Richard Harris

RICHARD HARRIS
 
 
Richard Harris  (1 October 1930 – 25 October 2002) was an Irish actor, singer, songwriter, producer, director, and writer.  He appeared on stage and in many films, appearing as Frank Machin in This Sporting Life, and King Arthur in the 1967 film Camelot and the subsequent 1981 revival of the show.  He played an aristocrat and prisoner in A Man Called Horse (1970), a gunfighter in Clint Eastwood’s Western film Unforgiven (1992), Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator (2000), and Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films:  The Philosopher’s Stone (2001) and The Chamber of Secrets (2002).  Harris had a top ten hit in the United Kingdom and United States with his 1968 recording of Jimmy Webb’s song “MacArthur Park”.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

There is a strong feminist stance in women’s music, however; and that was largely absent from the music scene in the mid-1970’sHelen Reddy’sI Am Woman” (1972) notwithstanding.  Jimmy Webb is not a songwriter where one would expect feminist sensibilities, but Meg Christian reworks his song “The Hive” as a tale of female oppression – not at all the way that Richard Harris performed the song several years earlier.  

 

(January 2014)

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021