How Business Became an Integral Part of Tom H Arm On's Professional and Personal Life. a Flair for Performing Could Even Be De
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how business became an integral part of Tom recalled more than thirty years later. The couple mar Harmon’s professional and personal life. A flair for ried in 1944 and acted together two years later in the performing could even be detected in Harmon’s movie Sweetheart of Sigma Chi: Elyse played the title char hard-working parents, a homemaker and mother acter, while Tom had a smaller role as a coach. Within ofS six named Rose Marie Guinn Harmon, and her hus five years, however, Elyse had curtailed her career—a band, Louis, a police officer in Gary’s steel mills. former fashion model and designer for Vogue m aga In a 1941 article for the Saturday Evening Post, Tom zine, she starred in such movies as A Wave, a WAC and Harmon said his mother and father “never had a lot of a Marine (1944) and Joe Palooka, Champ (1946)—to money and their pleasures were simple ones, but they focus on raising the couple’s children. were quite a couple for dancing, and together they won Harmon himself appeared in more than twenty-five several trophies in waltz contests.” Referring to the delight movies; he almost always played a sportscaster or a his Irish-Catholic parents took in waltzing, Harmon added, coach (and sometimes just “Tom Harmon”) in films “I guess I inherited some of their talent, because I love to such as The Rose Boiol Story (1952), Bonzo Goes to College dance ... This is important because I believe that a good (1952), and The Caddy (1953). dancer can handle himself in the open field better than Today, by far the best known of the Harm on’s three the boy who has no natural gift for rhythm.” children is the youngest, Mark, who was born in 1951 Along with his enthusiasm for the dance floor and a pas and excelled as a quarterback at the University of sion for collecting swing-music records, the young Harm on California at Los Angeles during the early 1970s. Mark became transfixed by the voices he heard over the radio eventually launched a high-profile acting career that has in the early 1930s. His dream of being a sports announcer included regular roles in the television series St. even overshadowed his interest in a football career. Elsexvhere, Chicago Hope, Reasonable Doubts, and, currently, Eventually, the gridiron star and war hero went on to Navy NCIS; starring parts in movies such as Summer become a pioneer television sportscaster and an influ School (1987) and Freaky Friday (2003); and a critically ential, omnipresent radio commentator who reported praised turn as serial killer Ted Bundy in the televi the Olympics, the Indianapolis 500, the Kentucky Derby, sion movie The'Deliberate Stranger (1986). the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s basketball In the 1960s, though, most of the entertainment tournament, and college and professional football games. indusU y’s attention focused on Tom and Elyse H arm on’s “Tom Harmon’s tremendous impact as a broadcaster eldest child, daughter Sharon Kristin (born in 1945). should not be forgotten,” said Tom Higgins, a retired After she met teen idol Ricky Nelson through their par television and radio personality in Lake County who inter ents—Tom and Elyse had become close friends of Ozzie viewed the football legend several times during Harmon’s and Harriet Nelson—Kristin was married to the pop return visits to his worshipful hometown. “He was effec singer for eighteen years until a divorce in 1981. For tive as a broadcaster—even in some of those old movies, about three years in the mid-1960s, she appeared as which tend to be corny—because he always was articulate herself (“Kris, Mrs. Rick Nelson”) on the long-running and sincere. Most importantly for a sportscaster, Tom television series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Harmon knew how the game was played.” Three of Kris and Ricky Nelson’s four children have The show business aspects of Harmon’s life were kicked carved out careers as performers. They are actress Tracy into high gear by none other than Bing Crosby. The famous Nelson and twin brothers Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, crooner became a fan after he saw H arm on work his grid who tour as The Nelsons singing duo. Even Tom iron magic for the University of Michigan in a game against Harmon’s middle child, daughter Kelly (born in 1948), Harvard. In late 1940 Harmon was invited to appear on periodically has popped up before the cameras, most a Los Angeles-based radio show hosted by Crosby, who notably as the “Tic-Tac Girl” in a series of television com also arranged a screen test and a tour of a movie studio for mercials. For about four years beginning in 1969, Kelly Harmon. That’s where the football star met Elyse Knox, Harmon was married to automaker John DeLorean, an attractive, sweet-natured “B” movie actress who, at whom she met when Tom Harmon brought him home twenty-three, was two years older than Harmon. to dinner after a celebrity golf tournament. At that point, “She was so real, so honest, so different from any Harmon served as the host of a nightly sports program syn one I had met in Hollywood at the time,” Harmon dicated to more than four hundred radio stations..