Early and Personal Life
Harris was born in Englewood Hospital, in Englewood, New Jersey, and raised in Tenafly, the son of Margaret, a travel agent, and Robert L. Harris, who sang with the Fred Waring chorus and worked at the bookstore of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has an older brother, Robert, and a younger brother, Spencer. His parents were originally from Oklahoma. Harris was raised in a middle-class Presbyterian family. He graduated from Tenafly High School in 1969, where he played on the football team, serving as the team's captain in his senior year. He was a star athlete in high school, and competed in athletics at Columbia University in 1969. Two years later his family moved to New Mexico, and he followed, after having discovered his interest in acting in various theater plays. He enrolled at the University of Oklahoma to study drama. After several successful roles in the local theater, he moved to Los Angeles, and enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts. He spent two years there, and graduated with a BFA.
Harris's wife is actress Amy Madigan. The couple married on 21 November 1983, while they were filming Places in the Heart in which they played an adulterous couple. They have a daughter, Lily Dolores Harris, born in 1993.
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