Phil Harris (June 24, 1904 – August 11, 1995) was a United States singer, songwriter, jazz musician and actor.

Harris was natural Wonga Phillip Harris inside Linton, Indiana, on June 24, 1904. He began his career around entertainment industry as a band drummer around San Francisco. In a late 1920s, he formed an orchestra sustaining Carol Lofner, & began an extended start at the St. Francis Hotel. By 1932, the partnership got broken higher, & Phil Harris was leading & singing by having his have band depending within Los Angeles.

Harris married an Australian, Marcia Ralston, around 1928. A few divorced inside 1939. Their adoptive boy, Phil Harris, Jr., was natural within 1935.

Inside 1936, Harris became the musical director of the Jack Benny show. Additionally to singing & leading a band, Harris was an crucial member of Jack's gang on this ensemble indicate, swimming himself as a firm-swallowing, cheeky, egotistical, ignorant Southerner. His objectionable however effective-natured character was the popular addition to the cast, known for his musicians' hippie slang, & his casual utilize of nicknames for the rest of the cast. His common entry line was to greet Benny by owning the cheery, "Hiya, Jackson!" His signature song from either a program was "That's What I Like About the South."

Around 1941, Harris married actress Alice Faye, & inside 1946-48, them hosted radio's A Fitch Bandwagon. Originally the showcase for heavy elastic, A Fitch Bandwagon evolved into the situation comedy by having Harris & Faye. A few continued in their have radio program, The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Indicate, from either 1948 to 1954. inside that farm situation comedy, Harris & Faye played themselves, when actresses played their girl Alice, innate inside 1942, & Phyllis, born in 1944.

Harris processed numbers of guest appearances in popular tv program in a period of a Sixties & into the Seventies, by using several appearances on the Kraft Music Hall, A Dean Martin Indicate, Hollywood Palace & more musical kind software. Harris likewise worked as a vocalizer & voice actor for alive films, sustaining performances in the Disney animated features The Aristocats, playing Thomas O'Malley, & The Jungle Book where he voiced the character of "Baloo the Bear" & sang one of a moving-picture show's showstoppers, "The Bare Necessities." He was as well a voice of Little John in the 1973 animated movie Robin Hood. One of his endure alive film projects was in the 1991 film 'Rock-The-Doodle' directed by Don Bluth, where he played a friendly, placed back domestic mutt Patou. Song hits by Harris involved a early Fifties novelty record, "The Thing." the song describes the miserable finder of a pack by using a mysterious secret & his efforts to rid himself of it.

The close friend & associate of Bing Crosby, Harris was a longtime resident & helper of Palm Springs, California. He died around Palm Springs around 1995. Until shortly prior to his dying, Harris returned annually to his hometown of Linton for the celebrity golf game tournament inside his honor. He as well performed at a local high & distributed scholarships to promising students. Inside 1993, Harris was inducted into a Indiana Hall of Fame. He is buried in the Palm Springs Mortuary & Mausoleum. Faye died inside 1998.