Harris Plans Orleans Film

Ex-TV Star Here Slates Exploitation Movie

BY JILL JACKSON

 
HOLLYWOOD –After at least ten tries Stacy Harris and I finally set a date to spend a nice, long, leisurely evening to catch up on the last six years.

It’s been that long since Stacy lived in New Orleans for almost two years while he was portraying Lt. Victor Beaujac in the locally produced TV series, N.O.P.D.

The evening arrived, and so did Stacy, looking great, but a bit perturbed because he had just had a call from the studio to report early the next morning for a scene in a show he was filming, which meant learning his lines that night and arising at the crack of dawn.

The evening would have to be much shorter and more hurried than we had planned, but we did have time to chat in a charming little Chinese restaurant over lobster Cantonese, fried rice and sweet and pungent chicken, which Stacy ordered in Chinese.

Then we went to his beautiful hilltop home for coffee, so I could see it.  The house is built on three levels to conform to the hilly terrain.  The living room is large and graceful with a fireplace, comfortable chairs, treasures brought from Europe, piped music, and all the other accoutrements to make a man comfortable.

The study is his favorite room.  Here at a table he learns his “words,” as he calls his lines, and with a short turn of his head, through a large picture window, he can see all of Los Angeles below.

LINED WITH BOOKS

The walls are lined with books, bric-a-brac and boat models.  Sailing is Stacy’s hobby and he’s always out on the ocean at the tiller, time permitting.

Time, however, doesn’t permit too often as he is one of Hollywood’s most “in demand” actors.   He works constantly which is [text missing] limited roles and thousands of actors.

Stacy usually plays the “heavy” and can be counted upon either to get killed, beaten up, or brought to justice.  Recently he has been in The Untouchables, Wanted: Dead or Alive, and is very proud to say that in Wyatt Earp he played a nice guy.

Stacy’s latest plans are to make an exploitation movie in New Orleans.  The title, at this writing, is This Gam for Hire.  He will produce, assist with the writing, and possibly play a part.  In his own words he says, “New Orleans was good to me, I had a love affair with that City.”  He adores it and can’t wait to return.

KNOWS ORLEANS

Stacy Harris probably knows New Orleans better than most Orleanians.  As Lt. Beaujac his screen partner was a real life detective, Capt. Louis Sirgo.  Many was the night, and day too, that Stacy rode with the boys on authentic calls to saturate himself with the feel of the city, and the ways of the police to bring authenticity to his role.

Over coffee, listening to lovely music, we talked over old times, if you can call six years ago old times.  He adored Owen Brennan, and though he lived at the Claiborne Towers, he called the Old Absinthe House and Brennan’s his “offices.”  Stacy said he cannot visualize “our town” without Owen, and Tom Caplinger, Bob Tallant, Papa Celestin, Banjo Annie, and all the other departed characters.

All too soon it was ten p.m.  Stacy had fourteen sides to learn that night, so off we tooted in his T-Bird, down the hill to take me home.  We’re still going to get together to finish the conversation.

-New Orleans Daily Picayune, September 29, 1960

Jill Jackson (1912-2010) was a successful Hollywood-based columnist for many decades.  Originally hailing from New Orleans, she was hired by the Times Picayune to write a celebrity gossip column beginning in 1960.  Her column later expanded to a syndication package of 1500 news outlets.  Tulane University has a nice retrospective of her career here.

Louis Sirgo (1924-1973) costarred with Stacy Harris in N.O.P.D., a television series based in New Orleans.  Patterned after Dragnet, it was a low budget, but fun show.  Thirty-nine episodes were filmed on location in 1954 and it was nationally syndicated beginning in 1956.  Two movies were later compiled from the existing footage, New Orleans After Dark, released in 1958 and Four for the Morgue, in 1962.  He joined the NOPD in 1946 and worked as a homicide detective and later as a police captain before his retirement in 1964.  In 1970, he was reappointed New Orleans Deputy Police Superintendent.  He was gunned down on Jan. 7, 1973, one of nine people killed and ten seriously injured during a horrific rampage by a crazed sniper.  An account of the events can be found here.