Kristin Harmon, the sister of NCIS star Mark Harmon and the former wife of 1950s teen idol Ricky Nelson, passed away from a heart attack on April 27.
The sad news just went viral this week, with Harmon’s daughter, Tracy Nelson, confirming Kristin’s passong on Facebook.
She was 72 years old.
Wrote Nelson as part of her post:
“Thanks Universe, for incarnating me into a group who lives through their art and painting and music and words so that if I ever need to check in with those that have gone I can, if my children ever need to know who they were, they can.
“It lessens the panic of never seeing someone again, face to face. Oh my God, such a Hurricane. Such a life.”
Harmon was the older sister of Mark Harmon, who has anchored NCIS for 15 season; and former model Kelly Harmon.
Her dad was Heisman trophy winner Tom Harmon; and her mother was an actress named Elyse Knox Harmon.
In 1963, at the age if 18, she married Nelson, who was a wildly popular teen idol at the time.
That same year, Harmon also became a series regular on the TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
This is a photo of her on the series:
Harmon and Nelson had four kids, Tracy, a former actress; twins Gunnar and Matthew, who started the band Nelson; and Sam.
Their divorce was finalized in 1982, three years before Nelson’s tragic death in a plane crash.
“No one could light up a room like she could, or a conversation, or lead an army of friends into joyful noise like she could. If you knew her you knew this,” wrote Tracy Nelson about her mom on Facebook, adding:
“A force. A reckoning. Artist, first, always. Anarchist, bohemian, beauty. Hurricane Kris. No one could blow the house down like she could.
“And no one could make something out of nothing like she could.”
It’s really a beautiful, lengthy tribute.
You can read the entire thing HERE.
During the 1980s, Harmon struggled with alcoholism.
Her younger siblings took care of her children at the time; and then, following Nelson’s death in 1985, Mark Harmon (pictured above) urged his sister to enter rehab.
“Nobody but my brother could have talked me into this because I trusted him,” Harmon said in a 1987 interview with People Magazine. “A voice inside me said, ‘For once in your life, let somebody help you."”
May Kristin Harmon rest in peace.
