Pat Harrington

Daniel Patrick Harrington Jr. was born in Manhattan on August 13, 1929, and died on January 6, 2016. An American stage and television actor, he is best known for portraying building superintendent Dwayne Schneider on the sitcom One Day at a Time, which ran from 1975 to 1984. His father, Pat Harrington Sr., was a song and dance performer who worked in vaudeville and on the Broadway stage. Harrington attended La Salle Military Academy in Oakdale, New York, and went on to earn a bachelor of arts from Fordham University in 1950, followed by a master's degree in political philosophy from the same institution. During the Korean War, he served as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Air Force, attaining the rank of first lieutenant.

After completing his military service, Harrington took a position at NBC in New York City and began pursuing a career in entertainment. He toured North America in several stage productions before making his Broadway appearances. His verified Broadway credits span 1948 to 1949 and include Howdy, Mr. Ice and Howdy, Mr. Ice of 1950. He later made his Broadway debut in a production in which he played Walter Bagley in Happiness Is Just a Little Thing Called a Rolls Royce. In 1997 and 1998, he performed in the national tour of Show Boat as Cap'n Andy Hawks, and in 2000 he appeared in a regional production of Into the Woods as the Narrator.

In the 1950s, Harrington became a recognizable television presence as a member of Steve Allen's comedy troupe known as the Men on the Street, which also included Don Knotts, Tom Poston, and Louis Nye. He made repeated appearances on The Jack Paar Show in the mid-1950s, playing the comedic Italian immigrant golf pro Guido Panzini. During the 1959–60 season, he played Pat Hannigan in eleven episodes of The Danny Thomas Show. He reprised the Guido Panzini character in a 1965 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. titled "The Bow-Wow Affair" and again in the February 8, 1966, episode of McHale's Navy, "McHale's Country Club Caper."

Throughout the 1960s, Harrington accumulated a wide range of television guest appearances. During the 1964–65 season he appeared on The Bing Crosby Show and Kentucky Jones, starring Dennis Weaver. On April 6, 1965, he appeared in the Mr. Novak episode "There's a Penguin in My Garden," starring James Franciscus, and he guest-starred in two episodes of The Munsters. He parodied Get Smart in an episode of F Troop, playing secret agent B Wise. In 1967, he appeared in the Elvis Presley film Easy Come, Easy Go. From 1971 to 1974, he played District Attorney Charlie Giannetta in eleven episodes of the ABC legal drama Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, starring Arthur Hill. In 1974, he appeared alongside Peter Falk and Robert Conrad in the Columbo episode An Exercise in Fatality.

Harrington also worked extensively as a voice actor. In 1967, he voiced Ray Palmer/the Atom and Roy Harper/Speedy on The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. From 1965 to 1969, he provided the voices of both the Inspector, a character inspired by Inspector Jacques Clouseau, and his sidekick Deux Deux across all 34 original animated episodes of the Inspector series, produced by Mirisch Films and DePatie-Freleng and released through United Artists; those episodes were later incorporated into the Pink Panther cartoon television show. He also voiced Jon's father in A Garfield Christmas Special.

Harrington's most celebrated role came with One Day at a Time, on which he played Dwayne Schneider from 1975 to 1984. His performance earned him both a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series in 1980 and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1984. Following the show's conclusion, he reprised the Schneider character in a series of commercials for Trak Auto Parts in the late 1980s. In 1978, he played Hank Vosmik, a crew member who wins the heart of Florence Henderson's character Diane DeMarco, in The Love Boat season two episode "Captain's Cup." He appeared as a celebrity contestant on Password Plus in 1979 and guest-starred in an episode of The King of Queens in 2006. He appeared twice on productions featuring his former One Day at a Time co-star Valerie Bertinelli, on Sydney in 1990 and on Hot in Cleveland in 2012, the latter marking his final acting role.

Harrington married Marjorie Ann Gortner in 1955; the couple had four children, including tennis player Mike Harrington, and divorced in 1985. He married Sally Cleaver, an insurance executive, in 2001. Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2012, he was hospitalized following a fall that caused a brain hemorrhage in November 2015 and died on January 6, 2016, at the age of 86.