Howard Harris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Howard Harris was a comedy writer whose credits included Copacabana (1947) starring Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda[1], The Jackie Gleason Show, You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx, Gilligan's Island, Petticoat Junction, and other popular television shows.
Harris was born in Manhattan in New York City on February 15, 1912. He went to Fordham Law School for two years which, according to his family, he hated. The summer before his third and final year he got a job writing humorous anecdotes about celebrities for a trade publication. After that experience he dropped out of law school and started writing comedy for radio for Joe Penner and Fred Allen, among others, according to one account from his family.
Before the Second World War, Harris moved to Hollywood where he was considered one of the hottest comedy writers around. In 1943 he was a screenwriter for Higher and Higher starring Frank Sinatra, according to the Rotten Tomatoes web site[2]. In 1947 he was a co-writer for Alfred E. Green's Copacabana. Also, in 1947 Harris wrote the story for a comedy called Linda Be Good, according to the Internet Movie Database (IMB) [3]. IMB also reports that Harris was a writer for The Noose Hangs High[4](1948), starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.
Harris migrated to television and back to New York where he became a comedy writer in 1952 for The Jackie Gleason Show in which he helped to write a segment which featured Gleason as a loud-mouthed, Brooklyn bus driver known as Ralph Kramden. That segment later became the seed for the comedy series, The Honeymooners. While in New York City in 1953, Harris appeared as a guest on What's My Line?, hosted by John Charles Daly and produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. The celebrity panel failed to identify Harris as "Jackie Gleason's Gag Writer." That episode is available for viewing at The Museum of Television & Radio [5] in New York City.
Harris returned to Hollywood where he wrote a pilot episode for a half-hour show called Bozo the Clown, starring William Bendix. (That episode also can be viewed at The Museum of Television & Radio [6]). Then in the early 1950s, Harris joined Groucho Marx again as a writer for the architypical comedy game show, You Bet Your Life, produced by John Guedel. Harris, who joined the show in its second or third year, continued to write gags for Groucho for more than five years.
Later in the mid-1960s Harris wrote for Gilligan's Island starring Bob Denver, Jim Backus and Alan Hale, Jr., and Petticoat Junction.
During his later years Harris continued to write gags but had trouble selling his work as younger comedy writers got television work, leaving older writers like Harris behind.
Harris and his first wife, Jeanne Giddings, had two children. After Jeanne died in 1970, Harris married the then Marion Linden in 1972. They lived in Los Angeles until Harris' death on March 22, 1986.
Harris was also survived by two sisters, including Radie Harris, a longtime gossip columnist for The Hollywood Reporter[7].
