Sam Harris Changes Hats, Becomes Song-and-Dance Man

Say hello to Sam Harris, song-and-dance man.

“I’d had enough of just singing ballads in everything I did,” says the singer, who came to fame in 1984 for his ultra-emotional, prize-winning crooning on TV’s “Star Search.” Friday night, Harris was scheduled to open at the Pasadena Playhouse’s Balcony Theatre in “Different Hats: An Evening of Song and Dance,” a 90-minute program he describes as “a real show-biz show--with its share of blues and ballads.”

With a program including such classics as “My Funny Valentine,” “Cry Me a River,” “More Than You Know” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” Harris is especially pleased to be performing on the legitimate stage. “I started doing theater when I was 5, left home very young to do theater,” he says. “Then I started doing recordings and went into that pop sensibility. But theater’s where I come from, what I love. Being in a theater is so natural for me.”

Though he’d done “bits and pieces” of dance before in his act, Harris got serious about the idea last year when he saw Chita Rivera’s revue: “I thought, ‘This is why I got into show-biz.’ So I decided to throw caution to the wind--and throw on my Capezios.” He credits his two backup singer-dancers and choreographer Raymond Del Barrio for smoothing the transition. “I wouldn’t call myself a dancer, although I studied a little in the past. I also got a lot by osmosis watching Gene Kelly movies.”

Oklahoma-born, Harris has called Los Angeles home for the past 10 years, although he’s busied himself with concert touring, two albums (“Sam Harris” and “Sam-I-Am”) and the local musical “Hard Copy” (Coast Playhouse, 1989); this fall, he’ll launch a stage tour of his own musical “Hurry! Hurry! Hollywood!” His most constant companion is a miniature pet pig named Lillian. “She’s great,” he says lovingly. “No, she doesn’t sing or dance. But she tries.”