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Don Harron and his alter ego, Charlie Farquharson

Broadcast Date: Oct. 14, 1977

Charlie Farquharson is a rural raconteur from Parry Sound, Ont., with a battered cap and threadbare sweater. His plain-speaking patter, sprinkled with puns and malapropisms, pokes fun at the absurdities of Canadian politics, history and geography. And he's wholly the creation of actor, writer and radio host Don Harron. In this 1977 CBC Television clip, Harron tells Peter Gzowski how he created Charlie.

Don Harron and his alter ego, Charlie Farquharson

• Born in 1924, Don Harron began his career with the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (the CBC's predecessor) in 1935 when he was just 11 years old. He played a young hero on the radio serial Lonesome Trail.

• After the Second World War he acted onstage in Toronto and in 1950 headed to London, where he landed a role opposite Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1952 Harron returned to Canada in time for the launch of CBC Television, debuting Charlie Farquharson on The Big Revue.

• Harron peformed in the inaugural season of the Stratford Festival in 1953. He thought he flubbed the interview after telling director Tyrone Guthrie he'd be happy just sweeping the floor at the festival. Guthrie surprised Harron by giving him two roles: a small, four-line part in Richard III and a considerably larger role as Bertram, the male lead in All's Well That Ends Well.

• Harron was a creative force with Spring Thaw, a beloved annual theatre revue that played in Toronto from 1948 to 1971. Spring Thaw consisted of a series of skits, song and dance satirizing current events and Canadian affairs.
• Harron wrote the 1967 edition, which toured Canada that year as a Centennial event. Titled My Country… What's it to You?, the show was a look at Canadian history since the Ice Age.

• Harron's talents extended off the stage and screen. In 1957 he and Norman Campbell adapted Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables for CBC Television. Seven years later their adaptation opened as a musical at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, where it has run every summer since. Harron also wrote a number of satirical books as his alter ego, starting with Charlie Farquharson's Histry of Canada in 1972.

• In 1977 Harron tried out a new persona on CBC Radio: himself. As host of Morningside, there was no makeup or costume for him to hide behind, and he held the job for five years before handing the reins over to Peter Gzowski in 1982.

• Charlie Farquharson apparently went by another name for a time. In April 1958 Maclean's magazine wrote: "Harron's best-known auto-creation is Farmer Harry Shorthorn, a malinformed Ontario rustic who tours the CNE midway and says things like, "I take everything I see in this middleway with a dose of salts. Take that there two-headed boy from Borneo; oh, he's got two heads right enough, but I got my doubts he's really from Borneo."

• Besides starring on the stage in Canada, the United States and Britain, Harron was a regular on American television in the 1960s and early '70s, playing roles on such series as The Fugitive, The Outer Limits, The F.B.I., Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Dr. Kildare. He also continued to perform as Charlie Farquharson, appearing regularly on Hee Haw in the United States until 1997.  

• Harron appeared before Pierre Trudeau at a Prime Minister's dinner in 1973 in the character of Charlie Farquharson. According to Martha Harron's biography of her father, A Parent Contradiction, Trudeau almost fell out of his chair with laughter when Charlie referred to Trudeau's Omnibus Bill. "You tole us the guvmint couldn't do its business in the middle of our bedroom, and then you went and let all them homo-sectionals have the free abortions," said Charlie.

• In 2004 Charlie was inducted as a Charter Member of Possum Lodge on CBC Television's The Red Green Show.

• Don Harron is married to singer Catherine Mackinnon, and has a daughter, Kelley, with her. He also has two daughters from his first marriage, Martha and Mary Harron.
• Daughter Mary Harron followed her father into show business as a TV and movie director. Among her better-known films are I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho.
• Hear some CBC Archives clips in which Don Harron appears as host of CBC Radio's Morningside.

Don Harron and his alter ego, Charlie Farquharson

Medium: Television

Program: 90 Minutes Live

Broadcast Date: Oct. 14, 1977

Guest(s): Don Harron

Host: Peter Gzowski

Duration: 12:13

Last updated:
Feb. 18, 2010