Willard Waterman

Willard Waterman
An undated publicity photo
Born	August 29, 1914(1914-08-29) Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Died	February 2, 1995 (aged 80) Burlingame, California, United States

Willard Lewis Waterman (August 29, 1914, Madison, Wisconsin – February 2, 1995, Burlingame, California) was a character actor in films, TV and on radio, remembered best for succeeding Harold Peary as the title character of The Great Gildersleeve at the height of that show's popularity.

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.

Waterman attended the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s, where he acted in student plays and was a friend of Uta Hagen. He began his radio career in Chicago, where he met and replaced Peary on The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Not only did the two men become longtime friends, but Waterman's own booming voice resembled Peary's almost exactly. Waterman, who looked as though he could have been Peary's brother, refused to appropriate Peary's familiar trademark, the half-leering, half-embarrassed Gildersleeve laugh. Waterman stayed with The Great Gildersleeve from 1950 to 1957 on radio and in an ill-fated television version 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, in addition to Tom Mix, had included at least one starring vehicle, a short-lived situation comedy, Those Websters, that premiered in 1945. He also 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.

Television

Waterman's later career included a variety of film and TV supporting roles on such shows as Lawman, My Favorite Martian, The Eve Arden Show, 77 Sunset Strip, The Dick Van Dyke Show, F Troop and Vacation Playhouse. He was all but retired from acting after 1973, though in 1980 he appeared in the "Boss and Peterson" radio commercial for Sony, for which he received a Clio Award.^[1]

In 1937, Waterman was a founding member of the radio union now known as the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

References

External links

• Obituary: The New York Times
• Willard Waterman at Find a Grave