Phil Harris, singer, bandleader and comic who teamed with Jack
Benny on the radio and was the voice of Baloo the bear in Disney's "The Jungle Book," is dead at 91.Harris died of heart failure late Friday at his home in this desert town. His wife of 54 years, actress Alice Faye, and daughter Phyllis were at his side, family spokeswoman Jewel Baxter said.
With a toothy grin and Southern accent gained during a childhood in Nashville, Harris created a caricature of himself as a lovable, overdrinking swinger.
His trademark was a finger-snapping rendition of "That's What I Like About the South," and he greeted Benny show audiences with a snappy "Hiya, Jackson!"
"If it hadn't been for radio," he once said, "I would still be a traveling orchestra leader. For 17 years I played one-night stands, sleeping on buses. I never even voted, because I didn't have any residence."
In later years, after the death of his close friend Bing Crosby, Harris took his place doing TV color commentary for the annual Bing Crosby Pro-Am Pebble Beach golf tournament.
In 1967, he provided the voice of Baloo the bear in Disney's cartoon version of "The Jungle Book," based on Rudyard Kipling's novel about a boy who grows up with animals in a jungle. Harris sang the Oscar-nominated song, "The Bare Necessities."
Harris was also survived by daughter Alice Regan of New Orleans, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.