Don Harron, a Shakespearean actor who became a star on Canadian television and a familiar face on “Hee Haw” as the country bumpkin Charlie Farquharson, died on Jan. 17 at his home in Toronto. He was 90.
The cause was cancer, his daughter Martha told The Canadian Press.
A busy stage actor in the 1950s and 1960s, he appeared, as Donald Harron, on Broadway in Terence Rattigan’s “Separate Tables” (1956), Paddy Chayefsky’s “The Tenth Man” (1957) and other plays, and at the Shakespeare festivals in both Stratford, Conn., and Stratford, Ontario.
Reviewing his performance as Edmund in a 1962 Central Park production of “King Lear” for The New York Times, Arthur Gelb praised his “personal magnetism” and his “perfect” comic timing and called him “a director’s dream.”
But Mr. Harron became best known for playing Charlie Farquharson, a wisecracking hayseed whose inspiration he traced to his days working on an Ontario farm. He introduced the character on CBC television in 1952 and went on to portray him in Canada on television, radio and the stage.
He also made frequent appearances as Charlie, delivering comical news reports on the fictional radio station KORN, on “Hee Haw,” the American hybrid of country music and corny jokes, from the show’s debut in 1969 into the 1980s. He was also seen in “The F.B.I.,” “Mission: Impossible,” “The Outer Limits” and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
In 1956, Mr. Harron and Norman Campbell collaborated on a musical version of “Anne of Green Gables,” the beloved Canadian novel about a young orphan on Prince Edward Island, for the CBC. Adapted for the stage, it has been performed annually since 1965 at the Charlottetown Festival on Prince Edward Island.
Mr. Harron was born in Toronto on Sept. 19, 1924. He first performed as a child, telling humorous stories while drawing caricatures at banquets and other gatherings. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II and later graduated from the University of Toronto.
He was married and divorced three times. In addition to his daughter Martha, survivors include his partner, Claudette Gareau, and two other daughters, Kelley Harron and Mary Harron, director of “American Psycho.”
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