Target Practice

Those frequent gun shots on The Adventures of the Thin Man have finally had their effect on actress Elspeth Eric--she's acquired a 22-calibre rifle and is shooting it out on her own.  Another radio refugee from the whodunits, Stacy Harris, gifted the rifle to Miss Eric, and the two can be seen out on the countryside these fall mornings, taking pot shots at tin cans, rocks, and assorted vegetable and mineral targets.  "No birds or animals," says Miss Eric. "Too gruesome!"

-Harrisburg (PA) Telegraph Nov. 9, 1946

Born in 1907, Elspeth Eric was a successful radio actress and writer.  She died in 1993.

Cheers Grow Dim and Colors Fade for Artist-Athlete, Critically Ill

Artist-Athlete Is Losing Hope

A serious illness has almost stripped from the heart of Stanley D. Harris, 20 year-old Roosevelt High School graduate, the will to live.  Until a few days ago young Harris, who lies in critical condition in Swedish Hospital, was taxed to find the time to do all the living he wanted to enjoy.

Artist and athlete, Harris is a curious combination of robust directness and quiet subtlety.  In high school, he alternated between playing football and lying on Seattle docks, sketching ships in quiet moods.  On other occasions he spent hilarious, voluble moments as Roosevelt's cheer leader.

He didn't like leading leather-lunged students in wild cries.  He felt it was "sissy."  But he found nothing "sissy" in several outlets of his artistic nature, carving figures in soap, and during the winter, in snow; making sketches and paintings.

Physicians at Swedish Hospital planned today to give the youth a little milk.  Recently he had been fed through the veins.  The youth's mother, Mrs. David Harris, 7803 W. Green Lake Way, took heart at that news, she said.

Only last Monday her son said to her: "Mother, I don't think I want to live.  I want to kiss you good-bye."

The hopeless tone in his voice, the tired look in his eyes, discouraged Mrs. Harris.  It sounded so unlike the virile son who used to stride about the house in his corduroys, eager for whatever he planned to do next.

Parents do Leading

If Stanley Harris isn't interested in life anymore--if the zest has been taken away from him by the long, dreary twenty days since his operation after he suffered a burst appendix--Stanley Harris' parents are doing the cheer-leading and cheering for their sick son.  They've taken a houseboat along Westlake Avenue, where bright sunlight streams across the decks of dozens of ships that would make fine subjects for the youth who likes to sketch and paint them.

Young Harris learned to draw and paint without instruction.  He engaged in art work, swimming and amateur acting with equal enthusiasm.  He graduated from Roosevelt last year, and since then has been doing whatever he could find in the way of work.  Stanley Harris may face another operation in a few days, but he doesn't know it yet.  That is best.  He is already too indifferent to his future for his physical good.


-Seattle Daily Times Apr. 16, 1936

Dragnet, April 26, 1954

Stacy Harris pops up as a used car dealer in the Dragnet comic strip dated April 26, 1954.  

This time the artist is Mel Keefer.  

Actor Moved By Applause

HOLLYWOOD--Sixty cast and crew members on 20th Century-Fox's Return to Peyton Place set paid Stacy Harris one of the highest tributes an actor can earn when they broke into spontaneous applause for his dramatic performance in an emotional scene.

Stacy, playing Leslie Harrington in the daytime NBC-TV drama, was deeply moved.

"I starred as a Broadway actor, won a New York Critics' Award, have 20 motion pictures to my credit and appeared in 350 television shows," he said.  "But never have I received such an ovation from my co-workers."



-Abilene (TX) Reporter News Apr. 8, 1973

This article was published posthumously.

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

The Helen Corday Murder, Part VII

 *Alas, the strip from Thursday, August 7, 1952 is missing. However, the good news is that I found a better source for many of the daily comic strips, which are much clearer than the set reprinted here.  I hope to update them within the next week.  Stay tuned, because they really are quite stylish and fun.

*Update, Mar. 23: Still looking for the strip from Aug. 7, 1952.  It's the one where the cartoon Stacy Harris killer goes berserk.  I think we'll get lucky. 

I also missed a very big (and glaringly obvious) inside joke the first time around: the killer of Helen Corday is named Stanley Meyer in the comic strip.  The real Stanley Meyer produced the b&w Dragnet tv series as well as the 1954 film.

I found out some more information about the comic strip, along with some cleaner copies of the first few strips here.  Right as rain, the artist made the effort to depict Barney Phillips as Ed Jacobs, at least initially. 

I also found a week's worth of preview comic strips, which I posted on my other blog, here.  We're treated to seeing Joe Friday at home with his mother and a very clear depiction of Barton Yarborough as his partner.

The Helen Corday Murder, Part VI