Elitch’s leading man, William Harrigan (1894-1966), was the son of Edward Harrigan of the famous team of Harrigan and Hart. He made his stage debut at age five in his father’s musical Reilly and the Four Hundred, a vehicle in which his father scored one of his greatest successes.
William Harrigan was considered in theatrical circles as “a reliable, general, all-purpose actor on stage and screen who never became a star but remained a familiar face for decades… By 1920, he was playing adult characters on Broadway, and he continued to play supporting roles or solid leading men for the next thirty-five years. Perhaps his most notable role was the dictatorial Captain Morton in Mister Roberts (1956).
[Borrillo, Theodore A., (2012). Denver’s historic Elitch Theatre : a nostalgic journey (a history of its times). pp. 157.]
