LOS ANGELES — Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show-business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died at his home Thursday of congestive heart failure, his publicist said. He was 83.
Although not the original Bozo, Harmon portrayed the popular clown in countless appearances, and as an entrepreneur, he licensed the character to others, particularly dozens of television stations around the country. The stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos.
“You might say, in a way, I was cloning BTC (Bozo the Clown) before anybody else out there got around to cloning DNA,” Harmon said in a 1996 interview. “Bozo is a combination of the wonderful wisdom of the adult and the childlike ways in all of us.”
Pinto Colvig, who also provided the voice for Walt Disney’s Goofy, was the first to portray Bozo the Clown when Capitol Records introduced a series of children’s records in 1946. Harmon would later meet his alter ego while answering a casting call to make personal appearances as a clown to promote the records.
He got that job and eventually bought the rights to Bozo. Along the way, he embellished Bozo’s distinctive look: the orange-tufted hair, the bulbous nose, the outlandish red, white and blue costume.
“I felt if I could plant my size-83AAA shoes on this planet, (people) would never be able to forget those footprints,” he said.
Susan Harmon, his wife of 29 years, said Harmon was the perfect fit for Bozo.
“He was the most optimistic man I ever met. He always saw a bright side; he always had something good to say about everybody. He was the love of my life,” she said.
Harmon protected Bozo’s reputation with a vengeance, while embracing those who poked good-natured fun at the clown. As Bozo’s influence spread through popular culture, his very name became a synonym for clownish behavior.
