Thursday, March 13, 2014

Actor, former Seattleite, dies at 54

LOS ANGELES -- (UPI) -- Stacy Harris, actor, sportswriter, cartoonist and soldier of fortune, died of a heart attack yesterday.  He was 54.

Harris played the role of Leslie Harrington in the television series Return to Peyton Place, and frequently had roles in Jack Webb productions, including the original Dragnet on radio.  He played the lead in This Is Your F.B.I. on radio for several years and was the star of the Doorway To Danger TV series in 1953.

Born in Big Timber, Que., in 1918, Harris was a finalist in the Golden Gloves Boxing Tournament in Seattle in 1934.  He later worked as a sportswriter for The San Francisco Chronicle in the 1930s and as a staff cartoonist for The New Orleans Times-Picayune after World War II.

He left The Chronicle in the 1930s to join the Army Air Corps, but was injured in a crash after winning his wings and was given a medical discharge.

He came to Hollywood and got radio acting jobs, but when World War II broke out he became a merchant seaman and then went to Africa as an ambulance driver for the Gaullist Free French Forces.  On arrival he transferred to the Foreign Legion, won the Croix de Guerre in combat, was wounded and was given another medical discharge.

Harris was the son of David S. Harris, 1421 Minor Ave. in Seattle, who had been a department store Santa Claus here since the early '50s.  Funeral services were pending.

-Seattle Daily Times March 14, 1973

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