Volume III: Biographies

HARRIS, Elmer

Scenario writer (1912-1913)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: In 1912 and 1913, Elmer Harris was an assistant to Lloyd F. Lonergan and helped write scenarios for Thanhouser.

Biographical Notes: Elmer Blaney Harris was born in Chicago on January 11, 1878. He attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he wrote the scripts for student plays. After his graduation in 1901 he was seen on Broadway with Robert Edeson in Soldiers of Fortune. Harris returned to California and secured a position as a drama critic for The San Francisco Bulletin, while writing short stories on a freelance basis. In the early 1900s he was drama critic for The New York Globe for several years, succeeding Glenmore Davis in that position. In 1903, one of his plays, Tempesta, was produced in Germany. He acted on stage from time to time, and, among other roles in various productions, was seen as a spy in Olga Nethersole's The Awakening.

Elmer Harris turned to serious writing for the stage, and in 1909 his first Broadway play, Sham, opened at Wallack's Theatre. His later stage scripts included Thy Neighbor's Wife (a 1911 play which was subsequently developed into a musical, So Long, Letty), The Offenders, Canary Cottage, Poor Mama, The Romantic Lady, The Inner Silence, The Great Necker, Stepping Out, Young Sinners, A Modern Virgin, and Marriage for Three.

His motion picture work included writing for Thanhouser (as an assistant to Lloyd F. Lonergan) and the Mutual Program in 1912 and 1913. From time to time his activities were mentioned editorially in the Mutual house organ, Reel Life. In July 1913, Charles J. Hite, president of the Thanhouser Film Corporation, transferred him to the Majestic Film Corporation in Los Angeles, for whom he continued to write.

From about 1919 to 1921, Elmer Harris was director-general of Realart Pictures, a division of Famous Players-Lasky. For a time he was an associate of Cecil B. DeMille. Later, he was an editor and script writer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Among the players who were seen in his films were Mary Miles Minter, Bebe Daniels, Thomas Meighan, and Jack Pickford. At least 80 of his film and stage scripts were copyrighted, and there were numerous additional early scripts and scenarios that were not. For many years he maintained a summer home on Prince Edward Island in Canada. It was there, at Fortune Bridge, he became acquainted with a deaf millhand, who served as the model for the title role in Harris' Johnny Belinda, a production which played 321 performances on Broadway in the 1940s and was later made into a highly-acclaimed film.

Elmer Harris married Wilhelmina B. Henderson (who died in Washington, D.C. on August 29, 1963, at the age of 82). Elmer Harris died at Doctors' Hospital in Washington, on September 6, 1966. He was survived by his two sons, Victor Harris, who worked in Washington, D.C. with North American Aviation, and E. Blaney Harris, Jr., who lived in Chappaqua, New York, and was an official of WPIX-TV; four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. His sister, Lillian Harris Coffin, who died in San Francisco on March 27, 1968, at one time was European correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor.

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