Phil Harper, radio voice of Harry Nile
Hyfler/Rosner
64
By Lisa Heyamoto
Seattle Times staff reporter
The thing about Phil Harper was, he would never cop to being
a little bit famous.
But as the voice of world-weary private eye Harry Nile, Mr.
Harper's "aw, c'mon, doll" drawl was a radio staple,
broadcast on "The Adventures of Harry Nile" to listeners all
over the nation for 27 years.
Mr. Harper died in his Ballard home on Monday from
complications related to diabetes and heart disease. He was
64.
Just as Harry Nile's charm was his
what-you-see-is-what-you-get Everyman quality, Mr. Harper
was a talented actor and a gifted speaker who modestly
denied his skills at both, said Jim French, writer and
producer of the show.
"There's an element to [his voice] that to me is
indescribable," he said. "First of all, he was an excellent
actor, so it never sounded like he was acting. He was
supposed to be an Everyman and to me, that's what he was."
Mr. Harper grew up listening to radio dramas such as
"Superman" and "Bobby Benson" in his hometown of Flossmoor,
Ill. Radio mysteries, detective shows, comedy and adventure
dramas - to him, they all held a magic that television would
never match.
He joined the Army in 1962 and was assigned to a radio
station in Berlin, where he got his start as a disc jockey.
He always used to say he was born 10 years too late, said
his partner, Eleanor Hartmann. When he returned to the
United States, he found radio drama had all but disappeared.
He worked as a disc jockey at stations in Colorado, New
Mexico and Oregon before moving to Seattle in 1974, snagging
a job at KING-AM playing rock 'n' roll. Right about that
time, French sat down and wrote the first Adventure of Harry
Nile, and Mr. Harper's most enduring role was born.
"I never considered anybody else" to play the lead, French
said.
Through all 158 episodes of the show, Mr. Harper had a busy
career as an announcer on several Seattle radio stations,
such as KMPS-FM, and was the voice for various radio
commercials. He and Hartmann even pulled a stint as Ballard
restaurateurs, pulling espresso and selling the soup and
bread that Mr. Harper loved to make from scratch.
For all his gregariousness on the radio, Mr. Harper led a
quiet life at home, favoring books on physics and jazz
musicians and walking around Green Lake with Hartmann, his
partner of 12 years. He also immersed himself in innumerable
craft projects, making everything from soap to stamps to
stained glass in his home laboratory.
"He was really the gentlest, sweetest, most caring person I
think I have ever met," Hartmann said. "Ours was a private
life, and he went off and did his thing, but his public life
was quite separate."
Hartmann, who had known Mr. Harper since she was a
12-year-old kid in Flossmoor, describes him with the
affectionate detail of someone who knows her partner's
motivations, his personality quirks and every one of his
jokes. She keeps a series of photos of Mr. Harper telling
one of his many favorite jokes, his demeanor growing more
delighted with the telling, while she wears the indulgent
expression of someone who's heard this one before.
"His humor was really self-deprecating," she said. "He was
very good at using humor to make things pleasant."
Radio, she said, was the perfect outlet for a guy with a
sense of humor, a great voice and a passion for the medium
he had loved as a kid. As he wrote in his short biography on
www.harrynile.com:
"I'm grateful beyond imagination to be cast as a continuing
character in a radio drama. ... My fantasy is that 300 years
from now, when the station which plays the real oldies talks
about the 'Golden Age of Radio' they'll play an old Harry
Nile episode, and each of my descendants will receive 7/16th
of a New Ruble."
Besides Hartmann and her family, Mr. Harper is survived by
two sons, Geoff and Matthew Harper of Seattle, and his
former wife, Judith Klos Harper.
At his request, there will be no memorial service, but there
will be opportunities to hear him as Harry Nile. The show
will be broadcast tonight at 9 p.m. on KIXI-AM (880) and a
tribute show will air Saturday at 1 a.m. and 1 p.m. on XM
Satellite Radio station.