Pat Harrington

Pat Harrington was born in the New York City borough of Manhattan on August 13, 1929. His father was a song and dance man who worked in vaudeville and performed on the Broadway stage. Harrington attended a Catholic military school, then graduated from Fordham University in 1950 with a Bachelor of Arts and subsequently received a master’s degree in political philosophy, also from Fordham. During the Korean War, Harrington served as an intelligence officer with the United States Air Force, where he achieved the rank of first lieutenant. Following in his father’s footsteps, Harrington pursued a career in entertainment after graduating from college and completing military service. He took a job at NBC in New York City. He then began acting on stage and toured North America with a number of plays, eventually performing on Broadway. Pat Harrington became famous in the 1950s as a member of Steve Allen’s television comedy troupe, the “Men on the Street” (which also included Don Knotts, Tom Poston and Louis Nye). Harrington also gained considerable recognition for his many appearances as the comedic Italian immigrant “Guido Panzini” on The Jack Paar Show in the mid-1950s. In the 1959-1960 season, he played the recurring role of Pat Hannigan in eleven episodes of Danny Thomas’s CBS-TV sitcom, The Danny Thomas Show. Hannigan is the pending son-in-law of Thomas’ character of Danny Williams; he is engaged to older daughter Terry Williams, played by Penny Parker after Sherry Jackson, who originally filled the role, vacated the series in 1958. Just a few weeks before Harrington’s passing, Marjorie Lord, another alumnus of The Danny Thomas Show who played Thomas’ second wife in the series, died on November 28, 2015.

In the 1964–1965 television season, he guest-starred on numerous programs, including ABC’s sitcom The Bing Crosby Show and NBC’s Kentucky Jones (starring Dennis Weaver). In a 1965 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Bow-Wow Affair”), Harrington reprised his role as “Guido Panzini” (who he also played in the February 8, 1966 episode of McHale’s Navy and in the May 2, 1983 episode of One Day At A Time). That same year he appeared as Thomas Kelly in the unusually-titled episode, “There’s a Penguin in My Garden”, of the NBC education drama series, Mr. Novak, starring James Franciscus. In 1967, he appeared in the Elvis Presley film Easy Come, Easy Go. He also parodied Get Smart in an episode of F Troop, in which he played secret agent “B Wise”. From 1971 to 1974, he appeared in eleven episodes as District Attorney Charlie Giannetta of the ABC legal drama Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, starring Arthur Hill in the title role. Pat Harrington worked as a voice actor, most notably providing the voice of The Inspector from 1965 to 1969 in the theatrical cartoon series of the same name. He was also the voice of Ray Palmer/the Atom on The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure in 1967. From 1965-69, Harrington portrayed the voices of both Inspector Jacques Clouseau and his Spanish Gendarmes sidekick Deux Deux in all of the original 34 animated episodes of The Inspector which were created by Mirisch Films and DePatie-Freleng and released via United Artists. They were later shown as part of the Pink Panther cartoon TV show. Another cartoon voice he did was that of Jon’s father on A Garfield Christmas Special. Pat Harrington was also known for his uncanny impersonation of entertainer Lawrence Welk. In 1974, he co-starred with Peter Falk and Robert Conrad in the Columbo episode An Exercise in Fatality.

Pat Harrington was well known for his role as affable building superintendent “Dwayne Schneider” on the 1975–1984 television sitcom One Day at a Time. He won both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his work on this series. He reprised his role as Schneider in a series of commercials in the late 1980s for Trak Auto Parts after the show ended. He appeared in an episode of The King of Queens in 2006. In 2012, he also appeared as a guest star on Hot In Cleveland. The Golden Girls is another sitcom in which he made a guest appearance. Harrington, who had Alzheimer’s disease, fell in early November 2015. He suffered a small brain hemorrhage and spent three weeks in a hospital and nursing home. He died on January 6, 2016, aged 86. Pat Harrington was survived by four children.