Louis Harris; Ex-Aide to De Mille Was Nominated for 2 Oscars

Louis (Lou) Harris, whose film industry career spanned 40 years and involved such diverse tasks as being special assistant to Cecil B. De Mille and producing the “trailers” that herald the arrival in theaters of new feature pictures, is dead.

A spokesman for the Motion Picture and Television Hospital and Health Center in Woodland Hills said he died there Friday at age 85.

Harris had been a member of the facility’s board of trustees until he retired a year ago.

Harris was a journalist in New York and became a contributor to and editor of such publications as Films and Review, Performing Arts Review and New Theater and Film.

He joined the advertising department of Paramount Pictures in 1932 and came to Hollywood in 1935, becoming De Mille’s aide in 1941. Two of the many musical short subjects Harris produced, when those films were shown between double features, were nominated for Academy Awards.

He joined London’s National Screen Service in 1947 to train British film publicists in American ways and returned to the United States the next year to head Paramount’s film promotion department, retiring in 1970.

Survivors include his wife, Vera, a daughter and six grandchildren.

Services are scheduled at the Motion Picture Fund’sLouis B. Mayer Theater in Woodland Hills on Friday at 2:30 p.m.