Dick Gautier

Richard Gilbert Gautier, born in Culver City, California, on October 30, 1931, was an American actor, voice artist, and caricaturist. The son of a grip and a costume seamstress, Gautier built a career that spanned Broadway, television, animation, and print. He died on January 13, 2017, at an assisted living facility in Arcadia, California, following a long illness, with pneumonia listed as the cause of death.

Gautier began his professional life as a singer and nightclub comic, performing at the hungry i in San Francisco. Following service in the United States Navy, he joined ASCAP in 1959. His stage career reached its peak in 1960 when he originated the role of Conrad Birdie, a fictional rock and roll star, in the Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie. The production ran from 1960 to 1961, and his performance earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 1961. Two of his castmates from that production later appeared alongside him in film: Kay Medford in Ensign Pulver in 1964, and Dick Van Dyke in Divorce American Style in 1967.

On television, Gautier was widely recognized for two recurring roles: Hymie the Robot in the comedy series Get Smart, and Robin Hood in the TV series When Things Were Rotten. In 1973, when Adam West declined to reprise his role as Batman for a public service announcement about equal pay for women — a spot in which Burt Ward and Yvonne Craig did return as Robin and Batgirl — Gautier stepped in to portray Batman in West's place.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Gautier was a frequent presence on game show panels, appearing on programs including Match Game, Family Feud, Tattletales, Showoffs, You Don't Say!, Liar's Club, Password Plus, Body Language, Super Password, Win Lose or Draw, Whew!, and the television version of Can You Top This?

Gautier also had an extensive voice-over career in animation. He voiced Rodimus Prime during the third season of The Transformers from 1986 to 1987, and provided the voice of Serpentor in G.I. Joe. Additional animation credits include Louis in the 1986 cartoon Foofur, Spike the Dog in Tom and Jerry Kids, Wooly Smurf in The Smurfs, additional voices in The New Yogi Bear Show, and multiple characters for Inhumanoids, among them Crygen, Pyre, and their combined form Magnakor.

Beyond performing, Gautier was recognized for his skill in celebrity caricature and authored several instructional books on the subject. His published titles include The Creative Cartoonist (1989), Child's Garden of Weirdness (1993), Drawing and Cartooning 1,001 Figures in Action (1994), Drawing and Cartooning 1,001 Caricatures (1995), and Creating Comic Characters (1997).

Gautier was married three times. His first marriage, to Beverly J. Gerber, ended in divorce; they had three children together. His second wife was actress Barbara Stuart. His third and final marriage was to Tess Hightower, a psychologist.