- Born Name: Willard Lewis Waterman
- Birthday: 1914-08-29 (Year-Month-Day)
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Willard Waterman, 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 shows 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 latters 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 mid-1930s, where he acted in student plays and was a friend of Uta Hagen. He also began his radio career in Madison, 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 Pearys sibling, and whose voice was a near-match for Pearys — 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.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. Watermans 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. He is also remembered for his role as Claude Upson in the 1958 film Auntie Mame.[edit] TelevisionWatermans 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.In 1937, Waterman was a founding member of the radio union now known as the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.[edit] References^ Press release on Willard Waterman from NBC Chicago, dated November 9, 1936.^ Clio Award website, retrieved on July 15, 2007[edit] External linksBiography portalWillard Waterman at the Internet Movie DatabaseObituary: The New York TimesWillard Waterman at Find a GravePersondataNameWatermanAlternative namesShort descriptionDate of birthAugust 29, 1914Place of birthMadison, Wisconsin, USADate of deathFebruary 2, 1995Place of deathBurlingame, California, USARetrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_WatermanCategories: 1914 births | 1995 deaths | American actors | American radio actors | People from Madison, WisconsinHidden categories: Infobox person using deprecated parameters | Articles with hCardsPersonal toolsLog in / create accountNamespacesArticleDiscussionVariantsViewsReadEditView historyActionsSearchNavigationMain pageContentsFeatured contentCurrent eventsRandom articleDonate to WikipediaInteractionHelpAbout WikipediaCommunity portalRecent changesContact WikipediaToolboxWhat links hereRelated changesUpload fileSpecial pagesPermanent linkCite this pagePrint/exportCreate a bookDownload as PDFPrintable versionLanguagesSuomi This page was last modified on 27 November 2010 at 09:07.Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;additional terms may apply.See Terms of Use for details.Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.Contact usPrivacy policyAbout WikipediaDisclaimersif ( window.mediaWiki ) {mediaWiki.config.set({wgCanonicalNamespace: , wgCanonicalSpecialPageName: false, wgNamespaceNumber: 0, wgPageName: Willard_Waterman, wgTitle: Willard Waterman, wgAction: view, wgArticleId: 6838976, wgIsArticle: true, wgUserName: null, wgUserGroups: [*], wgCurRevisionId: 399106778, wgCategories: [Infobox person using deprecated parameters, Articles with hCards, 1914 births, 1995 deaths, American actors, American radio actors, People from Madison, Wisconsin], wgBreakFrames: false, wgRestrictionEdit: [], wgRestrictionMove: [], wgSearchNamespaces: [0], wgFlaggedRevsParams: {tags: {status: {levels: 1, quality: 2, pristine: 3}}}, wgStableRevisionId: null, wgRevContents: {error: Unable to get content., waiting: Waiting for content}, wgWikimediaMobileUrl: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki, wgCollapsibleNavBucketTest: false, wgCollapsibleNavForceNewVersion: false, wgArticleAssessmentJUIPath: http://bits.wikimedia.org/w/extensions-1.17/UsabilityInitiative/js/js2stopgap/jui.combined.min.js, Geo: {city: , country: }, wgNoticeProject: wikipedia});}if ( window.mediaWiki ) {mediaWiki.loader.load([mediawiki.legacy.wikibits, mediawiki.util, mediawiki.legacy.ajax, mediawiki.legacy.mwsuggest, ext.vector.collapsibleNav, ext.vector.collapsibleTabs, ext.vector.editWarning, ext.vector.simpleSearch]);mediaWiki.loader.go();}if ( window.mediaWiki ) {mediaWiki.user.options.set({ccmeonemails:0,cols:80,contextchars:50,contextlines:5,date:default,diffonly:0,disablemail:0,disablesuggest:0,editfont:default,editondblclick:0,editsection:1,editsectiononrightclick:0,enotifminoredits:0,enotifrevealaddr:0,enotifusertalkpages:1,enotifwatchlistpages:0,extendwatchlist:0,externaldiff:0,externaleditor:0,fancysig:0,forceeditsummary:0,gender:unknown,hideminor:0,hidepatrolled:0,highlightbroken:1,imagesize:2,justify:0,math:1,minordefault:0,newpageshidepatrolled:0,nocache:0,noconvertlink:0,norollbackdiff:0,numberheadings:0,previewonfirst:0,previewontop:1,quickbar:1,rcdays:7,rclimit:50,rememberpassword:0,rows:25,searchlimit:20,showhiddencats:0,showjumplinks:1,shownumberswatching:1,showtoc:1,showtoolbar:1,skin:vector,stubthreshold:0,thumbsize:4,underline:2,uselivepreview:0,usenewrc:0,watchcreations:1,watchdefault:0,watchdeletion:0,watchlistdays:3,watchlisthideanons:0,watchlisthidebots:0,watchlisthideliu:0,watchlisthideminor:0,watchlisthideown:0,watchlisthidepatrolled:0,watchmoves:0,wllimit:250,flaggedrevssimpleui:1,flaggedrevsstable:false,flaggedrevseditdiffs:true,flaggedrevsviewdiffs:false,vector-simplesearch:1,useeditwarning:1,vector-collapsiblenav:1,usebetatoolbar:1,usebetatoolbar-cgd:1,variant:en,language:en,searchNs0:true,searchNs1:false,searchNs2:false,searchNs3:false,searchNs4:false,searchNs5:false,searchNs6:false,searchNs7:false,searchNs8:false,searchNs9:false,searchNs10:false,searchNs11:false,searchNs12:false,searchNs13:false,searchNs14:false,searchNs15:false,searchNs100:false,searchNs101:false,searchNs108:false,searchNs109:false});mediaWiki.loader.state({user.options:ready});/* cache key: enwiki:resourceloader:filter:minify-js:3:ae2156c08a06314b12473d37e57711e2 */} if ( window.isMSIE55 ) fixalpha();