Volume III: Biographies

HARRIS, William *

Actor (1912)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: William Harris was an actor with Thanhouser in 1912 and appeared in a skit at the April 15, 1912 Thanhouser Employees' First Annual Entertainment and Dance.

Biographical Notes: There were several show business personalities named William Harris, and it is possible that one of the following may have been the Thanhouser player:

1. An unlikely candidate is William Harris, Jr., who was the subject of an article in The New York Times, July 18, 1920, which began by stating: "The name of Harris occurs rather frequently in theatrical circles, and even those who follow the stage closely are sometimes confused." The narrative went on to describe various Harrises, including William, who years earlier was a theatre owner and was a partner of Klaw & Erlanger and Charles Frohman in certain houses in New York, Chicago, and Boston. This Harris died on November 25, 1916 at his home in Bayside, Long Island. A lengthy obituary appeared in The New York Dramatic Mirror, December 2, 1916. He was the father of two sons, Henry B., who went down in 1912 with the ill-fated Titanic, and William, Jr.

2. William Harris, Jr., son of the Harris just described, became a stage producer and was also involved in films. An article in the New York Morning Telegraph, March 20, 1906, stated that under the nom de plume of William Oakland, the young Harris, a Columbia University student, had written a burlesque, The Lion and the Mouse, which had opened the night before. An article in Vanity Fair, August 3, 1912, stated that he was 26 years old and was the manager of the Jungle Film Company, which controlled the Paul J. Rainey African hunt pictures. The year before he had been manager of the Harris Theatre, owned by his father. Among his successes by 1920, as reported in an article in The New York Times on July 18th of that year, were The Lion and the Mouse, The Third Degree, and The Chorus Lady. Under his direction at one time were Rose Stahl, Helen Ware, and Elsie Ferguson. William Harris, Jr. introduced Fay Bainter in New York City and among his production credits numbered The Yellow Jacket, Twin Beds, The Misleading Lady, The Thirteenth Chair, Arms and the Girl, East Is West, and, staged in July 1920, Abraham Lincoln. He died in New York City on September 2, 1946.

3. William Harris was mentioned in an article by William E. Sage, in the Cleveland Leader, March 3, 1911. He was an actor who had been on stage before the Civil War, who was an undercover agent in Canada for the Union during the conflict (where he was commissioned by President Abraham Lincoln to infiltrate and report on a Confederate plot to spread yellow fever in New York, by means of contaminated clothing), who worked with Forrest and Booth, and who in later years played countless roles before the footlights.

4. William Harris played a part in The Merry Maidens, a burlesque sketch which played at Cook's Opera House in Rochester, New York, according to a notice in The Rochester Post Express, May 14, 1912.

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