Biography

Harry was born on April 15, 1930 in Montclair, New Jersey. His parents, Tom and Anna Flynn, originally came from Fall River, Massachusetts, moved to New Jersey in the thirties when Tom set up his own Insurance Agency on Wall Street. They later moved to New York City for a short time and then moved to Edgartown, Massachusetts, a town on the island of Martha's Vineyard. At the age of nine Harry attended the Edgartown School and when he turned thirteen he went away to private school. After a year at Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island, he transferred to Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts where the present President George Bush and his father also attended.

At Andover he was active in athletics doing the hurdles and he also found time to work on the school production crew for its amateur theatricals. Harvard University became his next stop where he became involved in their dramatic club. He was chairman of the Hasting Pudding Show, the oldest dramatic organization in the country.

While in Harvard Harry was an ROTC candidate and part of his training was on a midshipman cruise aboard the USS Missouri. From Harvard Harry went to Officers Candidate School at Newport Rhode Island where he received a commission in the US Navy. He also wrote the music for their graduation. After graduating he was stationed aboard the USS Preston a destroyer for two years serving in the western Pacific. He was married in 1955 and had three children Hank, Norton and Paul.

Moving to California Harry's first job was selling shirts at the May Company in Long Beach and on his day off he would go up to Hollywood and got to know a producer named Arthur Hornblow Jr. He became good friends with his press agent. The agent took him over to a sound stage where he watched Shirley MacLean dubbing her lines for Around The World In Eighty Days. Harry became more intrigued with this end of the business. He was introduced to man named Charlie Lowe who advised Harry that he should consider becoming a publicist. He sent him over to a fellow named Ted Wick who hired Harry to plant people with Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, Army Archerd and Walter Winchell.

Becoming restless at this time of his life he got an offer from ABC to produce the on air promos. He did this successfully for two years. He then got an offer to work at Columbia Pictures a television publicist They needed feature stories for upcoming pilots and Harry was recruited to write them. He worked there for six years and then due to financial crunches Harry was let go and hired the same day by Universal.

A friend in ABC told Harry about a Naval Reserve unit that was producing movies for the Navy and there was an opening. Harry met the skipper, Commander Sol Gordon, and became his operations officer making movies. Harry was now back in the US Navy as a reserve officer and he had to serve active duty on weekends and for months when they were out shooting a picture. He wrote, produced and directed most of these movies. He made 5 half-hour documentaries over a period of 6 years and a lot of smaller educational pictures. His schedule took its toll on his marriage ending in divorce. He first met his present wife Pamela at a Television Academy party at the Beverly Hills Hotel for the Emmy nominations.

A year later a friend of Harry's asked him if he could find a job for a woman who was going to California. They met and sure enough it turned out to be Pam. They started dating and eventually they were married. Pam worked at KTLA in Los Angeles in the promotions department and Harry went to NBC working in their promotion department He was offered the opportunity to work for Jim Mahoney and Paul Wasserman. The agency handled Bob Hope and be liked working with Harry. He also handled Bob Newhart, Carol O'Connor, John Conboy and Glen Campbell.

Ambitious as he is Harry decided it was time to go out on his own and established his own agency. Bob Hope asked him to represent him as he had worked with him before and then Michael Landon was making a movie called Sam's Son and until this time everything he did was handled by NBC. He didn't have a press agent and he asked Harry to represent him. Universal asked Harry if he had any ideas for some of their shows so he ended up with Charles in Charge, Airwolf, and others for a few years. When Airwolf went off the air Ernest Borgnine wanted Harry to represent him. He knew Harry from McHale's Navy when Harry was making promos for the show.

After Michael Landon died, Harry and his wife Pam wrote a collection of celebrity reminiscence, of the television giant, called Michael Landon, Live, Love and Laughter which sold over thirty thousand copies and is still being sold around the world to Michael's fans.

Harry and Pam still do publicity for Ernie and Rick, but they've reached a point where they're very selective about whom they will publicize. They still return to the family farm on Martha's Vineyard every October. For enjoyment, Harry loves to fly, owns a Cessna 172, which he shares with his son Sidney, 27, who is also a pilot. They live in the same house in North Hollywood they bought thirty years ago, and they have four dogs, two cats, and a variety of gold fish.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Ed Donovan/edono@bellsouth.net