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Willard Waterman
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Willard Waterman
Willard Lewis Waterman (August 29, 1914 – February 2, 1995) was an American character actor in films, TV and on radio, remembered best for replacing Harold Peary as the title character of The Great Gildersleeve at the height of that show's popularity.
In the mid-1930s, Waterman attended the University of Wisconsin, where he joined Theta Chi, acted in student plays, and was a friend of Uta Hagen. His growing interest in theater put an end to his original plan to be an engineer, and he gained experience in radio at the university's station, WHA.
Waterman began his radio career at WIBA in Madison, singing in a quartet that performed "musical interludes between programs," and came to NBC in Chicago in early 1936.
Waterman replaced Harold Peary on The Great Gildersleeve in 1950, after Peary was unable to convince sponsor and show owner Kraft Cheese to allow him an ownership stake in the show. Impressed with better capital-gains deals CBS was willing to offer performers in the high-tax late 1940s, he decided to move from NBC to CBS during the latter's famous talent raids. Kraft, however, refused to move the show to CBS and hired Waterman to replace Peary as the stentorian Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve.
Peary and Waterman already knew each other from earlier radio jobs. Not only did the two men become longtime friends, but Waterman—who looked as though he could have been Peary's sibling and whose voice was a near-match for Peary's—refused to appropriate the half-leering, half-embarrassed laugh Peary had made a Gildersleeve trademark. He stayed with The Great Gildersleeve from 1950 to 1957 on radio and in a short-lived television series syndicated in 1955.
At the same time he was heard as Gildersleeve, Waterman had a recurring role as Mr. Merriweather in the short-lived but respected radio comedy vehicle for Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume, The Halls of Ivy. Waterman's pre-Gildersleeve radio career had included at least one starring vehicle, a short-lived situation comedy, Those Websters, that premiered in 1945.
He had radio roles between the mid-1930s and 1950 on such shows as Chicago Theater of the Air (variety) and Harold Teen (comedy), plus four soap operas: Girl Alone, The Guiding Light, Lonely Women, The Road of Life and Kay Fairchild, Stepmother.
Waterman is remembered for his role as Claude Upson in the 1958 film Auntie Mame. He was also seen in Riding High, Three Coins in the Fountain, and The Apartment.
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Willard Waterman
Willard Lewis Waterman (August 29, 1914 – February 2, 1995) was an American character actor in films, TV and on radio, remembered best for replacing Harold Peary as the title character of The Great Gildersleeve at the height of that show's popularity.
In the mid-1930s, Waterman attended the University of Wisconsin, where he joined Theta Chi, acted in student plays, and was a friend of Uta Hagen. His growing interest in theater put an end to his original plan to be an engineer, and he gained experience in radio at the university's station, WHA.
Waterman began his radio career at WIBA in Madison, singing in a quartet that performed "musical interludes between programs," and came to NBC in Chicago in early 1936.
Waterman replaced Harold Peary on The Great Gildersleeve in 1950, after Peary was unable to convince sponsor and show owner Kraft Cheese to allow him an ownership stake in the show. Impressed with better capital-gains deals CBS was willing to offer performers in the high-tax late 1940s, he decided to move from NBC to CBS during the latter's famous talent raids. Kraft, however, refused to move the show to CBS and hired Waterman to replace Peary as the stentorian Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve.
Peary and Waterman already knew each other from earlier radio jobs. Not only did the two men become longtime friends, but Waterman—who looked as though he could have been Peary's sibling and whose voice was a near-match for Peary's—refused to appropriate the half-leering, half-embarrassed laugh Peary had made a Gildersleeve trademark. He stayed with The Great Gildersleeve from 1950 to 1957 on radio and in a short-lived television series syndicated in 1955.
At the same time he was heard as Gildersleeve, Waterman had a recurring role as Mr. Merriweather in the short-lived but respected radio comedy vehicle for Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume, The Halls of Ivy. Waterman's pre-Gildersleeve radio career had included at least one starring vehicle, a short-lived situation comedy, Those Websters, that premiered in 1945.
He had radio roles between the mid-1930s and 1950 on such shows as Chicago Theater of the Air (variety) and Harold Teen (comedy), plus four soap operas: Girl Alone, The Guiding Light, Lonely Women, The Road of Life and Kay Fairchild, Stepmother.
Waterman is remembered for his role as Claude Upson in the 1958 film Auntie Mame. He was also seen in Riding High, Three Coins in the Fountain, and The Apartment.
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