Biography
Few observers familiar with Richard Harris's screen work after a decade in the profession would have imagined the brawling, hard-drinking Irish performer achieving popularity as a vocalist in 1967. Yet within roughly twelve months he stood as the foremost actor-singer popular music had yet produced, boasting a gold record and airplay that matched the Beatles.
Born to a mill owner, Harris attended Sacred Heart Jesuit College before training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He first stepped onto a stage in 1956 and entered cinema two years later with the British feature Alive and Kicking. Substantial supporting parts followed in large-scale productions such as The Guns of Navarone and Mutiny on the Bounty, where his portrayal eclipsed Marlon Brando's Fletcher Christian. International recognition arrived with This Sporting Life in 1963. Throughout the middle of the decade Harris ranked among the most prominent Irish performers in worldwide cinema, sharing the spotlight with Michael Caine and Sean Connery, even though leading roles remained infrequent. Cromwell in 1970 supplied one such lead, yet A Man Called Horse that same year cemented his status as a popular-culture figure and generated two sequels across the following thirteen years.
Harris's portrayal of King Arthur in Warner Bros.' 1967 film adaptation of Lerner & Loewe's Camelot first prompted audiences to regard him as a singer. Directed by Joshua Logan, the picture ran to extraordinary length and moved at a deliberate pace, yet Harris delivered a riveting performance that demonstrated greater vocal ability than Rex Harrison, who had originated the role on Broadway and preserved it on the original-cast recording. Like Harrison, Harris delivered much of the material in a spoken style, but he infused each number with an actor's interpretive depth, leaving listeners convinced they had encountered a genuinely pleasing singing voice. The Warner Bros. soundtrack remained available for decades and ultimately proved more lucrative than the film.
One year afterward, his friend Jimmy Webb offered an ambitious, extended pop composition that Harris consented to record. The finished track reached Lou Adler's Dunhill label, where the seven-and-a-half-minute "MacArthur Park" climbed to number two on the U.S. charts and overturned the long-standing AM-radio rule against singles exceeding three-and-a-half minutes. Its parent album, A Tramp Shining, emerged as one of the era's standout pop releases: an elegantly crafted, meticulously produced concept record indebted in part to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and comparable to any similar effort by Frank Sinatra.
Harris maintained an active film schedule, though he never returned to musical cinema on the scale of Camelot despite the single's triumph. Demand for his recordings nevertheless persisted. A second collaboration with Webb, The Yard Went on Forever, supplied what many considered an even stronger set of songs and a more assured vocal performance, despite modest sales and no chart singles. Later releases included My Boy and The Richard Harris Love Album, the latter assembling notable romantic selections from earlier projects. Well into the early 1970s, three years after its chart run, Harris continued performing "MacArthur Park" on talk shows. The recording became so identified with him that Malachy McCourt could parody it during a live broadcast, while SCTV later lampooned the song in an extended sketch featuring an impersonator whose instrumental break outlasted multiple cuts to other scenes. More recently, Weird Al Yankovic produced the award-winning video "Jurassic Park" employing the original lyrics.
In 1970 Harris supplied the Doctor's vocals for Lou Adler's symphonic adaptation of Tommy, which starred Roger Daltrey alongside Rod Stewart and Ringo Starr; Peter Sellers assumed the role for several subsequent charity concerts in London. He also issued a spoken-word recording of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet that enjoyed contemporary popularity and later resurfaced on CD in the mid-1990s.
Harris's screen career extended successfully into the late 1970s with well-regarded turns in Juggernaut (1974), Robin and Marian (1976), and The Wild Geese (1978), offset by leading parts in commercial but critically derided pictures such as Orca (1977), roles that paralleled Michael Caine's appearances in The Island and Blame It on Rio. His health declined amid widely reported heavy drinking and an accelerated lifestyle. He largely withdrew from public view in the early 1980s, ceased drinking, and restored his well-being through rigorous dietary discipline while rediscovering his faith and beginning a writing career that produced poetry and a novel. Harris reappeared in films during the early 1990s as the lead in Jim Sheridan's acclaimed drama The Field, earning an Academy Award nomination. Diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in 2002, he died from the illness on October 25 of that year at University College Hospital in London.
Born to a mill owner, Harris attended Sacred Heart Jesuit College before training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He first stepped onto a stage in 1956 and entered cinema two years later with the British feature Alive and Kicking. Substantial supporting parts followed in large-scale productions such as The Guns of Navarone and Mutiny on the Bounty, where his portrayal eclipsed Marlon Brando's Fletcher Christian. International recognition arrived with This Sporting Life in 1963. Throughout the middle of the decade Harris ranked among the most prominent Irish performers in worldwide cinema, sharing the spotlight with Michael Caine and Sean Connery, even though leading roles remained infrequent. Cromwell in 1970 supplied one such lead, yet A Man Called Horse that same year cemented his status as a popular-culture figure and generated two sequels across the following thirteen years.
Harris's portrayal of King Arthur in Warner Bros.' 1967 film adaptation of Lerner & Loewe's Camelot first prompted audiences to regard him as a singer. Directed by Joshua Logan, the picture ran to extraordinary length and moved at a deliberate pace, yet Harris delivered a riveting performance that demonstrated greater vocal ability than Rex Harrison, who had originated the role on Broadway and preserved it on the original-cast recording. Like Harrison, Harris delivered much of the material in a spoken style, but he infused each number with an actor's interpretive depth, leaving listeners convinced they had encountered a genuinely pleasing singing voice. The Warner Bros. soundtrack remained available for decades and ultimately proved more lucrative than the film.
One year afterward, his friend Jimmy Webb offered an ambitious, extended pop composition that Harris consented to record. The finished track reached Lou Adler's Dunhill label, where the seven-and-a-half-minute "MacArthur Park" climbed to number two on the U.S. charts and overturned the long-standing AM-radio rule against singles exceeding three-and-a-half minutes. Its parent album, A Tramp Shining, emerged as one of the era's standout pop releases: an elegantly crafted, meticulously produced concept record indebted in part to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and comparable to any similar effort by Frank Sinatra.
Harris maintained an active film schedule, though he never returned to musical cinema on the scale of Camelot despite the single's triumph. Demand for his recordings nevertheless persisted. A second collaboration with Webb, The Yard Went on Forever, supplied what many considered an even stronger set of songs and a more assured vocal performance, despite modest sales and no chart singles. Later releases included My Boy and The Richard Harris Love Album, the latter assembling notable romantic selections from earlier projects. Well into the early 1970s, three years after its chart run, Harris continued performing "MacArthur Park" on talk shows. The recording became so identified with him that Malachy McCourt could parody it during a live broadcast, while SCTV later lampooned the song in an extended sketch featuring an impersonator whose instrumental break outlasted multiple cuts to other scenes. More recently, Weird Al Yankovic produced the award-winning video "Jurassic Park" employing the original lyrics.
In 1970 Harris supplied the Doctor's vocals for Lou Adler's symphonic adaptation of Tommy, which starred Roger Daltrey alongside Rod Stewart and Ringo Starr; Peter Sellers assumed the role for several subsequent charity concerts in London. He also issued a spoken-word recording of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet that enjoyed contemporary popularity and later resurfaced on CD in the mid-1990s.
Harris's screen career extended successfully into the late 1970s with well-regarded turns in Juggernaut (1974), Robin and Marian (1976), and The Wild Geese (1978), offset by leading parts in commercial but critically derided pictures such as Orca (1977), roles that paralleled Michael Caine's appearances in The Island and Blame It on Rio. His health declined amid widely reported heavy drinking and an accelerated lifestyle. He largely withdrew from public view in the early 1980s, ceased drinking, and restored his well-being through rigorous dietary discipline while rediscovering his faith and beginning a writing career that produced poetry and a novel. Harris reappeared in films during the early 1990s as the lead in Jim Sheridan's acclaimed drama The Field, earning an Academy Award nomination. Diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in 2002, he died from the illness on October 25 of that year at University College Hospital in London.
Albums
Singles
MacArthur Park (Edit)
2024
Oh Diana
2023
Ive Got A Dream
2023
People Always Talkin
2023
The Black Eyed Children
2023
Live
