Jonathan Harris played Dr. Zachary Smith in Lost in Space. He was the only member of the original cast to reprise his role in Lost in Space: The Animated Series.
Jonathan Harris (born Jonathan Charasuchin; November 6, 1914 – November 3, 2002) was an American character actor. Two of his best-known roles were as the timid accountant Bradford Webster in the TV version of The Third Man and the prissy villain Dr. Zachary Smith of the 1960s science fiction television series Lost in Space. Near the end of his career, he provided the voice of "Manny", a praying mantis in the animated feature A Bug's Life.
Early Life
Jon & Gert as young children.
The second of three children, Harris was born to a poor family in The Bronx, New York City. His parents were Sam and Jennie Charasuchin, Russian Jewish immigrants who eked out a living in Manhattan's garment district.[2] His family resided in a six-tenant apartment complex. To raise money, his mother took in boarders, some of whom were given Jonathan's bed, forcing Jonathan to sleep on dining room chairs. From the age of 12, he worked as a pharmacy clerk.
While there was little money for luxuries, Jonathan's father took efforts to expand his son's cultural horizons. This included trips to the Yiddish Theatre, where he was encouraged by his father to listen to opera. Young Jonathan was enthralled. He discarded his Bronx accent and began to cultivate more sophisticated English tones. Although he could seldom afford tickets, Broadway plays were also an interest. Before graduation from James Monroe High School in 1931 (at age 16), he had also become interested in archeology, Latin, romantic poetry and, inevitably, Shakespeare. He did not fit amongst his peers (who included classmate Estelle Reiner, mother of future actor/director Rob Reiner) with the exception of his girlfriend, Gertrude Bregman, whom he subsequently married. In 1932, he legally changed his name from "Charasuchin" to "Harris", apparently without informing his parents. That same year, Harris's work at the pharmacy led him to attend nearby Fordham University where he majored in pharmacology. He graduated in 1936 and worked in several drugstores.
Career
Acting was Harris's first love. At 24, he prepared a fake résumé and tried out for a repertory company at the Millpond Playhouse in Long Island, New York and appeared in several of this troupe's plays, prior to landing a spot in The Red Company. In 1942, Jonathan won the leading role of a Polish officer in the Broadway play The Heart of a City. Adopting a Polish accent, he advised the producers that his parents were originally from Poland. In 1946, he starred in A Flag Is Born, opposite Quentin Reynolds and Marlon Brando.
Television
Harris became a popular character actor for 30 years on television, making his first guest appearance on an episode of The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre in 1949. The part led to other roles in such shows as: The Web, Lights Out, Goodyear Television Playhouse, Sanford and Son, 2 episodes of Hallmark Hall of Fame, Armstrong Circle Theatre, 3 episodes of Studio One, Telephone Time, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Climax!, The Outlaws, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, The Rogues, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, 2 episodes of Bewitched, among many others.
Harris returned to television, where he landed a co-starring role opposite Michael Rennie in The Third Man, from 1959-65. He played Bradford Webster, an eccentric, cowardly assistant. Half the episodes were shot in London, England; the rest were filmed in Hollywood. Harris' teenaged son would visit the set at this time, and Harris did whatever he could to bridge the gap between father and son and tried to make up for lost time.
From 1963-65, 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, "José Jiménez" (Bill Dana). This formula presaged the popular John Cleese hotel comedy, Fawlty Towers.
Don Adams rounded out the cast as an inept house detective—his character, dialog, and other comedy bits would soon carry over into his "Maxwell Smart" role on Get Smart. In similar fashion, several of Harris' one-liners from the show (such as "Oh, the pain!"), along with many character mannerisms, became part of the Dr. Zachary Smith character on Lost in Space. In an apparent homage to his earlier role, Harris played a similarly pompous diplomat on Get Smart in 1970. His female assistant is named "Zachary". He also guest-starred on The Ghost & Mrs. Muir. His last series guest-starring role was on an episode of Fantasy Island.
As Doctor Zachary Smith in Lost in Space
Harris beat out two other actors for the role of conniving, milksop, cowardly agent Dr. Zachary Smith on Lost In Space for CBS. The character did not appear in the original 1965 pilot episode (nor did The Robot). The series was already in production when he joined the cast and the starring/co-starring billings had already been contractually assigned, so Harris received a "Special Guest Star" credit on every episode. Also starring on the show were several popular actors including: Guy Williams as Prof. John Robinson, June Lockhart as John's wife, Maureen Robinson, Mark Goddard as Dr. Smith's long-suffering/handsome space adversary, Maj. Don West, and Angela Cartwright as middle child, Penny Robinson, including a couple of unfamiliar stars such as: Marta Kristen as John's and Maureen's oldest child, Judy Robinson and Bill Mumy as John's and Maureen's younger child and friend of Dr. Smith, Will Robinson.
A strong bond developed between Harris, Mumy, and some of the rest of the cast during the show's three-year tenure. From its debut, it was successful, until midway through the first season it had stiff competition from another newcomer, Batman, which dominated TV ratings. The show continued the tradition of such successful 1960s sci-fi series such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Midway through the first season, due to Harris' popularity on the show, he began to rewrite the dialogue. Allen approved his changes and gave him carte blanche to become a writer. Harris stole the show, mainly via a list of alliterative insults that soon worked their way into popular speech. When the show was renewed for its third and final season, it remained focused on Harris's 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.
One of Harris's co-stars, Mark Goddard, said of the show's eventual shift toward Harris's character, "I guess it was because they felt that the people wanted to see more of the Robot and Jonathan. Originally, when it was more science fiction, Irwin can really do those things so beautifully. So he really took those away from himself when he wanted to deal with the Robot and Jonathan playing games, cooking soufflés, or whatever else." Goddard was also asked if he had gotten along well with other castmates, other than Harris and Mumy:
No. There was a lot of tension on the set for the three years it was filmed. There was always a lot of tension, because the shows started going more toward the Robot and Smith. There were hard feelings from especially Guy and June, and also myself, but not as heavy as them, because they were originally sold as being the stars of the show when it began. It ended up that Harris became the star of the show," the last thing that he said, "I was friendly with everyone, pretty much. I think there was a period for a couple of months when I was angry at Jonathan Harris, for the same reasons, feeling that he was getting too many shows thrown his way. But we talk today. I see him, and there's no animosity between us. But I also had my disagreements with Guy Williams. When they started taking shows away from Guy, giving more to Jonathan, then Guy would come in and demand whatever I had in the show: any confrontations with Smith, or to save the kid, or anything. He'd end up doing all of that and I was the one that got squeezed out; I was doing almost nothing. There was one time where I went in to do a bit and had learned my lines, and was all ready to do my scene, when Guy started reading my lines. I said 'What's going on?' and he said 'This is my scene now.' They had given the lines to him. And that's where I got angry and walked off.
After a reunion of the entire surviving cast in December 1990, Goddard continued to stay in touch with Harris until his friend's death, late in 2002.
Bill Mumy said about Harris' guest role that in his first episode, "It was actually implied that this villainous character that sabotaged the mission and ended up with us, was going to be killed off after a while." Mumy added, "Jonathan played him as written, which was this really dark, straight-ahead villain." Mumy also said of Harris's work on Space, "And we'd start working on a scene together, and he'd have a line, and then in the script I'd have my reply, and he'd say, 'No, no, no, dear boy. No, no, no. Before you say that, The Robot will say this, this, this, this, this, this, and this, and then, you'll deliver your line.'" Bill also said of Harris' portrayal, "He truly, truly singlehandedly created the character of Dr. Zachary Smith that we know — this man, we love-to-hate, coward who would cower behind the little boy, 'Oh, the pain! Save me, William!' That's all him!" About the show's cancellation, Mumy said, "I don't know what happened. All I know is that we were all told we're coming back. Then, you know we got a call that we weren't."
The death of Harris' father in 1977 drew Harris and Mumy closer. The two kept in touch for almost 35 years until Harris' death. On June 14, 1995, Mumy and the rest of the crew paid tribute to series' creator Irwin Allen, who died late in 1991. In 1996, Mumy was reunited with Harris alongside Leonard Nimoy (of Star Trek fame), at a Disney World convention. It was also reported in 1997 that Mumy, Harris and the rest of the surviving cast appeared on the inside cover of TV Guide to promote the new movie, while the Sci-Fi Channel would feature a Lost in Space marathon. In the actual 1965 television premiere of Lost in Space, the blast-off of the Jupiter 2 is set in the future on October 16, 1997. The Sci-Fi Channel began the Lost in Space marathon in real-time 32 years later on October 16, 1997.
Typecasting
Although he is considered something of a cult icon for this role, Harris became typecast as the fey villain. Allen cast him as a villainous "Pied Piper" in an episode of Land of the Giants. Approached by Irwin Allen, a second time, to star in a children's series, Jumbalina and the Teeners, Harris turned it down. In 1970, Harris played the role of another not-so-likeable villain, when he guest starred as the Bulmanian Ambassador in the Get Smart episode, "How Green Was My Valet." Harris was also a co-star (alongside Charles Nelson Reilly) in the series Uncle Croc's Block, in which Harris and Reilly portrayed malcontents producing a children's TV show (Harris played the director and Reilly the titular host, Uncle Croc). A more favorable guest role of Harris' was his portrayal of Charles Dickens in a 1963 episode of Bonanza. He also appeared in two 1961 episodes of The Twilight Zone, one of which, being "The Silence," and in a very interesting and remarkable character reversal, as a hero, in which he ended up defending a young man challenged to be silent for a whole year at a prestigious gentleman's club. In 1971, Night Gallery cast Harris in the installment "Since Aunt Ada Came To Stay" as Professor Nicholas Porteus, whose knowledgeability about evil witches (and how to destroy them) led to his death but helped to resolve the installment's conflict.
Premier voice-over actor and guest starring roles
Harris spent most of the remainder of his career as a voice actor, heard in television commercials as well as cartoons such as Channel Umptee-3, The Banana Splits, My Favorite Martians, Rainbow Brite, Darkwing Duck, Happily Ever After, Problem Child, Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light (giving a master class in sycophancy as lackey to the main villain), Freakazoid! (reprising the Smith character and dialogue under the name "Professor Jones,") A Bug's Life, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Toy Story 2. He also had several cameo and guest appearances, including Zorro, Bewitched, Fantasy Island, Sanford and Son, "Ark II" and Uncle Croc's Block. Harris also provided the voiceover of the Cylon character "Lucifer" on the original Battlestar Galactica series. He also did voice-over work in an episode of the animated Superman series.
Harris taught drama and gave voice lessons to Chuck Norris and was credited for this by Norris in Good Guys Wear Black.
He starred in the Saturday morning children's series Space Academy and Uncle Croc's Block in the mid-seventies, and was a well-known TV spokesman for the International House of Pancakes. In 2009 his final performance was finally released. He had done a recording session in 2001 for a short animated film titled The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas in which he plays the Narrator and "The Bolt". He died about a year after his recording session, long before the independent film was completed. The film also features voiceover work by Bill Mumy, Angela Cartwright and Marta Kristen, their parts added to the film after his death as a small tribute with the film dedicated in his memory.
Later career
In 1990, Harris reunited with the cast of Lost In Space to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the show's debut, an event attended by more than 30,000 fans. In 1995, Harris (alongside June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Bill Mumy and Angela Cartwright) also appeared in The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen, a television tribute to Irwin Allen, who had died four years prior.
Harris reprised his role as Dr. Smith in the one-hour TV special Lost in Space Forever in 1998. However, unlike his costars in the original series (June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen and Angela Cartwright) he refused to make a cameo appearance in the motion picture version of Lost in Space earlier that year. He announced, "I've never played a bit part in my life and I'm not going to start now!" (Bill Mumy also did not appear in the feature film.) Gary Oldman played the part of Dr. Smith in the film, but as a more genuinely menacing and less likeable character than Harris' on TV. An episode of The Simpsons has a cameo of "Dr. Smith" along with The Robot; multiple episodes of Freakazoid had a character of a cowardly "Professor Jones"; in both "Professor Jones" utters his catchphrase "Oh, the pain!" In case there was any question about the parody, numerous characters would ask him, "Weren't you on a TV show with a robot?"
During the months leading up to the film's release, the Sci-Fi Channel aired Lost In Space marathons in many markets, in which each of the actors were interviewed. On April 9, 1998, Harris appeared as a guest on the talk show, where Harris fondly reminisced about his Lost In Space days, admitting he would stay up nights thinking of new insults for The Robot ("bellicose bumpkin", "bubble-headed booby") because he enjoyed the interaction so much. Host Conan O'Brien brought one of his characters, Pimp-Bot 5000 (a "robot pimp"), onto the set, and Harris went into character as Dr. Smith and proceeded to insult Pimp-Bot. 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.
The year 2009 saw the release of Harris's last work. Prior to his death, Harris had recorded voice work for the animated theatrical short The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas. Wanting to pay tribute to Harris, writer / director John Wardlaw wrote an additional scene for the film and asked Lost In Space co-stars Bill Mumy, Marta Kristen and Angela Cartwright to contribute their voices to the film. The three actors reunited in the recording studio on June 14, 2006. "This was the first time they had all been together in something unrelated to Lost in Space and it was a blast. They listened to what Harris had recorded and there were laughs and some tears.
Hobbies
Throughout his long life, Jonathan had a number of hobbies: gourmet cooking, watching movies, reading, traveling, painting, magic, playing piano (he played a piano teacher in a 1968 episode of Bewitched), listening to opera, spending time with children, gardening and needlepoint. He also did some dancing in his spare time. According to the A&E Biography, on one episode of Lost In Space, Jonathan's character, Dr. Smith, did a groovy 1960s dance with Penny and Will Robinson (Angela Cartwright and Bill Mumy).
Personal life and death
Jonathan & Gertrude's Wedding Photo
Jonathan was married to his childhood sweetheart, Gertrude Bregman (who died of natural causes on August 28, 2007 at age 93), from 1938 until his death in 2002.
They had a son, Richard (born 1942), as well as a daughter-in-law and two step-granddaughters.
Harris' father, Sam Charasuchin, was struck by a car while crossing the street in New York City in 1977. He was 93 years old at the time of his death.
In late 2002, Harris and the rest of the surviving cast of the TV series were preparing for an NBC two-hour movie entitled Lost In Space: The Journey Home. However, two months before the movie was set to film, he was taken to the hospital with what he thought was a back problem.
But on November 9, 2002, just one day before he was scheduled to return home, Jonathan Harris died of a blood clot to the heart.
He is interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. His eulogists included long-time friend and director Arthur Hiller, close friend and former Twentieth Century Fox television executive and producer Kevin Burns and fellow Lost in Space cast-mate and good friend Bill Mumy.
Jonathan Harris Interview:
http://lostinspace.wikia.com/wiki/Jonathan_Harris_Interview#Interview:_Jonathan_Harris
Quotes:
As Jonathan Harris' star power rose throughout Season One of 'Lost In Space", Harris had his own recollections of the journey with his cast mates that he shared with William E. Anchors, Jr. in a 1986 interview in the aforementioned book (p.350). "You want the truth? [laughter] They hated it. And me. And did I care? No. I will tell you. I am straight forward about it. I didn't care who keeps it on the air as long as it stays on the air and they send money every week. If it happens to be me, great. If it happens to be June Lockhart, great. Who cares, as long as we stay on the air?" He added, "So, as it turned out, it was me that was doing it and it was me, no matter what else you have heard. I was delighted that it was me because I got all the money. When June Lockhart did a TV Guide profile she said, 'Actually, if it hadn't been for Jonathan Harris we would have been off the air in thirteen weeks.' She was absolutely right." If he does say so himself. Harris certainly never mixed words or couched his feelings.
Other Links & Tributes:
This is a great link to a memorial of Jonathan Harris. It is from Bill Mumy's personal fan site. It has loads of pictures from Harris' childhood into adulthood:
This is a link to a great blog that has some great pictures and videos. The writer also quotes Harris from previous interviews:
This is a link to Bill Mumy's Eulogy for Jonathan Harris:
Videos:
This is a link to a very indepth interview with Jonathan Harris, probably one of his last interviews. It was conducted in 2001, by Jeff Abraham: http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/jonathan-harris#
This is an interview with Jonathan Harris about "Lost In Space" and how he created the character of the "Dr. Smith" that we know today:
Jonathan Harris interview (Lost In Space)
Never Fear Smith is Here with Jonathan Harris
Andrew Denton interviews Jonathan Harris (Lost In Space)
This is an A&E Biography:
Biography Jonathan Harris "Never Fear, Smith is Here"