Production Closes

Last week a prominent U.S. citizen died, at the age of 69, from pneumonia following an appendectomy. The press noted, and truthfully, that his personality had been distinguished by its calmness, lack of ostentation, generosity and scrupulous honesty. It was a unique character to give a man who for 40 years had been one of the biggest men on Broadway. Sam Henry Harris had staged his last production.

Sam Harris was shrewd, hardboiled, but not a producer who ate playwrights and actors alive. He got along with them. About his productions he was superfinical, but not primarily for art's sake; being finical seemed to pay. When he brought the airy satire of George S. Kaufman to Broadway his thoughts were not on the improvement of the theater's breed but on the box office. In Depression, when he was putting on shows like Of Thee I Sing, he cannily observed: "People like to find that they can laugh at important things and institutions."

When he liked an actress' work he used to say: "She gives me a lump." Being a sentimentalist, he was the natural companion of George M. Cohan. He met Mr. Cohan at a picnic in 1904, and before the day was over made him a producing partner. The partnership lasted 16 years and gave Broadway 50 shows. The first was Little Johnny Jones, and in it George Cohan sang for the first time Give My Regards to Broadway and The Yankee Doodle Boy.

Sam, born on the Bowery of poor parents, had earned his own living in a variety of ways since he was eleven years old. He was 26 when'he made himself manager of Featherweight Terry McGovern, who presently made himself world champion and made Sam moderately wealthy. Sam bought some race horses. The horses ran out of the money so often that Sam finally traded them for a bulldog: and concentrated on the theater for the rest of his life.

He broke with George Cohan because Sam Harris would not buck the actors' strike in 1919, but both men described the parting as amicable. In the ensuing years Sam had nearly 30 resounding hits including Rain (1922), Icebound (1923), June Moon (1929), Once in a Lifetime (1930), Dinner At Eight (1932), You Can't Take It With You (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), Lady in the Dark (1941).

George M. Cohan was at Sam's apartment a few hours after his death. He couldn't talk to reporters. It gave him a lump.

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