Phil Harris - Phil and Alice

Phil and Alice

Harris and Faye married in 1941; it was a second marriage for both (Faye had been married briefly to singer-actor Tony Martin) and lasted 54 years, until Harris's death. Harris engaged in a fistfight at the Trocadero nightclub in 1938 with RKO studio mogul Bob Stevens; the cause was reported to be over Faye after Stevens and Faye had ended a romantic relationship. In 1942, Harris and his entire band enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and they served until the end of World War II. By 1946, Faye had all but ended her film career. She drove off the 20th Century Fox lot after studio czar Darryl F. Zanuck reputedly edited her scenes out of Fallen Angel (1945) to pump up his protege Linda Darnell.

Originally a vehicle for big bands, including Harris' own, The Fitch Bandwagon became something else entirely when Harris and Faye's family skits made them the show's breakout stars. Coinciding with their desire to settle in southern California and raise their children---Phil Jr. (born 1935 and whom Harris had adopted while previously married), Alice (born 1942) and Phyllis (born 1944), The Fitch Bandwagon name disappeared when Rexall became the program's sponsor in 1948; the show was renamed The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. By that time, it had become a full-fledged situation comedy featuring one music spot each for Harris and Faye.

Harris was the vain, language-challenged, stumbling husband, and Faye was his acid but loving wife on the air. Off the air, as radio historian Gerald S. Nachman has recorded, Harris was actually a soft-spoken, modest man. "But it was the 'Phil Harris' character," wrote radio historian John Dunning (in On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio), "that carried : his timing was exceeded by none, including Benny himself. Like Benny, Harris played a character who in real life would be intolerable. That both men projected themselves through this charade and made their characters treasures of the air was a notable feat."

Young actresses Jeanine Roos and Anne Whitfield played the Harris' two young daughters on the air; unlike Ozzie and Harriet Nelson's two young sons, the Harris's real-life children did not seem to have any inclination to join their famed parents on the air. The series also featured Gale Gordon as Mr. Scott, their sponsor's harried representative, and Great Gildersleeve co-star Walter Tetley as obnoxious grocery boy Julius Abruzzio. Elliott Lewis – already a distinguished radio performer and producer/director – found himself in a comic role that would be long remembered, playing Frank Remley, a layabout guitarist whose mission in life seemed to be getting Harris into and out of trouble almost continuously; his "I know a guy . . ." – usually, referring to a shady character he'd enlist to help Harris out of a typical jam – became one of the show's catch-phrases.

The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show ran until 1954, by which time radio had succumbed to television. Harris continued to appear on Jack Benny's show, along with his own, from 1948 to 1952. Because the Harris show aired immediately after Benny's on a different network (Harris and Faye were still on NBC, whereas Benny jumped his show to CBS in 1949), Harris would only appear during the first half of the Benny show; he would then leave the CBS studio and walk approximately one block to his own studio down the street, arriving just in time for the start of his own program. He was succeeded as Benny's orchestra leader in the fall of 1952 by Bob Crosby.