May 172018
 

Shortly after retiring from Hollywood, Sherman (“Sherm”) Harris and his wife, Jane, moved to Ajijic to run the Posada Ajijic. Harris, who had previously managed a 450-room hotel in Disneyland, ran the Posada from 1963 to 1968. He was a film editor and TV producer best known for the Lone Ranger movies and TV shows, and for more than 70 episodes in the long-running Lassie TV series.

Movie poster, 1958. (Producer: Sherman A. Harris)

Movie poster, 1958. (Producer: Sherman A. Harris)

Sherman Allison Harris was born in Minnesota on 8 Mar 1909. His parents were sufficiently well-do-do that they had a full-time live-in helper when their children were young. Still in his teens, Harris spent the summer of 1928 in Europe.

By the time of the 1930 U.S. Census, Harris was living in Los Angeles, where he apparently first worked for the Bank of Italy (now Bank of America). On 9 April 1932 he married Ninette Crawford (1912-1978) and the following year he began working in movies as a film editor (cutter). By 1940, the Harris household – “studio worker” Sherman, his picture extra” wife, Ninette, and their 3-year-old son, Sherman – was established in Van Nuys, North Hollywood.

As a film editor, Harris worked on It happened One Night (1934); Broadway Bill (1934); One Night of Love (1934) and Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939). In the succeeding decades, he was production manager for several movies and TV shows including Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941) and then, after World War II, for Rendezvous (1946); Dangerous Millions (1946); and Guilty of Treason (1950). He was producer of hundreds of television programs in series such as Stars over Hollywood (1951); Hollywood Opening Night (1951-52); The Loretta Young Show (1953); The Lone Ranger (1956-57); and Lassie (1958-1960).

It is unclear when he divorced Ninette, but on 1 December 1960 Harris married Jane E. Goza (1916-1968) in San Diego. After retiring from the movie industry and directing a 450-room hotel in Disneyland, Harris and his new wife moved to Mexico in 1963. Harris had replied to a classified ad in the Los Angeles Times for someone willing to invest $5,000 “in a growing business”.

The growing business turned out to be the Posada Ajijic. Harris bought the business (not the property) from Vic Aldridge and spent several years building up the business, including improvements such as upscaling the restaurant and adding a swimming pool, bar and a new patio.

Sherm Harris sold his interest in the Posada Ajijic to Sue and Booth Waterbury in 1966. Harris and his wife continued to live at their lakeshore home of Morelos #33 in Ajijic, but Jane died, unexpectedly, in a Guadalajara hospital in 1968.

Within a couple of years, Sherm Harris remarried. His new bride was Adele Adams Harris. Sherman Harris died in Houston, Texas, on 20 August 1980 and donated his body to medical research.

Sources:

  • Guadalajara Reporter, 19 March 1964.
  • IMDB. Sherman A. Harris.
  • Jack McDonald. 1970. “Sherm Harris. Posada Ajijic’s former owner was top Hollywood Producer.” Guadalajara Reporter, 7 March 1970, 15-16.
  • Van Nuys, California, City Directory, 1939.

Comments, corrections or additional material related to any of the writers and artists featured in our series of mini-bios are welcomed. Please use the comments feature at the bottom of individual posts, or email us.

 

Aug 312015
 

Brian Paisley, professor of drama at Red Deer College in Canada, visited Ajijic in early 1988 to help Ken Smedley produce El Fringe, Latin America’s first Fringe Festival. Paisley’s colleagues at Red Deer College included Larry Reece, the son-in-law of noted Canadian playwright George Ryga, who had visited Lake Chapala several years earlier and was a good friend of Smedley’s.

Paisley was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is well known in Western Canada for his numerous contributions to the development of Canadian theatre, most notably as the founder in 1982 of the Edmonton International Fringe Festival, the first Fringe festival in North America.

While visiting the Lake Chapala area, in addition to co-producing El Fringe, Paisley spent some time with Phyllis and Georg Rauch, and was so impressed by an early version of Georg Rauch’s war-time memoirs that he arranged to have them turned into a play, which received its world premiere at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. The memoirs were reissued in February 2015 by mainstream publisher Farrar Straus Giroux, as Unlikely Warrior: A Jewish Soldier in Hitler’s Army.

Comments, corrections or additional material related to any of the writers and artists featured in our series of mini-bios are welcome. Please use the comments feature at the bottom of individual posts, or email us.