiring Broadway
actress, the latter met Harry while working
together in a William Saroyan play called My Heart's in the Highlands.
They were wed in 1940 and Harry
found work in small theater and in radio. Frances Farmer persuaded the
newlyweds to relocate to the West coast. Hollywood soon beckoned and in
1941 he was signed with 20th Century Fox.
Morgan made his screen debut (originally using the name "Henry Morgan") as contract actor in the 1942 movie To the Shores of Tripoli. His screen name later became "Henry 'Harry' Morgan" and eventually Harry Morgan, to avoid confusion with the popular humorist of the same name. Morgan served in the US Army during WW2 where he
joined other actors making training films. One of his works, The
Rifle Platoon made in 1942 is available on YouTube.
One memorable role was in The Big Clock (1948) in which he plays a very menacing bodyguard/henchman to Charles Laughton. His lines were perfunctory and so he suggested that they just have the character be a mute — a touch that works very well. He had a sort of breakthrough in another Saroyan play called Hello, Out There! (1949) (a very charming one-act work with just two characters, the other part played by Jennifer Jones), which was staged in a playhouse in Santa Barbara. The film was a paring of Hello, Out There! with another one-act work, but it was never released and there is no known surviving print (according to the UCLA Theater Arts archive). Hello, Out There! did lead to a contract with Fox Studios and a few years of security, with Harry appearing as Henry Morgan in a few dozen films, often as comedic character or a heavy — not much in between. In 1950, Morgan appeared as an obtrusive,
alcohol-addled hotel clerk in the Dragnet radio episode "The
Big Boys".
On CBS, he played Pete Porter in Pete and
Gladys (1960–1962), with Cara Williams as
wife Gladys. Pete and Gladys was a spin-off of December Bride
(1954–1959), starring Spring Byington, a show in
which Morgan had a popular recurring role.
He was an active opponent of the anti-communist campaign in Hollywood. Enjoyed golfing, traveling, dining, fishing, spending time with his family, reading, raising quarter-horses, horseback riding, animals, painting and poetry. In 1966 Harry played opposite Elvis Presley in Frankie and Johnny (below left), for Ellery Queen fans the picture has more familiar cast members: Eddie Quillan as cashier (uncredited) and the "faux" Robert Strauss. He received the Gold Award of Purple Heart Veterans Rehabilitation Service in the 1970s. |
Morgan appeared on several famous TV-shows including The Partridge
Family and Gunsmoke.
In a business in which friendships / often end at a
series wrap party, Morgan is pleased to have an important carry-over
from the M*A*S*H - days. "Loretta Swit called me from
London," Morgan once said on the day before Christmas. "I think
she's probably my best friend. She didn't even call collect".
His latest appearance on television was in the M*A*S*H: 30th Anniversary Reunion in 2002. Was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 2006.
Morgan died peacefully in his sleep at 3:00 am in Los Angeles, on December
7, 2011, 10 days before his 25th wedding anniversary, at the age of 96. His son, Charles, said he recently had been
treated for pneumonia. His body was cremated and his remains were
given to his family. |
References
Additional video & audio sources
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This actor profile is a part of
Ellery Queen a website on deduction.
The actor above played Richard Queen in
the
Ellery Queen TV pilot. Click Uncle Sam if you think you can help
out...! Many of the profiles on this site have been compiled after very careful research of various sources. Please quote and cite ethically! |
Page first published on Dec 18. 2017 Last updated Sep 5, 2021 |
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