Celebrity Biographies
Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan acted as a supporting role in successful films along with relevant screen figures. He came to appear in a hundred films, mostly westerns. But he became popular on television playing the caustic Colonel Sherman Potter, in the series MASH The actor has died at the age of 96 in Brentwood (Los Angeles) as a result of pneumonia.
Born on April 10, 1915 in Detroit (Michigan), Harry Bratsberg –his real name– graduated from Muskegon High School, where he had managed to win a debate club championship. He was a promising student who at first wanted to study law at the University of Chicago, though he dropped out when he discovered acting was his thing at amateur performances on campus.
He decided to join The Group Theater, a New York theater company created by Lee Strasberg . With Karl Malden she performed the play “Golden Boy”.
Determined to try his luck in Hollywood, he went there with his clothes on without much chance of establishing himself. “Since I didn’t even have money to go back east, I had to stay and take all kinds of odd jobs, which I got thanks to my friends,” the actor recalled. He made his film debut in 1942 with Heading for the Beaches of Tripoli , in which he used the stage name Henry Morgan . The problem is that a comedian named like that became more famous than him, so he finally changed it to Harry Morgan.
He soon lavished himself as a supporting role in numerous hit titles, such as Dragonwyck Castle , They Were All My Sons , The Sea Fiend , What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? or The Liberty Bell . Above all he specialized in westerns such as Alone in Danger , Don Quixote of the West , The Sheriff Needs Help Too and How the West Was Won , where he played General Ulysses S. Grant.
On television he triumphed with the Dragnet 1967 series , where he played a police officer. The repercussion of this production was so great that the current Los Angeles police chief mourned his death when the news broke. Internationally, Morgan became a celebrity with the war satire MASH , a series that reached eleven seasons.
Until he retired at the end of the 90s, Harry Morgan remained very active, albeit in middling productions such as Two Clueless Hounds or Camp as You Can .