Billy Gilbert

Billy Gilbert, born William Gilbert Barron on September 12, 1894, was an American actor, comedian, and composer whose career spanned vaudeville, film, television, and Broadway. He was born in a dressing room at the Hopkins Opera House in Louisville, Kentucky, the child of singers with the Metropolitan Opera. After spending part of his childhood in San Francisco, he left school to join a troupe of singing children. His early work included a female-impersonation act and professional boxing before he began performing in vaudeville at age 12, eventually working burlesque on the Columbia and Mutual circuits.

Gilbert's transition to film came after actor-comedian Stan Laurel attended a performance of Sensations of 1929 and was sufficiently impressed to introduce Gilbert to comedy producer Hal Roach. Gilbert made his first film for Fox Film Corporation in 1929 at age 35, and by 1930 he was appearing in comedy short subjects for Vitaphone. His burly build and gruff voice suited him to comic villain roles, and he was soon working regularly for Roach alongside Laurel and Hardy, Charley Chase, Thelma Todd, and Our Gang. One of his appearances with Laurel and Hardy was in The Music Box (1932), which won the Academy Award for best short subject. Roach also gave Gilbert his own series, pairing him with Billy Bletcher as the Dutch-comic "Schmaltz Brothers" in musical shorts, some of which Gilbert directed. He additionally starred in Roach's The Taxi Boys series opposite comedians including Clyde Cook, Billy Bevan, Franklin Pangborn, and Ben Blue.

One of Gilbert's most recognizable comic routines involved building agitation or excitement through facial spasms until culminating in a loud, exaggerated sneeze. Walt Disney drew on this signature bit when casting the voice of Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Gilbert and Disney collaborated again on the "Mickey and the Beanstalk" segment of Fun and Fancy Free (1947), with Gilbert voicing Willie the Giant in a manner similar to his Sneezy performance. He performed a version of the sneeze routine in a cameo in the Paramount comedy Million Dollar Legs (1932), which starred W. C. Fields, Jack Oakie, Susan Fleming, and Ben Turpin.

From 1934 onward, Gilbert became one of the most recognizable supporting faces in Hollywood. He played "Herring," a parody of Nazi official Hermann Göring, in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, and appeared alongside Alice Faye and Betty Grable in Tin Pan Alley. He played a dim-witted process server in His Girl Friday, a soda server to Freddie Bartholomew in Captains Courageous, and an Italian character opposite singer Gloria Jean in both The Under-Pup and A Little Bit of Heaven. He also appeared in the John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich film Seven Sinners. In 1943, he headlined a brief series of two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures and was teamed with stage comedian Frank Fay by Monogram Pictures for a comedy series. When Fay departed after the first entry, Gilbert recruited his close friend and vaudeville veteran Shemp Howard as a replacement. In 1944, Gilbert signed with the William Morris Agency, which led to more prominent starring and supporting roles.

During the late 1940s and into the 1950s, Gilbert worked on Broadway as an actor, writer, and director. His acting credits on Broadway, where he was active from 1946 to 1956, included Fanny, Buttrio Square, The Chocolate Soldier, and Gypsy Lady. He also directed Broadway productions including The Red Mill. In television during the 1950s, he appeared in a pantomime sketch with Buster Keaton on You Asked for It and was a regular presence on the children's program Andy's Gang with Andy Devine. In 1956 he starred as the giant in the Producers' Showcase television production of Jack and the Beanstalk alongside Celeste Holm and Joel Grey. His final film appearance was in Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962).

Gilbert married actress Ella McKenzie, whose sister was film actress Fay McKenzie. Fellow comedian Charley Chase served as best man at their wedding. In 1941, Billy and Ella adopted an eleven-year-old son, Barry, who died in a shooting accident in 1943. That same year, Gilbert appeared with Ella in a USO show for US Marines stationed in Derry, Northern Ireland, and the couple visited Ballymena; an account of the visit was reported in the Larne Times on December 9, 1943.

Gilbert died on September 23, 1971, in North Hollywood at the age of 77 following a stroke, and is buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery. For his contributions to the motion picture industry, he holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Boulevard.