Jonathan Harris

 ( 1914 Births ) 

In 1942, Harris won the leading role of a Polish officer in the Broadway theatre play The Heart of a City, adopting a Polish accent. In 1946, he starred in A Flag Is Born, opposite Quentin Reynolds and Marlon Brando.

Harris landed a co-starring role opposite Michael Rennie in The Third Man, from 1959 to 1965. He played Bradford Webster, an eccentric, cowardly assistant. Half of the episodes were shot in London, England; the rest were filmed in Hollywood.

Harris appeared in two 1961 episodes of The Twilight Zone, including a heroic role in "The Silence", in which he ended up defending a young man challenged to be silent for a whole year at a prestigious gentleman's club. Harris also portrayed Charles Dickens in a 1963 episode of Bonanza.

From 1963 to 1965, Harris co-starred in the sitcom The Bill Dana Show. He played Mr. Phillips, the pompous manager of a posh hotel who is constantly at odds with his bumbling Bolivian bellhop, the Bill Dana character José Jiménez. Don Adams rounded out the cast as an inept house detective, a character whose distinctive mannerisms and catchphrases would soon carry over into his Maxwell Smart role on Get Smart. In similar fashion, several of Harris's from the series, such as "Oh, the pain!", along with the character's mannerisms and delivery, became part of the Dr. Zachary Smith character on Lost in Space.

Harris played a similarly pompous diplomat on Get Smart in 1970. His female assistant was named Zachary. Harris also guest-starred on The Ghost & Mrs. Muir.

Bill Mumy said of Harris' role in his first episode:

The series was successful upon its debut and, midway through the first season, Harris began to rewrite his own dialogue to add more comedy, because he felt that his strength was in portraying a comic villain. Due to Harris's popularity on the show, Irwin Allen approved his changes and gave him as a writer. Harris subsequently stole the show, mainly via a seemingly never-ending series of Alliteration insults directed toward The Robot, which soon worked their way into popular culture. Dr. Smith's best-known tropes included spitefully calling The Robot epithets such as "bubble-headed booby" and "clamoring clod".

According to Bill Mumy, Harris moved quickly to develop the character:

When the series was renewed for its third and final season, it remained focused on Harris' character, Dr. Smith. While the series was still solidly placed in the middle of the ratings pack, the writers appeared to run out of fresh ideas, and the show was unexpectedly canceled in 1968 after 83 episodes, despite protests from its fans.

In a 1971 episode of Night Gallery, titled "Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay", Harris played Professor Nicholas Porteus, an expert on witchcraft.

His last series guest-starring role was on an episode of Fantasy Island. He also starred as the character Fagan in the first episode of the science fiction series Ark II.

Harris taught drama, and was Chuck Norris's vocal coach for many years. Norris credited Harris for teaching him "how to speak" by sticking his fingers in Norris's mouth, adding that Harris was the only person in the world he would allow to do that.

In 1970, Harris played the role of another not-so-likeable villain, the Bulmanian Ambassador in the Get Smart episode "How Green Was My Valet". Harris was also a co-star, alongside Charles Nelson Reilly, in the series Uncle Croc's Block, in which Harris and Reilly portrayed malcontents producing a children's television show. Harris played the director and Reilly the titular host, Uncle Croc. In the cartoon (1987), he played lackey and sycophant Mortdred to the main villain Darkstorm.

Harris also provided the voice of the Cylon character Lucifer, an antagonist on the original ABC version of Battlestar Galactica (1978).

In 2001, a year prior to his death, he recorded voice work for the animated theatrical short The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas. The film, Harris's last work, was released posthumously in 2009.

On June 14, 1995, Harris and other cast members appeared in The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen, a television tribute to Irwin Allen, the creator of Lost in Space, who had died in 1991.

Harris refused to make a cameo appearance in the 1990s re-imagined film version of Lost in Space (1998), unlike many of his co-stars in the original series. He announced: "I've never played a bit part in my life and I'm not going to start now!" However, he did make promotional appearances for the film:

• Harris reprised his role as Dr. Smith in the one-hour television special Lost in Space Forever, and Harris and the rest of the surviving television cast appeared on the inside cover of an issue of TV Guide.
• In April 1998, Harris appeared as a guest on the talk show Biography, on which Harris fondly reminisced about his Lost in Space days, admitting he would stay up nights thinking of new Alliteration insults for The Robot ("bellicose bumpkin," "bubble-headed booby") because he enjoyed the interaction so much.
• For an appearance by Harris, talk show host Conan O'Brien brought one of his characters, Pimp-Bot 5000 (a "robot pimp"; half 1950s’ robot, half 1970s’ street pimp), onto the set, and Harris went into character as Dr. Smith and proceeded to insult Pimp-Bot. Shying away from his usual dry, sarcastic, and often self-deprecating style, Conan confessed to Harris that he brought him on the show just to have him insult Pimp-Bot, and that the moment made his day.

In late 2002, Harris and the rest of the surviving cast of the television series were preparing to film an NBC two-hour film titled Lost in Space: The Journey Home; however, the project was unable to proceed after Harris' death.