Phil Harris - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Harris died of a myocardial infarction at his Rancho Mirage home in 1995. Alice Faye died of stomach cancer three years later. Two years before his death, Harris was inducted into the Indiana Hall of Fame. They are interred at Forest Lawn-Cathedral City in Riverside County, California. Phyllis Harris was last reported living in St. Louis (she had been with her mother at her father's bedside when he died), while Alice Harris Regan was reported living in New Orleans.

Harris remained grateful to radio for the difference it made in his professional and personal life. He was quoted as saying, "If it hadn't been for radio, I would still be a traveling orchestra leader. For 17 years I played one-night stands, sleeping on buses. I never even voted, because I didn't have any residence."

Episodes of The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show turn up frequently on compact-disc collections of old-time radio classics, both on their own sets and amid various comedy collections. At least half the surviving episodes of the show's final season include Harris's audience warmup routine, performed for ten minutes before the show was to begin recording. Many old-time radio historians (such as Nachman and Dunning) consider the show at its best to have stood the test of time, thanks to above-average writing (mostly by the team of Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat) and the two stars who executed it with impeccable timing.