DON HARRON
 Don Harron has had 66 years in this entertainment
business, starting at age 10 in 1935 earning fifteen bucks a shot drawing caricatures in
coloured chalk on big white sheets of paper. It was called a chalk talk and
Dons’ Dad earned extra money from them during the depression, but when Don copied his
Dad’s routine in a Boy Scout show, he started to replace Dad because it was more of a
novelty, even though Don wasn’t nearly as good as Dad.
Someone
attending one of the banquets in 1936 where Don did his little show asked the lad to come
to their office and read a script. Don didn’t know what a script was but he
turned up and auditioned for role in a 3 times a week radio series on the Canadian Radio
Commission, the predecessor of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which started 3
months after Don started his radio career. Don feels the CBC are Johnny come
latelies.
As
soon as the CBC came in, Don’s series was cancelled and his career was pretty low-key
until after he came back to civilian life after 2 years in the RCAF 1943-45. Radio
beckoned again when Fletcher Markle saw Don in a barn theater production and he made a
pretty good living during his undergraduate years 1945-48 and also appeared regularly in a
professional theater, the New Play Society at the Royal Ontario Museum, across the road
from his Victoria college. By the way in early March of this year Don hosted a gala
opening of a new theater built over the tennis courts of his alma mater.
In
1948, Don appeared in the very first “Spring Thaw” and had to leave in the
middle of “Spring Thaw” 1950 because he had a ticket to England. Instead
of a five week tour of Europe he spent 2 years in London because after his first 48 hours
there he had a part in a West End play and a 13 week contract with BBC Radio as a comedy
writer.
He
came back from England via New York where he appeared in Christoper Fry’s
”A Sleep of Prisoners” and toured the U.S. in it for the six months arriving
back home in Canada in time for “Spring Thaw ‘52” where he introduced his
rural character Charlie Farquharson. Charlie also appeared on the very first day of
CBC Television, commenting on the biggest new of the day, the Boyd gang robbery of several
Toronto banks. Charlie said: “They tell me some banks has bin robbed by outside
parties. Makes a change.”
The
first year of television in Canada Don worked 18 hours a day, performing regularly in
radio and often on TV, a Variety show The Big Revue once a month and a 90 minute drama
General Motors Presents every three weeks. In addition, Don wrote 13 out of 26
scripts for the Stephen Leacock series “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.”
The
following spring, Don auditioned with Tyrone Guthrie for the first season of the Stratford
Shakesperean Festival, and was given the juvenile lead in “All’s Well that Ends
Well.” After the season, Don left a financially rewarding career in Canadian
Television to go back to England as a ten-pound-a-week actor in the Bristol Old Vic,
returning in time for the second Stratford, Ontario season.
After
that season he received a call to replace an actor in an Irish play attempting to be a
Broadway tryout, called “Home is the Hero”. The play ran a month at the
Booth Theater but Walter Kerr called Don one of the 3 best young actors in North
America. He was immediately signed along with Christopher Plummer to support
Catherine Cornell and Tyrone Power in ”The Dark is Light Enough”.
Don
returned for the 3rd season of Stratford Ontario playing Bassanio in “The Merchant of
Venice” and Octavius Caesar in “Julius Caesar”. On opening day, he
received a phone call from Walter Kerr the drama critic from the New York Herald Tribune
who would see Don on stage that night. He offered Don the co-star role in his wife
Jean Kerr’s play which was going to London that fall. Don waited for this to
happen, but his co-star Donald Cook died soon after and the production was
cancelled. While waiting around Don created a fall version of “Spring
Thaw” called “Fine Frenzy” with Jane Mallett and Dave Broadfoot and himself
as Charlie Farquharson swimming Lake Ontario in his long underwear and covered in Crown
Brand Corn Syrup. Norman Campell (who was the original owner of Charlies sweater),
came backstage and told Don CBC had offered ninety minutes of TV time to do an original
Canadian musical. Don suggested Anne of Green Gables. It was repeated twice
and Wayne and Shuster borrowed the title song in 1964 for their special Royal Command show
in Charlottetown celebrating the opening of the new theater and cultural complex.
Diane Stapley sang the song, and after the show the Queen came backstage and said: “
It’s a very pretty tune but where’s the rest of the show?” Mavor
Moore phoned Don who was doing television in California and said: “That’s a
royal command”. The stage version opened in July of 1965 and is still running
for its 36th consecutive season in that same theater.
The
combination of “Anne” and meeting Catherine McKinnon brought Don back to Canada
where he was commissioned to write the Centennial edition of “Spring
Thaw”. Featured in the show, was Catherine McKinnon and the two were married
two years later in the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago because Don was playing Shakespeare
there with the Goodman Theater. The couple had a one-night honeymoon, Catherine left
for Toronto to headline at the Royal York’s Imperial Room and Don flew to England to
start rehearsals of the West End production of “Anne”. Catherine rejoined
him for opening night, and then they took off for Paris for the real honeymoon.
“Anne” got rave reviews and was voted the Best Musical of the 69-70 season by
Plays and Players magazine.
Returning
to Canada, Don went immediately to Nashville, Tennessee to the local CBS Channel Five,
which had on staff at the time both Oprah Winfrey and Al Gore. But Don was there to
initiate “Hee-Haw” a summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers show.
Along with a Canadian contingent of producer-writers Frank Peppiatt and John Aylesworth
and fellow comedian Gordie Tapp, this temporary show lasted 25 years, and Don was aboard
for 18 of the as the resident intellectual KORN Newcaster Charlie Farquharson.
Don
Harron has done everything in this business including 2 years as a Game Show host,
co-creator of a documentary with Norman Campbell (The Unselfish Giant, about Tyrone
Guthrie) performed in an Opera at Stratford (as a mute), and a ballet in Spring Thaw
‘87 which reduced the battle of Plains of Abraham to a basketball game. He has
also written twelve books, ten of them best sellers, and last year entered the Canadian
Comedy Hall of Fame.
What’s
next? A tour of Ontario theaters in a two-person revue along with Catherine and a
trio under the direction of Diane Leah. Then it’s back to the barn Catherine
built for them 2 years ago next to her restaurant and gift shop. They open July 5th
with a new show called “Barn Again”.
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