Ƃ11-/Óx]Óä£Nbody, like a golden retriever.”
And of course, he played baseball,
football and rugby in high school. He
excelled at football and was recruited out
of junior college to play for the Bruins.
At UCLA, he studied communications
and graduated cum laude, and he still
keeps in touch with some of his former
teammates. But when he
thinks back on those days
on the fi eld, he doesn’t
dwell on the glory. “I
probably remember more
about the losses than the
victories,” he says. “I don’t
play it back easy.”+2:2==,( +$55,(7
&+$1*('+,6/,)(
Harmon’s football future
was forever changed when
his sister married pop star
Ricky Nelson and he be-
gan hanging out with her
in-laws, TV stars Ozzie
and Harriet Nelson. Ricky
Nelson, who acted with his
parents on the 1950–60s
sitcom Th e Adventures of
Ozzie and Harriet, later died in a plane
crash in 1985.
While working as a lifeguard at the
beach, Harmon remembers how Ozzie
Nelson would often join him. “We’d
sit underneath my tower and we’d talk
about big band music, as Ozzie started
as a big band leader and Harriet was
a vocalist.” One day, while Nelson
was fi lming his show Ozzie’s Girls, the
early-’70s spinoff of Ozzie and Harriet,
he asked Harmon to fi ll in for an actor
who couldn’t be there. Harmon jumped
at the chance, shadowing Nelson around
the set and into the editing room. After
that, he was hooked, Harmon says. “Th at
changed my course.”
After college, Harmon chose not topursue the rigors—and the odds—of
playing pro ball. Th ough some guys on
his team did go to the pros—“and they
all made more money in one year than
I made in the next 15 combined!” he
says with a laugh—Harmon took acting
classes and began getting work on TV
shows and in fi lms, where he intersected
with much more experi-
enced actors—like Jason
Robards, Karl Malden and
Michael Caine—who gave
him “time, camaraderie
and advice.” In 1983, he
landed the TV role that
blew open the doors for
him, as a series regular
on the hospital drama St.
Elsewhere.+(//2/(52<
For the next two decades,
he appeared in fi lms,
including Stealing Home,
Wyatt Earp, Summer School
and Freaky Friday, and
starred in other long-run-
ning TV shows while also
taking on producing and
directing responsibilities—as
well as parenting two boys.
“I work hard. [But] it’s where
I come from,” he explains,
based on the ethic he learned
from his father’s family, who
toiled in Michigan steel mills.
Eventually, he says, “I was missing a lot
of [family time].” So he scaled back.
“And then I read this script
called NCIS.”
Th e now-hit show about
the Naval Criminal Investi-
gative Service, a procedural
spinoff of JAG, surprised him
with its humor, and he loved
the character—and name—of >À>À
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