Last week, noted character actor, Harry Morgan passed away at the age of 96. While he will be remembered by many for his television work as Colonel Potter on M.A.S.H. and Officer Bill Gannon of Dragnet, he was a fine film actor as well. He chose his parts extremely well and as a result was in some of the most ground breaking movies of their times.
He was Art Croft in the 1943 “The Ox-Bow Incident.” While the star of the movie was Henry Fonda, Harry Morgan was Fonda’s sidekick. But the truth is, he was more than just a sidekick. He was the other “reasonable man” complementing Fonda’s character, Gil Carter, in a making a stand against vigilante justice. His balanced and powerful, yet understated performance contributed to The Ox-Bow Incident being selected for preservation in the Library of Congress as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant film.”
In the 1960, Inherit the Wind, Morgan was Judge Mel Coffey. His character presided over what then was called the “Trial of the Century.” Based on the famous Scopes trial, a teacher (Dick York of TV’s Bewitched fame) is put on trial for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. He is defended by Spencer Tracy and prosecuted by Fredric March. With all of this Hollywood talent screaming for screen time, it is Morgan’s character that you realize at the end of the film that had the most impact on the story. His character was the arbitrator who was clearly influenced by his personal admiration for the prosecutor and yet rendered an extraordinarily fair decision based upon the need for justice.
In 1975, Harry Morgan was in one of my personal favorite films, Disney’s The Apple Dumpling Gang. Morgan is Sheriff Homer McCoy and is the perfect straight man to comedians Tim Conway and Don Knotts. My favorite Harry Morgan scene from that movie involves the bumbling Theodore and Amos (Conway & Knotts) plotting to rob a bank. The below clip is almost 90 seconds long, but it is some of the best comedy you’ll ever see. And it is Morgan, in his brief, yet understated appearances, who makes the physical comedy of Conway and Knotts pay off so well for the audience:
Harry Morgan played common sense characters and always delivered his lines in a style that was memorable. He and his talent will be missed.