Lessons learned from 'M*A*S*H' and 'Dragnet' actor Harry Morgan — on TV and in real life

Renowned character actor Harry Morgan passed away Wednesday morning at the age of 96. His most memorable credits include television roles on "M*A*S*H" (1975-83) and "Dragnet" (1967-70), as well as cinematic appearances in "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), "High Noon" (1952), "Inherit the Wind" (1960), "How the West Was Won" (1962), "The Apple Dumpling Gang" (1975) and "The Shootist" (1976).

Many of Morgan's characters exhibited a sense of nobility without veering into condescension. In "M*A*S*H," for example, Morgan played Col. Sherman T. Potter, commanding officer of a surgical hospital unit during the Korean War. Obituaries that hit the Internet on Wednesday seemed to universally celebrate Morgan's portrayal of Col. Potter.

Some examples of that praise: Ned Potter wrote for ABC News that Morgan "played Col. Potter with a dry wit, a firm but kindly man in charge"; "he was the still point amid the pandemonium, a flinty corrective both to its silliness and its sentimentality," wrote Robert Lloyd for a Los Angeles Times blog;

Associated Press reported that Morgan's "wry humor, which helped him net him an Emmy for the CBS hit, carried onto the show"; and USA Today chimed in that "Morgan as Potter created one of TV's most-loved authority figures, a man firmly in charge who held sway by being the smartest (and sometimes only) adult in the room."

The Thomson Reuters blog Summary Judgment took a different tack, anointing Morgan as its "favorite judge in all of moviedom" for his role in "Inherit the Wind."

"The same deep and resonant voice and air of authority that made (Morgan) a good commanding officer (in 'M*A*S*H') translated into one heck of a jurist. With Spencer Tracy and Frederich March as opposing counsel in 'Inherit the Wind,' the 1960 retelling of the evolution-vs.-creationism Tennessee trial, there was a lot of drama and emotion to control in that courtroom. But Morgan's Judge Mel Coffey was solidly in charge."

When Morgan joined Jack Webb's second run of Dragnet on television, he became part of not only a realistic crime drama but a cultural phenomenon.

The series often worked "as a downbeat social drama," R.D. Heldenfels wrote for the Akron Beacon Journal. "Even in the '50s, Dragnet had episodes about pornography in schools, drug abuse and child molestation. Joe Friday was sometimes the only protector people had, and there were times he failed."

Morgan appeared as Sgt. Joe Friday's partner, Bill Gannon, in the show's 1967-70 run.