Tom Harmon - Biography

Tom Harmon was a legendary college football player who became a sportscaster and sired TV superstar Mark Harmon (who also played college football at UCLA).

Thomas Dudley Harmon was born in Rensselaer, Indiana, to Rose Marie (Quinn) and Louis Amiel Harmon, a real estate agent. His maternal grandparents were Irish, and his father had Irish, French, and German ancestry (the family surname had originally been "Hermann"). Harmon starred for the University of Michigan, being voted All-American his junior and senior years and winning the Heisman Trophy in 1940 as a senior. As a wolverine, he led college football in scoring in both 1939 and '40, setting a record. He was so famous, he went to Hollywood to make the movie Harmon of Michigan (1941), which was released in 1941, the year America entered WWII.

The war would curtail his pro football career. Drafted by the Chicago Bears of the NFL, Harmon accepted an offer from the upstart American Football League's New York Americans. (One of many pro football leagues to bear the name, this version folded after 1941.) Harmon received a commission with the U.S. Army Air Corps and won a Purple Heart and a Silver Star as a fighter pilot during the war. The silken parachute that saved his life was recut into a wedding dress when he married actress Elyse Knox in 1944. The two had met at Paramount studios when he starred in the movie about his college football exploits.

Harmon returned to football after the war, playing for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946-47, but injuries to his legs from bailing out over China curtailed his career and he could not achieve the greatness on the pro gridiron that he had as the star of the Wolverines. He became a sportscaster, appearing on ABC and on KTLA-TV, Los Angeles.

Tom "Old 98" Harmon was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954. He died on March 19, 1990. He was 70 years old.