--- name: "Phil Harris" canonical: "https://film.one/person/phil-harris" roles: ["Actor"] born: "24 June 1904" died: "11 August 1995" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 updated: "2026-09-17T06:10:20.325218+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Phil Harris Actor. Born 24 June 1904 in Linton, Indiana, USA. Died 11 August 1995. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 24 June 1904, Linton, Indiana, USA - **Died:** 11 August 1995 - **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q596717, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0365201/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/57329 ## Streaming the US now - **Disney+:** [*The Jungle Book*](https://film.one/film/the-jungle-book.md) (80) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Phil Harris > Phil Harris made a career of one thing: sounding like a man who has just wandered in and decided to stay. Disney built three films around that voice, and in *The Jungle Book* (1967) it does most of the carrying. Baloo lies back against a tree trunk, scratches his spine on the bark, and sings. The remarkable thing about Phil Harris in *The Jungle Book* (1967) is that the singing and the talking arrive in the same breath, at the same lazy tempo, as if the bear has never once distinguished between the two. Harris plays him as a man with nowhere to be. He sounds like he is making the lines up as he goes, and a good deal of the time he was. That was the habit of a lifetime, not a trick learned for Disney. Harris started as a drummer and bandleader in the late 1920s, joined The Jack Benny Program as its musical director in 1936, and then spent eight years co-starring with his wife, Alice Faye, in their own radio sitcom, which ran until 1954. Thirty years of radio comedy is a long apprenticeship in acting with the voice alone, and it shows: the drawl, the timing, the sense of a man leaning back in his chair. He kept working in live-action films through the 1960s, but the part he is remembered for came late, when he was in his sixties. At his first recording session for Baloo, by his own account, he asked, "Would you mind if I do it the way I would do it?" Wolfgang Reitherman, who directed, let him, and the animators drew what they heard. What they heard is why the film still works. We laughed out loud, more than once, at a cartoon bear drawn as a bag of sand with rhythm, and it was because Harris makes every line land as if he has only just thought of it. The Bare Necessities is a duet between a voice and a belly, and Louis Prima, who sings opposite him in the film, gives him a swinging jazz partner to loaf beside. It is a performance of warmth and idleness, and there is no strain anywhere in it. Disney noticed, and went back to the same well twice under Reitherman: Thomas O'Malley, the alley cat of *The Aristocats* (1970), and Little John, the bear of *Robin Hood* (1973). We have not reviewed either, so we will say only that both are the same easy-going animal in a different coat, which is what the studio wanted and what Harris could do. He could do one thing and he knew it. By the late 1980s the voice had aged enough that he could not take Baloo up again for television, and his last screen credit was a narration in *Rock-A-Doodle* (1991). Start with *The Jungle Book*, where the voice is at its youngest and the bear at his best. If you go on to the others, you will meet the same man twice more, and you may find you do not mind. ## Biography Phil Harris (born Wonga Philip Harris) was an American actor, comedian, bandleader and musician. He began his career as an orchestra leader and became a radio star through regular appearances on *The Jack Benny Program* from 1936 and his own series *The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show*, which ran from 1946 to 1954 alongside his wife, singer and actress Alice Faye. Harris later gained renewed recognition for his voice work in Disney animated films. He provided the voice of Baloo the Bear in *The Jungle Book* (1967), Thomas O'Malley in *The Aristocats* (1970) and Little John in *Robin Hood* (1973). He also appeared in live-action films including *The High and the Mighty* (1954) and *The Patsy* (1964). Harris died on 11 August 1995 in Rancho Mirage, California. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, nytimes.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *The Jungle Book* (1967), Fi1m 80, as Baloo the Bear (voice) — [page](https://film.one/film/the-jungle-book.md) ## Also known for - *The Aristocats* (1970), O'Malley (voice) - *Robin Hood* (1973), Little John - A Bear (voice) - *Rock-A-Doodle* (1991), Narrator / Patou (voice) - *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* (1955), Bellhop - *The Love Boat* (1977), Harvey Cronkle - *The High and the Mighty* (1954), Ed Joseph - *The Patsy* (1964), Chic Wymore - *Texas Tom* (1950), Tom (singing voice) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/phil-harris