The second of three children, Harris was born on November 6, 1914, in
the Bronx, New York City, to
Russian Jewish immigrants Jennie ( Buchowitsky) and Sam Charasuchin. His father worked in
Manhattan's
Garment District. He was hired by the director,
Richard Brooks, to appear in a series of 26 plays the company performed in the summer of 1940. In 1942, Harris won the leading role of a Polish officer in the
Broadway play
The Heart of a City, adopting a Polish accent. In 1946, he starred in
A Flag Is Born, opposite
Quentin Reynolds and
Marlon Brando.
Early television career Harris was a popular character actor for 30 years on television, making his first guest appearance on the episode "His Name Is Jason" on
The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre in 1949. The role led to other roles in such series as
The Web,
Lights Out,
Goodyear Television Playhouse, two episodes of
Hallmark Hall of Fame,
Armstrong Circle Theatre, three episodes of
Studio One,
Telephone Time,
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars,
Climax!,
Outlaws,
The Twilight Zone,
Bonanza,
The Rogues,
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and
Zorro, among many others. He was in the film
Botany Bay (1953). Harris landed a co-starring role opposite
Michael Rennie in
The Third Man, from 1959 to 1965. He played Bradford Webster, an eccentric, cowardly assistant. Half of the episodes were shot in London, England; the rest were filmed in Hollywood. Harris appeared in two 1961 episodes of
The Twilight Zone, including a heroic role in "The Silence", in which he ended up defending a young man challenged to be silent for a whole year at a prestigious gentleman's club and "Twenty Two", in which he played the doctor of a woman with a recurring nightmare. Harris also portrayed
Charles Dickens in a 1963 episode of
Bonanza. From 1963 to 1965, Harris co-starred in the sitcom
The Bill Dana Show. He played Mr. Phillips, the pompous manager of a posh hotel who is constantly at odds with his bumbling Bolivian bellhop, the
Bill Dana character
José Jiménez.
Don Adams rounded out the cast as an inept house detective, a character whose distinctive mannerisms and catchphrases would soon carry over into his Maxwell Smart role on
Get Smart. In similar fashion, several of Harris's
catchphrases from the series, such as "Oh, the pain!", along with the character's mannerisms and delivery, became part of the Dr. Zachary Smith character on
Lost in Space. Harris played a similarly pompous diplomat on
Get Smart in 1970. His female assistant was named Zachary. Harris also guest-starred on
The Ghost & Mrs. Muir.
Dr. Zachary Smith in Lost in Space Harris was cast over two other actors for the role of Dr. Zachary Smith, the evil and conniving enemy agent on
Lost in Space. The character did not appear in the original 1965 pilot episode for
CBS, nor did
The Robot. The series was already in production when Harris joined the cast, and starring/co-starring
billing had already been contractually assigned. Harris successfully negotiated to receive "Special Guest Star" billing on every episode.
Bill Mumy said of Harris' role in his first episode: The series was successful upon its debut and, midway through the first season, Harris began to rewrite his own dialogue to add more comedy, because he felt that his strength was in portraying a comic villain. Due to Harris's popularity on the show,
Irwin Allen approved his changes and gave him
carte blanche as a writer. Harris subsequently stole the show, mainly via a seemingly never-ending series of
alliterative insults directed toward The Robot, which soon worked their way into popular culture. Dr. Smith's best-known tropes included spitefully calling The Robot epithets such as "bubble-headed booby" and "clamoring clod". According to Bill Mumy, Harris moved quickly to develop the character: When the series was renewed for its third and final season, it remained focused on Harris' character, Dr. Smith. While the series was still solidly placed in the middle of the ratings pack, the writers appeared to run out of fresh ideas, and the show was unexpectedly canceled in 1968 after 83 episodes, despite protests from its fans.
Later career In the mid-1970s, Harris starred in live-action roles in two Saturday morning children's series,
Space Academy and ''
Uncle Croc's Block, and was a well-known TV spokesman for the International House of Pancakes (IHOP). He made several cameo and guest appearances during this period, including episodes of Bewitched and Sanford and Son''. In a 1971 episode of
Night Gallery, titled "Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay", Harris played Professor Nicholas Porteus, an expert on witchcraft. In 2001, a year prior to his death, he recorded voice work for the animated theatrical short
The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas. The film, Harris's last work, was released posthumously in 2009. Shying away from his usual dry, sarcastic, and often self-deprecating style, Conan confessed to Harris that he brought him on the show just to have him insult Pimp-Bot, and that the moment made his day. In late 2002, Harris and the rest of the surviving cast of the television series were preparing to film an NBC two-hour film titled
Lost in Space: The Journey Home; however, the project was unable to proceed after Harris' death.
Death and posthumous tributes After he had been in a hospital for a back injury, Harris died of a blood clot on November 3, 2002, three days before his 88th birthday. As a tribute to Harris, writer/director John Wardlaw wrote an additional scene for the film
The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas, which included Harris's final performance before his death. Wardlaw asked
Lost in Space co-stars
Bill Mumy,
Angela Cartwright, and
Marta Kristen to contribute their voices to the film. Wardlaw described how the three actors reunited in the recording studio on June 14, 2006: Nearly five years later, Harris' wife died of natural causes, at age 93, on August 28, 2007. ==Filmography==