Theresa Harris brought warmth and wit to the servants she was so often asked to play. We value her work, though the films repeatedly gave her too little time and too little to do.
Fi1m perspective
In Jezebel (1938), Theresa Harris gives Zette, Julie’s maid, warmth and quickness, then has little opportunity to do anything with them. We want to know more about this woman than what she does for her employer. The film keeps her among the household servants, with little attention to their lives. We found the singing on the steps hard to sit through because the enslaved people are presented as another attractive feature of the plantation.
Harris’s film debut was a singing part in Thunderbolt (1929). The 1930s brought mostly uncredited maid, singer and bit parts. Baby Face (1933) made more space for her as Chico, friend and confidante to Barbara Stanwyck’s character. Their substantial time together on screen gives us a better starting point for considering Harris than the job titles attached to so many of her roles.
Jezebel shows how little even a credited part could guarantee. We recommend William Wyler’s film chiefly for Bette Davis and the ball built around her wrong-coloured dress, while finding its treatment of the household badly wanting. Orry-Kelly’s crinolines fill doorways around the white characters; the people who dress them remain in the background. Those costumes receive an attention that Zette never gets. Praising Harris should not become a way of excusing how little interest the film takes in her character.
There were more varied tasks in the 1940s. Buck Benny Rides Again (1940) paired Harris with Eddie Anderson in musical and comic sequences, giving her singing and dancing a use. Her work for producer Val Lewton included the sarcastic waitress Minnie in Cat People (1942) and Alma in I Walked with a Zombie (1943). These were still supporting parts, but they allowed more character than the usual domestic assignment. Start with Baby Face, where Harris has a friendship to play and more of the film in which to play it.
Biography
Theresa Harris was an American actress, singer and dancer. Born in Houston, Texas, she studied at the USC Conservatory of Music and Zoellner's Conservatory of Music before joining the Lafayette Players, an African American musical comedy theatre troupe. She made her film debut in 1929 in Thunderbolt, singing 'Daddy Won't You Please Come Home'.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Harris appeared in numerous films, frequently in uncredited or supporting roles as maids, singers and other characters. She played Zette, Bette Davis's maid, in Jezebel (1938) and had roles in films including Baby Face (1933), Professional Sweetheart (1933), Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and Out of the Past (1947). Her career continued into television in the 1950s.
