Billy Gilbert
Encyclopedia
Billy Gilbert was an American comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

 and actor known for his comic sneeze
Sneeze
A sneeze is a semi-autonomous, convulsive expulsion of air from the lungs through the nose and mouth, usually caused by foreign particles irritating the nasal mucosa...

 routines. He appeared in over 200 feature films, short subjects and television shows starting in 1929. He is not to be confused with silent film actor Billy Gilbert (a.k.a. Little Billy Gilbert, born William V. Campbell, 1891–1961).

Early life and vaudeville career

Born William Gilbert Barron in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

, the child of singers with the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

, he began working in vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 at the age of 12.

Big break in films

Gilbert was spotted by Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...

 who was in the audience of Gilbert's show Sensations of 1929. Laurel went back stage to meet Gilbert and was so impressed by him he introduced him to comedy producer Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...

. Gilbert was employed as a gag writer, actor and director, and at the age of 35 he appeared in his first film for the Fox Film Corporation in 1929.

Gilbert broke into comedy short subjects with the Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...

 studio in 1930 (he appears without billing in the Joe Frisco
Joe Frisco
Joe Frisco was an American vaudeville performer who first made his name on stage as a jazz dancer, but later incorporated his stuttering voice to his act and became a popular comedian.Born Louis Wilson Joseph...

 comedy The Happy Hottentots, recently restored and released on DVD). Gilbert's burly frame and gruff voice made him a good comic villain, and within the year he was working for producer Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...

. He appeared in support of Roach's comedy stars Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...

, Charley Chase
Charley Chase
Charley Chase was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his work in Hal Roach short film comedies...

, Thelma Todd
Thelma Todd
Thelma Alice Todd was an American actress. Appearing in about 120 pictures between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles in films like Marx Brothers' Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, a number of Charley Chase's short comedies, and co-starring with Buster Keaton and Jimmy...

, and Our Gang
Our Gang
Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...

. One of his Laurel and Hardy appearances was the 1932 Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

-winning featurette The Music Box. Gilbert generally played blustery tough guys in the Roach comedies, but could play other comic characters, from fey couturiers to pompous radio announcers to roaring drunks. Gilbert's skill at dialects prompted Roach to give him his own series: big Billy Gilbert teamed with little Billy Bletcher
Billy Bletcher
William "Billy" Bletcher was an American actor, comedian, and voice artist, a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.-Career:...

 as the Dutch-comic "Schmaltz Brothers.'" in offbeat musical shorts like Rhapsody in Brew. Gilbert also directed these.

Like many other Roach contractees, Gilbert found similar work at other studios. He appears in the early comedies of the Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...

 at Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

, as well as in RKO short subjects. These led to featured roles in full-length films, and from 1934 Billy Gilbert became one of the screen's most familiar faces.

One of his standard routines had Gilbert progressively getting excited or nervous about something, and his speech would break down into facial spasms, culminating in a big, loud sneeze. He used this bit so frequently that Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 thought of him immediately when casting the voice of Sneezy in 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...

. Gilbert and Disney would later work together again in Mickey and the Beanstalk, with Gilbert voicing Willie the Giant in a very similar way to Sneezy. Gilbert did the sneeze routine in a memorable cameo in the Paramount comedy Million Dollar Legs
Million Dollar Legs
Million Dollar Legs is an American comedy film, directed by Edward F. Cline and released by Paramount Pictures. It was inspired by the 1932 Olympics, held in Los Angeles.-Cast :*Jack Oakie as Migg Tweeny*W. C...

(1932) starring W.C. Fields, Jack Oakie
Jack Oakie
Jack Oakie was an American actor, starring mostly in films, but also working on stage, radio and television.-Early life:...

, Susan Fleming, and Ben Turpin
Ben Turpin
Ben Turpin was a cross-eyed American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films.-Personal life:...

.

Gilbert is prominent in most of the movies he appeared in. He appeared as "Herring" - a parody of Nazi official Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...

 - the minister of war in Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

's The Great Dictator
The Great Dictator
The Great Dictator is a comedy film by Charlie Chaplin released in October 1940. Like most Chaplin films, he wrote, produced, and directed, in addition to starring as the lead. Having been the only Hollywood film maker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was...

; he danced with Alice Faye
Alice Faye
Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian...

 and Betty Grable
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...

 in Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...

; he stole scenes as a dim witted process server in the fast-paced comedy His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of the play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur...

; playing an Italian character, he played a rare dramatic scene opposite singer Gloria Jean
Gloria Jean
Gloria Jean is an American singer and actress who starred or co-starred in 26 feature films between 1939 and 1959. She also made radio, television, stage, and nightclub appearances.-Career:...

 in A Little Bit of Heaven. All choice Gilbert roles, and all filmed the same year (1940), which indicates how prolific and talented Billy Gilbert was. He was also the soda server to Freddie Bartholomew
Freddie Bartholomew
Frederick Cecil Bartholomew , known for his acting work as Freddie Bartholomew, was an English-American child actor. One of the most famous child actors of all time, he became very popular in 1930s Hollywood films...

 in Captains Courageous.

Gilbert seldom starred in movies but did have occasional opportunities to play leads. In 1943 he headlined a brief series of two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

. That same year Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation is a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to...

 teamed him with the urbane stage comedian Frank Fay
Frank Fay (American actor)
Frank Fay was an American film and stage actor, emcee, comedian, best known as an actor for having played "Elwood P. Dowd" in the play Harvey by the American playwright Mary Coyle Chase on Broadway...

 for a comedy series; Fay left the series after the first entry, and was replaced by a more appropriate foil, fellow vaudeville veteran Shemp Howard, who had been one of the Three Stooges before being replaced by his brother Curly
Curly Howard
Jerome Lester "Jerry" Horwitz , better known by his stage name Curly Howard, was an American comedian and vaudevillian. He is best known as a member of the American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges, along with his older brothers Moe Howard and Shemp Howard, and actor Larry Fine...

. The team was known as "Gilbert and Howard."

Later years

Gilbert also worked in 1950s television, including a memorable pantomime sketch with Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

. He appeared regularly on the children's program Andy's Gang with Andy Devine
Andy Devine
Andrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...

. He retired from the screen in 1962, following his appearance in the feature Five Weeks in a Balloon
Five Weeks in a Balloon (film)
Five Weeks in a Balloon is a 1962 science fiction adventure film loosely based on the novel of the same name by Jules Verne filmed in CinemaScope. It was produced and directed by Irwin Allen; his last feature film in the 1960s before moving to producing several science fiction television series. ...

.

Death

Billy Gilbert died of a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

 on September 23, 1971, in Hollywood. He was cremated and his ashes scattered within the rose garderns of the Odd Fellows Cemetery
Odd Fellows Cemetery (Los Angeles, California)
Odd Fellows Cemetery is a cemetery in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is notable for specializing in cremation of obese individuals, especially those over .-Fetus burial:...

, in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. A plaque of remembrance was erected in his name nearby.

Personal life

After an unhappy first marriage, Gilbert married Ella McKenzie in 1938. She had appeared as an ingenue in short-subject comedies. Fellow film comedian Charley Chase
Charley Chase
Charley Chase was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his work in Hal Roach short film comedies...

 was the best man
Groomsman
A groomsman is one of the male attendants to the groom in a wedding ceremony. The term usher is more common in the UK while the term 'groomsman' is considered somewhat lower-middle- class and used by those who have adopted the term from America. Usually the groom selects his closest friends and...

.

Legacy

For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Billy Gilbert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

 at 6263 Hollywood Blvd.

External links

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