1. Willard Lewis Waterman 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.
18 Facts About Willard Waterman
1. 2.
Willard Waterman's 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.
3.
Willard 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.
4.
Willard 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.
5.
Kraft refused to move the show to CBS and hired Waterman to replace Peary as the stentorian Throckmorton P Gildersleeve.
6.
Peary and Willard Waterman already knew each other from earlier radio jobs.
7.
Willard Waterman stayed with The Great Gildersleeve from 1950 to 1957 on radio and in a short-lived television series syndicated in 1955.
8.
Willard Waterman had radio roles between the mid-1930s and 1950 on such shows as Chicago Theater of the Air and Harold Teen, plus four soap operas: Girl Alone, The Guiding Light, Lonely Women, The Road of Life and Kay Fairchild, Stepmother.
9.
Willard Waterman is remembered for his role as Claude Upson in the 1958 film Auntie Mame.
10.
Willard Waterman was seen in Riding High, Three Coins in the Fountain, and The Apartment.
11.
Willard Waterman was in two Broadway productions of the musical Mame and the 1973 Broadway revival of The Pajama Game.
12.
Willard Waterman toured in the national companies of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
13.
Willard Waterman was all but retired from acting after 1973, although in 1980 he appeared in the "Boss and Peterson" radio commercial for Sony, for which he received a Clio Award.
14.
In 1937, Willard Waterman was a founding member of the radio union known as the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
15.
In 1937, Willard Waterman married Mary Anna Theleen, a secretary to the president of Nash Motors in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
16.
In 1945, Willard Waterman moved his family to the San Fernando Valley in Southern California.
17.
Willard Waterman died of bone marrow disease February 2,1995, at his home in Burlingame, California.
18.
Willard Waterman has a star in the Radio section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.