Harry Zimm

"You don’t want to act like a hard-on when you’re standing there in your undies."

- Chili Palmer to Harry Zimm

Harry Zimm was a childish film producer and the founder of ZigZag Productions. He had made several known creature flicks, including the Grotesque and Slime Creatures pictures. During production of the movie Freaks, Harry read a screenplay by his friend Murray Saffrin, Mr. Lovejoy. Thinking it was great, Harry set out to get celebrity actor Michael Weir for the titular role, thus delaying Freaks. While staying with actor Karen Flores in an attempt to get her to talk to Michael, Harry met Miami loan shark Chili Palmer who had sneaked into her home in order to collect money owed by Harry to the Mesas Casino as a favor for its owner Dick Allen. During their subsequent conversation, Chili described an idea he’d had for a movie about a shylock hunting down a drycleaner, Leo Devoe, who had faked his own death and got lucky in Las Vegas casinos - actually a true story, with Chili being the shylock. Harry was intrigued by the movie, but also by the idea of Chili being a loan shark, and asked for his help: because of the delay of Freaks, his dangerous investors, Ronnie Wingate and Bo Catlett of the limo service Wingate Motors, became suspicious. Harry brought Chili along to a meeting with them in which he was to explain the reason for the delay to them, hoping that Chili would scare them straight. However, the conflicting methods of Chili and Harry resulted in Ronnie and Bo becoming angrier with Harry, making things worse for him. Chili helped Harry to get Michael Weir for the part of Lovejoy, but during his talk with Weir Chili had also brought up his movie idea which had excited Michael more. Harry accompanied Chili and Michael to a meeting at a restaurant about what he thought was Mr. Lovejoy but turned out to be Chili's film, resulting in Harry becoming angry with Chili. But, Chili was still able to get Bo and Ronnie off Harry's back and he and Karen convinced Elaine Levin at Tower Studios to put his movie, Get Leo, into production with Weir as Randy, the shylock. Karen and Harry produced the movie, written by Chili.

Personality and traits
Harry Zimm was childish and immature, expecting others to clean up after him and sulking when they didn’t. Harry’s laziness had even had an effect on his appearance, being overweight. With these traits came a certain laziness, with Zimm notably taking several minutes before being convinced to check out what turned out to be a break-in at Karen Flores’s home. Despite this, Harry was passionate and more competent when it came to his job producing and making movies: he took pride in the movies he had made and knew them well, and would only produce those he approved of while being critical to others. Because of this Harry would become very clingy and needy when an idea was pitched to him, expecting it to be his and his alone as it was made.

Behind the scenes

 * Harry Zimm first appeared as a secondary character in the 1990 novel Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard.
 * Gene Hackman portrayed Harry Zimm in the 1995 film adaption of Get Shorty. His character in the film was made to be slightly more comedic.
 * In the 2017-18 Epix TV series adaption of Get Shorty, Harry did not appear.

Appearances

 * Get Shorty (novel)