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In Memoriam
Harry Morgan — Grownup
The otherwise insufferable M*A*S*H was his triumph.
It was by sheerest coincidence last Thursday that I read Gerald Nachman’s fine “The Teening of America” in the December edition of TAS (if you haven’t read it yet…), and later the same day heard of the death of the character actor Harry Morgan at 96.
In the later years of his career, Morgan was cast as the wise and kindly but occasionally firm uncle. He brought this persona to perfection with Colonel Sherman Potter, commanding officer of the misfits, madcaps, and cases of arrested development that made up the 4077 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the popular and long running TV series M*A*S*H.
The series lasted 11 years (1972-83), the last seven of those with Morgan as the glue that held it together, and was wildly popular. It remains so in syndication. There’s hardly an hour so remote, even in the darkest watches of the night, that M*A*S*H can’t be found somewhere on the TV dial, save on the most budget of cable packages. It’s probably even more available than Antiques Roadshow or Miss Congeniality. If you don’t think so, just try channel-surfing without tripping over Trapper John or Hawkeye or Hot Lips or Radar O’Reilly.
While most of the characters in the series reflected the '70s zeitgeist with its prejudice against adults and adult ways, Morgan as Col. Potter represented the kind of grownup Nachman laments the demise of in our current juvenilized culture. Just try to picture Morgan, or the characters he played, slouching in a chair with a baseball hat on backwards and wearing a T-shirt bearing some rude legend or the name of a hair-ball rock group. It just won’t compute.
Morgan succeeded McLean Stevenson as CO of the 4077. The late Stevenson could be very funny. But he was too much of a flake like the rest of his crew. Morgan’s Col. Potter, not a stick in the mud but Regular Army, made the rest of the cast more believable and sympathetic. Ratings went up after Morgan joined the show and stayed up. Hawkeye and Hot Lips and Radar gave the show laughs. Morgan gave it credibility.
And by the time Morgan arrived, the show could use a little gravitas. Ratings weren’t so hot at the get-go. The series was based on a perfectly awful 1970 movie starring Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould and directed by the quirky Robert Altman. The movie featured the most adolescent forms of anti-war and anti-authority sentiment through high-jinks that only movie-goers of a certain kind of left politics could laugh at.
The series inherited some of this through the central character, Hawkeye Pearce, played by Alan Alda. Hawkeye is a talented but spoiled and smug surgeon whose main reaction to war was that it was just too, too tacky. There was less political posturing, less self-righteousness, and more good comedy as the show matured. The characters were genuinely funny. (Even Alda could be funny leching nurses.) And Hot Lips was genuinely, well, hot.
(In his last novel, The Thanatos Syndrome (1987), the late Walker Percy had his protagonist, watching a M*A*S*H rerun, say: “There’s Hawkeye and Trapper John back in Korea. I never did like those guys. They fancied themselves super-decent and super-tolerant, but actually had no use for anyone who was not exactly like them. What they were was super-pleased with themselves. In truth, they were the real bigots, and phony at that. I always preferred Frank Burns, the stuffy, unpopular doc, a sincere bigot.” I’d like to associate myself with Percy’s remarks.)
M*A*S*H may have been Morgan’s triumph, and his best remembered role. But he worked a lot in Hollywood for more than half a century. He was in more than a hundred feature films, from To the Shores of Tripoli in 1942 to Crosswalk in 1999. He was in some Hollywood classics and well as more than a few forgettable flicks.
Morgan was the judge in the overrated Inherit the Wind of 1960 (it’s probably not a good idea to use the word “wind” in the title of a move or book — think about it), a businessman afraid of outlaws in 1952’s High Noon. His small part as the marshal in the Duke’s last movie, the Shootist of 1976, displayed Morgan’s comedy chops in an otherwise serious movie. Morgan appeared in a couple of Jimmy Stewart’s westerns as well as in 1953’s The Glenn Miller Story and 1954’s Strategic Air Command” with Stewart.
Morgan was frequently on the small screen as well. Probably his best remembered role before Potter, at least remembered by those of a certain age, was Sgt. Joe Friday’s sidekick Detective Bill Gannon in the color version of Dragnet (1967-70). Those of even more age might remember him in December Bride (1954-59). He was in other series, some of which, like Kentucky Jones, are remembered only by serious Trivial Pursuit enthusiasts.
Morgan’s soothing presence has not been seen on any new work for more than a decade. But there’s a large body of his work available for loan, rent, or purchase for people who enjoy watching a thoroughly professional actor who was never the star — even in M*A*S*H it was Alda who headlined — but who always made the movie or TV episode better than it would have been without him. And who exemplified the kind of adulthood we could use a good deal more of.
R.I.P., Harry Morgan.
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (13) | Leave a comment
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AVCurmudgeon| 12.13.11 @ 10:58AM
Thanks for your tribute to Harry Morgan and in the process your critical take on M*A*S*H. I thought the movie and TV show alike embodied the worst of modern liberalism: superficially hip, completely self-absorbed, contemptuous (the razzing of Hot Lips in the movie was disgusting). Henry was part of the asylum; Potter figured out how to run the asylum, bringing things to order while still getting the best of what they all had to offer. That's really being the adult in the room, and he was always the best at that.
ENOUGH ROPE| 12.13.11 @ 11:09AM
Thank you Mr. Thornberry for your wonderful tribute to Harry Morgan. In a scene in Twelve O'Clock High, Maj. Gen. Pritchard, Millard Mitchell, asks Gen. Savage, Gregory Peck, about the airmen of the 8th Air Force: "Where do we get such men?" Col. Potter was one of those men, as are those who have served in our Armed Forces.
The "SUBMIT" button was missing yesterday.
Petronius| 12.13.11 @ 11:37AM
Harry was a true anomaly in Hollywoood. Character actors and second fiddles seldom reach the first rank of easy recognition. So many have passed on with the world remembering their faces and voices but not their names. Yet not attaining stardom lends them a much larger dignity as a Personage. From Pete and Gladys to After Mash and the rest of his resume' in between, Harry Morgan ascends to a very select company with Jack Albertson, Claude Akins, and Robert Strauss. My favorite of all his roles is the Sheriff of Cape Fear County opposite George C. Scott in the Flim Flam Man which Albertson was also in.
Howard| 12.13.11 @ 12:22PM
I especially enjoyed Mr. Morgan in the Dragnet series. Both Jack Webb and Harry Morgan showed a very dry sense of humor in the show. The large number of quirky Angelinos in the show provided Webb and Morgan with more "adult" roles.
Tiddly| 12.13.11 @ 1:28PM
That is a thoroughly amateur and unmilitary salute Morgan is throwing in the photo above the article--the kind that a little kid playing soldier, or Hillary Clinton gives. Anyone who's ever been in the military would cringe (or laugh) at it.
This author gives frivolous entertainment like MASH far too much significance. My father fought in Korea and had great respect for MASH outfits, and said that that silly show was nothing at all like them. It is what liberals imagine war might be like. Watching that show (and most others) was a waste of precious hours that can never be regained.
But, that is America--bread and circuses.
Rich D| 12.13.11 @ 6:52PM
Agree - I could never watch it.
Vern Crisler | 12.13.11 @ 9:50PM
I loved MASH at least for a while, but my father, who also served during the Korean conflict, won't watch it. Personally, I think the ensemble show went downhill when it lost Frank Burns. Eventually, instead of just going for laughs, the show started to take itself too seriously, and became far too liberal.
It had started out as just a comedy of post-Vietnam anti-war, anti-military, anti-authority cynicism played for laughs. Who can forget Colonel Flagg for instance? By a stroke of genius, the TV show placed the show in Korea rather than in Vietnam. Nothing about Vietnam was funny at the time, and a similar comedy set in Vietnam didn't make it. We were all tired of Vietnam, but Korea was far enough removed to provide a backdrop for humor.
RIP for Harry Morgan, one of Hollywood's longtime character actors, who managed to get through his career without making a political fool of himself, unlike so many of today's Hollywood types.
Tom Gaitens| 12.13.11 @ 4:41PM
Larry,
great read...loved Morgan, and really enjoyed your take on him! Loved him in Support your Local Sheriff.....hope all is well
TOM
Cara| 12.13.11 @ 5:32PM
Did you know that a few years ago he was
arrested for beating his wife?
I was stunned. But it colored my otherwise
good memories of him.
FR in SC| 12.13.11 @ 8:44PM
He also effectively radiated a creepy menace in 1948's "The Big Clock;" I don't think he said more than three words in the whole picture. During the last half of MASH's run, he was the only watchable one on that vastly-overrated show.
Randy Vaught| 12.14.11 @ 2:25AM
Actually, he was a creepy guy. Fighting and drinking at a party at the age of 82, he went home and beat his wife. Not exactly an "imp".
David March| 12.14.11 @ 1:48PM
I often go back and try to watch the old episodes before Harry Morgan, and find them pretty awful. True Comedy requires a ‘straight’ man to bounce jokes off of, and to keep it all funny and relevant. The early years lack a serious counterpoint to all the bad jokes. Colonel Potter and later Major Winchester, as well as the humanization/rehab of Houlihan really brought the show to its serious A game level.
One though forgets that Morgan could do comedy and did so in an early episode of MASH as a completely insane General who attempts to put the 4077th on court martial for daring to disagree with his completely insane orders.
It was parts like that, that allowed character actors like Morgan to truly meet the bread and butter and should also not be forgotten. It’s the little things that really matter.
Owen K.| 12.15.11 @ 1:10AM
Sorry, I liked MASH. As a Vietnam vet, I enjoy the series yet today. And, I liked the character of Henry Blake.