In 1975, Harrison released his first autobiography. In June 1989, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He was married six times and had two sons: Noel and Carey Harrison. He continued working in stage productions until shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in June 1990 at the age of 82. His second autobiography, A Damned Serious Business: My Life in Comedy, was published posthumously in 1991.
Early life
Reginald Carey Harrison was born on 5 March 1908 at Derry House in Huyton, Lancashire,[1] the son of Edith Mary (née Carey) and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker.[2] From the age of 10 he went by the name “Rex”, which he adopted for himself.[3] He was the youngest of three children and had two older sisters, Edith Marjorie Harrison (1900-1976) and Sylvia Sackville, Countess De La Warr, DBE (1903-1992).[4][5] He was educated at Birkdale preparatory school and Liverpool College.[3] After a bout of childhood measles, Harrison lost most of the sight in his left eye.[3] He showed an early desire to become an actor, with regular appearances in school plays, and visits to the Liverpool Playhouse.[3]
Stage career
Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool where Harrison made his stage debut in 1924
Harrison first appeared on stage in 1924 in Thirty Minutes in a Street at the Liverpool Playhouse, when he was 16 years old. He remained there, playing small parts, until 1927 when he joined a touring production of Charley's Aunt. Six years of touring and repertory followed. He achieved critical acclaim for Heroes Don't Care in 1936. His West End debut in the same year was in Terence Rattigan's French Without Tears which proved to be his breakthrough stage role as a leading light comedian.[3] His acting career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the Royal Air Force (1942–1944), reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant.[6]
Harrison played Adolphus in Major Barbara (1941)—filmed in London during The Blitz of 1940, a role for which he received critical acclaim, and a success at the British box office. He was then absent from screens due to war service (1942–1944).[6]
Harrison returned to films as the lead in Blithe Spirit (1945), from the play by Noël Coward, directed by David Lean. Coward described him as "The best light comedy actor in the world—except for me."[13]
Harrison received an offer from 20th Century Fox to star in Anna and the King of Siam (1946) in Hollywood. Harrison signed a long term contract with Fox.
Back in England, he appeared in The Long Dark Hall (1951) opposite his then wife Lilli Palmer. They co-starred in an adaptation of The Four Poster (1952).
Harrison starred in 1967's Doctor Dolittle. At the height of his box office fame after the success of My Fair Lady, Harrison proved a temperamental force during production, demanding auditions for prospective composers after musical playwright Leslie Bricusse was contracted[14] and demanding to have his singing recorded live during shooting, only to agree to have it rerecorded in post-production.[15] He also disrupted production by engaging in incidents with his then wife, Rachel Roberts, and through other deliberate misbehaviour, such as intentionally moving his yacht in front of cameras during shooting in St Lucia and refusing to move it out of sight, all prompted by contract disputes.[16] Harrison was at one point temporarily replaced by Christopher Plummer, until he agreed to be more cooperative.[17] Harrison was not by any objective standards a singer and the talking on pitch style he used in My Fair Lady was adopted by many other classically trained actors with limited vocal ranges; the music was written to allow for long periods of recitative, or "speaking to the music". Nevertheless "Talk to the Animals", which Harrison performed in Doctor Dolittle, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1967. In a rare coincidence the very next year his son Noel Harrison sang the song that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, The Windmills of Your Mind.
Harrison made two more films for 20th Century Fox, both expensive play adaptations that failed at the box office: A Flea in Her Ear (1968), and Staircase (1969).[18]
Alexander Walker wrote: "in looks and temperament, Rex went back to the Elizabethans. They would have called him 'a man of passionate parts'. His physique and looks were far more striking once middle age had literally stretched too smooth and callow a youthful face into a long, saturnine physiognomy, whose hooded eyes and wide mouth had satyr-like associations for some people."[19]
Harrison was married six times. In 1942, he divorced his first wife, Noel Margery Colette Thomas, and married actress Lilli Palmer the next year; they later appeared together in numerous plays and films, including The Four Poster.[20] Whilst married to Palmer, he built a villa at Portofino, San Genesio, where over the years he hosted showbiz royalty including Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud and real ex-royalty in the Duke of Windsor and his wife.
In 1947, while married to Palmer, Harrison began an affair with actress Carole Landis. Landis took her own life in 1948 after spending the evening with Harrison.[21] Harrison's involvement in the scandal by waiting several hours before calling a doctor and police[22] briefly damaged his career and his contract with Fox was ended by mutual consent.[23]
In 1955, Harrison starred opposite Kay Kendall in The Constant Husband, and they had an affair.[24] When he learned that Kendall had been diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia, he and Palmer agreed to divorce so that he could marry Kendall and provide for her care.[25] Harrison and Palmer divorced in 1957 and he married Kendall the same year. Kendall died of myeloid leukaemia in 1959.[26]Terence Rattigan's 1973 play In Praise of Love was written about the end of this marriage, and Harrison appeared in the New York production playing the character based on himself. Rattigan was said to be "intensely disappointed and frustrated" by Harrison's performance, as "Harrison refused to play the outwardly boorish parts of the character and instead played him as charming throughout, signalling to the audience from the start that he knew the truth about [the] illness."[27] Critics, however, were quite pleased with the performance and although it did not have a long run it was yet another of Harrison's well-plotted naturalistic performances.
He was subsequently married to Welsh actress Rachel Roberts from 1962 to 1971. Harrison then married Elizabeth Rees-Williams, divorcing in 1975; finally, in 1978, he married Mercia Tinker, his sixth and final wife.[28] In 1980, despite his having married twice since their divorce, Roberts made a final attempt to win Harrison back, which proved to be futile; she took her own life that same year.[29]
Harrison's elder son, Noel Harrison, became an Olympic skier, singer and occasional actor; he toured in several productions including My Fair Lady in his father's award-winning role; Noel died suddenly of a heart attack on 19 October 2013 at age 79. Rex's younger son, Carey Harrison, is a playwright and social activist.
Harrison owned properties in London, New York City and Portofino, Italy. His villa in Portofino was named San Genesio after the patron saint of actors.[30]
Death
Harrison died from the effects of pancreatic cancer at his home in Manhattan, New York City, on 2 June 1990 at the age of 82. He had been diagnosed with the disease only a short time before. The stage production in which he was appearing at the time, The Circle, came to an end upon his death.[31]
Ex-CIA chief of disguise Jonna Mendez stated in 2019 that a mask of Harrison was used by multiple CIA agents for covert work. The moulds of his face were larger and so could fit over a smaller agents face. The moulds were made from aluminium and bought from Hollywood film facilities. She mentioned that his likeness was "taking part in a lot of operations".[55] According to Mendez, Rex Harrison's aluminium facial props mould was used as a baseline for over-the-head masks that the agency would create and use operationally. The masks came in small, medium and large sizes, with Rex's mould becoming the agency's standard "large" size. Subsequently, many undercover operatives' real identities were disguised by masks bearing Rex's facial features.[55]
References
^Derry House, Huyton: Aaronson, Charles S, ed. 1969 International Television Almanac, Quigley Publications, New York City
Donnelley, Paul (2003). Fade To Black: A Book Of Movie Obituaries (2nd ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN978-0-7119-9512-3.
Fleming, E. J. (2004). The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling, and The MGM Publicity Machine. McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-2027-8.
Golden, Eve; Kendall, Kim Elizabeth (2002). The Brief, Madcap Life of Kay Kendall. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN978-0-8131-2251-9.
Hadleigh, Boze (2001). The Lavender Screen: The Gay and Lesbian Films – Their Stars, Directors, and Critics (3rd ed.). Citadel Press. ISBN978-0-8065-2199-2.
Parish, James Robert (2007). The Hollywood Book of Extravagance: The Totally Infamous, Mostly Disastrous, and Always Compelling Excesses of America's Film and TV Idols. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN978-0-470-05205-1.
Harrison, Rex (1991). A Damned Serious Business: My Life in Comedy. ISBN0-553-07341-9
Garland, Patrick (1998). The Incomparable Rex. (1998) ISBN0-333-71796-1
Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. ISBN1-904994-10-5
Thomas, Nick (2011). Raised by the Stars: Interviews with 29 Children of Hollywood Actors. McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-6403-6. (Includes an interview with Harrison's son, Carey)
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rex Harrison.
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