Legendary Photog 'Teenie' Harris Dies Charles "Teenie" Harris, the dapper photographer whose thousands of images captured celebrities and chronicled decades of black life in Pittsburgh, died June 12 at the house where he had lived for most of his life. He was 89, two weeks shy of his 90th birthday. Harris worked for the Pittsburgh Courier from 1936 to 1975, including the era when it was the nation's biggest black newspaper. Harris was without rival in his access to black homes. He photographed celebrities-Lena Horne, Martin Luther King Jr., Satchel Paige, Muhammad Ali-but was also noted for his poignant pictures featuring black cab drivers, musicians, meter maids, policemen and thousands of others. One famous photo shows preschoolers reenacting a wedding. "He was the first person to see black people with dignity, more than anyone else did," said Greg Lanier, a black freelance photographer from Pittsburgh. "He portrayed black people in a warm and caring light. There's a reason that he had all the access that he did. People trusted him, and they knew they would be portrayed in a good light and not exploited." Ken Love, a Pittsburgh-based filmmaker who was working on a documentary about Harris, quoted Harris as saying, "I keep my words short. I let my pictures do the talking for me." A portion of Love's unfinished film, "One Shot: Teenie Harris, American Photographer," was screened Thursday night at a celebration of Harris' work at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Harris was too ill to attend, having suffered a stroke a few weeks ago. In the film, reporter Edna McKenzie, who worked with Harris at the Courier, recalled that he always drove a Cadillac and attracted attention wherever he went. "He always had a twinkle in his eyes," McKenzie said. "I'm sure he was mindful of the fact that he was making history." Former Pittsburgh Mayor David Lawrence gave him the nickname "One Shot" for the few frames he took. "Basically, it was an economic reason why he took one shot. Flash bulbs were expensive, film was expensive," Love said. "The mayor would always defer to him, and wait for him to take his shot." Harris worked around the clock, said Frank Bolden, the Courier's one-time city editor. When Harris was assigned to cover a baseball game, he would come back not only with shots of the sports figures, but also with pictures of people in the stands, on the field or in clubs after the game. "He had a better instinct for people than some of my reporters," Bolden said in the film. "He always had a news story in that camera." In April, Harris sued Dennis Morgan and Jerome Williams in federal court, saying they bilked him out of tens of thousands of negatives, including 16-mm movies. According to his lawsuit, Harris and Morgan reached an oral agreement in 1986 for Morgan to sell prints of Harris' work. Then 78, he had minimal education and no training in business, and the contract was never put in writing. Harris claimed he received only a $3,000 initial payment and a few thousand dollars more since 1986, instead of one-third of the sales, which he said was the agreement. Harris is survived by five children, all of Pittsburgh. |