RIP Harry Morgan, 96, M*A*S*H Actor Who Was In Over 100 Films

RIP Colonel Potter. Veteran character actor Harry Morgan, best known for his role as upstanding commanding officer Sherman Potter in M*A*S*H, died at age 96. The actor died at his home in Los Angeles on December 7, 2011. As well as his work on M*A*S*H (for which he won an Emmy), Morgan appeared in several other TV series, including Dragnet.

Morgan was born as Harry Bratsberg in Detroit in 1915. He made his way to Hollywood in the 1940s. The actor appeared in more than 100 films, including such classics as The Ox Bow Incident, High Noon, Inherit the Wind, and The Glenn Miller Story. But his role in M*A*S*H will forever be his most famous, and the one for which he was perhaps the most grateful. When asked if appearing in the series made him a better actor, he responded, “I don’t know about that, but it made me a better human being.”

(note: an earlier version of this story mistakenly implied that Morgan died on December 7, 2015.)