Willard Waterman
| Willard Waterman | |
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An undated publicity photo
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| Born |
Willard Lewis Waterman August 29, 1914 Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Died | February 2, 1995 (aged 80) Burlingame, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Skylawn Memorial Park in San Mateo, California |
| Years active | 1949–1973 |
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.
Waterman attended the University of Wisconsin in the mid-1930s, 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.
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.
He also 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. There he met and replaced Peary on The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Not only did the two men become longtime friends, but Waterman – who actually 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 an ill-fated television version syndicated in 1955.
During World War II, Waterman worked in war production in the Nash-Kelvinator plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and resided at 405 65th Street.
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