LOUISIANA, Mo. — Wednesday (March 3) marks release of the last movie by a Pike County actor who helped establish the Academy Awards.
Louisiana native Claude Gillingwater appeared on Broadway stages, in silent films and in talking pictures during a career that spanned four decades. He often portrayed curmudgeons with a heart of gold. His last movie was “Café Society,” which was released on March 3, 1939.
Gillingwater performed with dozens of famous people, including Shirley Temple, Greta Garbo, Jimmy Durante and Vivien Leigh. He even appeared with the actors who portrayed the Wicked Witch, the Cowardly Lion and Uncle Henry from the Wizard of Oz.
One of Gillingwater’s lasting legacies was as a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which presents the Oscars each year.
His son, Claude Junior, had a brief acting career before going on to be an artist on such seminal movies as “Citizen Kane” and “Spartacus.”
Claude Gillingwater made more than 90 movies. He died at age 69 and is buried in Glendale California.
The following story first appeared in Brent Engel’s 2015 book “One More Thing: A Colorful Collection of True Stories from Pike County, Missouri.
The Oscar goes to…Claude who?
He never won Hollywood’s top prize.
But a Northeast Missouri native who was famous for playing choleric characters with a hidden heart of gold joined 35 powerful friends in establishing the group that presents the Oscars.
Claude Benton Gillingwater was born in Louisiana, and showcased his diverse talents in Broadway shows and more than 90 movies during a career that spanned the stage to the screen.
His most lasting legacy, however, was as a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. ABC television broadcasts the 86th Academy Awards on March 2.
“Claude Gillingwater will long be remembered as a versatile character actor,” wrote historian Charles Stumpf. “His vinegar visage made a lasting impression in the films of the Golden Age.”
Taking the stage
The future star made his debut in Louisiana on Aug. 2, 1870.
Few details about the family are available, but records indicate his parents, James and Lucy “Mollie” Hunter Gillingwater, were married in Pike County on Christmas Day 1866.
At some point, the Gillingwaters moved to St. Louis, where the boy’s father was a partner in a law firm at 808 Pine Street.
Gillingwater graduated from high school in the Gateway City and was apprenticed to a lawyer uncle in Montgomery County.
“He liked the law but not the uncle,” according to an article published in The New York Times on Nov. 24, 1918.
A wholesale company hired Gillingwater to sell vinegar. The job required a lot of travel, and it was on one trip that he came across a small theatrical company which had an opening for an actor. Gillingwater joined the troupe immediately.
“He continued at this work for four years, during the last year heading his own (theatrical) company,” The Times reported.
The newspaper said the group “played minute villages in Western Iowa – hamlets so small that his actors, when finally they reached the metropolis of Des Moines, actually feared to cross the streets lest they be struck by the trolley cars.”
Gillingwater “began to suspect that fame in the wilds of Iowa did not necessarily prove him a great actor,” The Times wrote in 1918.
So, after a visit to theaters in Chicago, Gillingwater headed to New York, where he landed a bit part in the play “Little Christopher Columbus” at the Garden Theatre.
Two years later, he was portraying what The Times called “an eccentric role” in the play “A Boy Wanted” when he got a big break.
Almost cast away
The opportunity for the limelight almost slipped through Gillingwater’s fingers.
He had the fortune to meet David Belasco, a California-born actor and playwright who was a darling of Broadway.
Belasco would eventually work in Hollywood while winning worldwide acclaim for his theatrical advances.
He called Gillingwater in for a job interview, but at first confused him for another actor. Though not thoroughly convinced of the young actor’s identity, Belasco hired him. It was a decision neither would regret.
The Missouri native made his first appearance on the Great White Way in J.K. Tillotson’s “The Young Wife.” The melodrama opened on Aug. 31, 1899, at Haverly’s 14th Street Theatre and ran for two months.
Over the next 20 years, Gillingwater would show his incredible range, starring in Broadway dramas, musicals, operettas and comedies. He never was without a theatrical job, and often staged his own productions.
Gillingwater’s players were a hit just about everywhere they went, and they went just about everywhere.
The Middlebury, Vt., Register of Dec. 25, 1908, called Gillingwater “one of the most important standbys of the legitimate stage” and praised his playwriting abilities.
The Salt Lake City, Utah, Herald of July 21, 1909, said Gillingwater’s original production of the comedy “A Strenuous Rehearsal” was “very clever in its construction, lines and situations” and offered its author “the opportunities as are best adapted to his style of acting.”
The San Francisco Call of April 3, 1911, said the story of the original play “Awakening of Minerva” was “quite simple…but Gillingwater makes it uncommon.”
And the Washington Herald of May 1, 1918, called him “a specialist in millionaire roles.”
“Gillingwater has had a singularly varied and active stage career, and it has been only the break of fortune which has denied him even wider recognition as an actor of parts,” The New York Times wrote in 1918.
That changed not long after the article was published.
Lights, camera, action
It’s hard to imagine today.
But in an era before television and radio, almost everyone in the world knew Mary Pickford. At least, they knew her image.
Pickford was a Canadian actress who became one of Hollywood’s first megastars, and her successful silent films were grossing unheard-of millions by the time she and Gillingwater linked up for “Little Lord Fauntleroy” in 1921.
Pickford saw Gillingwater in a stage play and thought he’d be perfect for the seemingly cold-hearted Earl of Dorincourt in “Fauntleroy.”
Gillingwater already had one movie to his credit, a drama entitled “Wild Primrose” in 1918, and appearing with Pickford proved to be a launching pad.
Pickford played both Fauntleroy and Dearest, and a famous scene that appeared to show the two characters kissing each other on the cheek left audiences amazed.
Double exposures showing the same character in the same scene were not new, but the 15-hour shoot required to capture the three-second “Fauntleroy” take marked the first time characters played by one actress seemed to touch one another.
On the website www.digitalsilents.com, reviewer Kevin M. Wentink says Gillingwater was “magnificent” in the role of the Earl and brought “a warmth to his part that (felt) totally genuine.”
The movie made more than $1.1 million worldwide.
“A rash of leading/co-starring roles came with the immediate impact of this single success,” Gary Brumburgh wrote in his biography of Gillingwater on the Internet Movie Database.
Gillingwater’s sourpuss face already was popular, however. He was such a celebrity in New York that the paparazzi seemingly showcased his every move.
The New York Tribune of June 4, 1919, offered the following account – complete with a caricature of the actor — on a harrowing day in getting to the theater for a matinee of the production “Three Wise Fools:”
“Claude Gillingwater commutes. Yesterday, he missed his train and had to take the following one. Arriving at Pennsylvania Station, he hopped into a taxi and shouted to the driver “Criterion Theatre, quickly” in his most tragic tones. The driver ploughed slowly up the street. Gillingwater stuck his head out of the window and urged more speed. His hair stood on end and in his hand he held a large watch aloft. The engine chugged along at an even slower speed – something was wrong with it. Mr. Gillingwater was frantic, his eye was on the minute hand of his watch, his cries grew more distressed. A crowd followed the cab and many smart suggestions were offered the chief ‘Wise Fool.’ ‘Get out and hoof it’ was the prize winner. So, from 41st Street to 44th Street, Gillingwater sped afoot, covering the three blocks in record time. He arrived five minutes before curtain time.”
Mr. Versatility
Though he often played curmudgeons, Gillingwater was adored in Hollywood because he could do just about anything onscreen.
He was the perfect foil for the pretentious.
“Gillingwater had a unique appearance with craggy face, haunted, deep-set eyes, caterpillar eyebrows and pouting lips, often fixed in a perpetual frown,” Stumpf wrote. “As he aged, he usually was cast in roles as disagreeable characters, but thanks to his keen sense of humor, he was good in comedy parts, too.”
Many of Gillingwater’s film roles placed him opposite some of the silent era’s most prominent stars, and it was versatility that kept him in demand.
In a time when most actors were tied by contract to a specific studio, Gillingwater worked for Warner Brothers, Paramount, Fox and MGM, among others.
Even when the picture was a dud, Gillingwater managed to shine.
Harriette Underhill in the New York Herald said “Dust Flower” from 1922 was “too ridiculous to be considered seriously,” but added that Gillingwater’s portrayal of the butler was “clever.”
A review of the 1924 comedy “Daddies,” which had originally been written for the stage by Belasco, called the film “inconsequential,” but said “whenever Claude Gillingwater is before us, it carries interest.”
The New York Times said the murder mystery “Before Midnight” was “feeble,” but that Gillingwater “makes the most of his role” as a man who changes places with another to avoid being killed.
The hits far outweighed the misses.
Gillingwater reprised his 1918 Broadway role for the well-received 1923 movie “Three Wise Fools.” The New York Times gave it a stellar review, and said Gillingwater was an “exceptionally happy choice” for the role.
He also received acclaim as the father of a man killed by a shark only to be replaced by an imposter in 1925’s “A Thief in Paradise.” Other likeable films included “Cheaper to Marry,” “We Moderns,” “How to Educate a Wife” and “Madonna of the Streets.”
By the end of 1926, Gillingwater had appeared in 30 films, and showed no signs of slowing down as he approached his 60s.
Dinner with Oscar
Little did Gillingwater realize that accepting a dinner invitation would lead to immortality.
On Jan. 11, 1927, he was one of 36 people who dined at the Ambassador Hotel at 3400 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles.
The guests heard about a plan formulated by studio mogul Louis B. Mayer and three buddies to form the International Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Hollywood’s best and brightest attended, including Pickford, Cecil B. DeMille and Douglas Fairbanks. All of the guests agreed to make Mayer’s dream a reality.
Four months later, California granted the group non-profit status and an organizing banquet was held. Paying $100 each, 230 guests joined. Today, there are more than 6,000 members.
The first Academy Awards banquet was held in May 1929 at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd.
“I found the best way to handle (filmmakers) was to hang medals all over them,” Mayer said. “If I got them cups and awards, they’d kill them to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created.”
Gillingwater made five movies in 1927, a year that not only marked the start of the Academy but one which forever changed the way movies were made.
What’s that sound?
It came out a month after Gillingwater’s critically-acclaimed World War I epic “Barbed Wire.”
It was called “The Jazz Singer,” and it would be a starting point from which Hollywood never looked back.
The Al Jolson musical was considered the first full-length feature using sound. More specifically, the technology was known as Vitaphone.
Records would be played on a turntable in sync with the film’s projector motor. It was crude, but audiences couldn’t get enough of “talkies.” Unlike many silent-era actors, Gillingwater quickly embraced the advance.
His first talkie was 1928’s romantic comedy “The Women They Talk About.” Only two reels of the six-reel film featured Vitaphone sound, but it was enough.
“Claude Gillingwater, filmdom’s foremost professional grouch, steals the picture as Grandpa Mervin,” said one reviewer.
Gillingwater made only one more silent film, 1928’s “Oh, Kay,” which was based on a hit Broadway musical that contained songs by George and Ira Gershwin, including an early version of “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
In 1929, Gillingwater shot a separate trailer in which he talks to the audience about the drama “Glad Rag Doll.” Sadly, neither the film nor the trailer survive. He also appeared in a Vitaphone production that featured famous professional golfer Bobby Jones.
The advent of the Great Depression didn’t stop Gillingwater. He made an incredible eight pictures in 1931, including such hits as the musical romance “Kiss Me Again,” the ahead-of-its-time sensual drama “Illicit” with a young Barbara Stanwyck and “Daddy Long Legs” with Janet Gaynor, who earlier had won the first Academy Award for best actress.
In its review of “Kiss Me Again,” The New York Times panned Gillingwater’s rendition of the tune “I Want What I Want When I Want It,” but called him “amusing” in his role and said that “in the end, he turns out to be a good old sport.”
Acclaim also was given for Gillingwater’s performances in the Charles Dickens classic “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Mississippi” with Bing Crosby and W.C. Fields, and “The Prisoner of Shark Island,” a drama directed by John Ford and based upon the real-life story of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who treated Abraham Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.
The New York Times said Gillingwater was “well cast as the president of the company” for which lead actor Spencer Tracy worked in “The Show Off.”
Curly top
In February 1936, Gillingwater’s career almost ended.
The actor was shooting a scene at Paramount Studios for the comedy “Florida Special” when he fell from a platform and severely hurt his back. The injuries would haunt him.
Just a few weeks later, however, things took a turn for the better.
Gillingwater began filming the musical family adventure “Poor Little Rich Girl” with another megastar. This time, it was the adorable Shirley Temple.
The black-and-white film also featured Jack Haley, who in three years would star as Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz,” and Gloria Stuart, who in 1997 would play the older version of the lead female character in “Titanic.”
The New York Times panned the “formless and generally ridiculous script” of “Poor Little Rich Girl” and said that “Short of becoming a defeated candidate for Vice President, we can think of no better method of guaranteeing one’s anonymity than appearing in one of the moppet’s films.”
But, once again, Gillingwater was singled out for praise. Times movie critic Frank S. Nugent liked his “shaggy brows and ferocious growls.”
By the time Haley was following the yellow brick road, “Poor Little Rich Girl” had earned more than $2 million worldwide.
Gillingwater made two more movies with Temple, “Little Miss Broadway” and “Just Around the Corner.”
The website www.oldmovieteams.com said Temple found Gillingwater to be a “very sweet and gentle man.” A request for an interview with Temple was made for this story, but the actress passed away Feb. 10 before she could answer.
Other luminaries with whom Gillingwater shared the screen over the years included Greta Garbo, Lionel Barrymore, Vivien Leigh, Edward G. Robinson, Maureen O’Sullivan, Jimmy Durante, Fredric March, Ralph Bellamy, Basil Rathbone, Cesar Romero, Myrna Loy and Fred MacMurray.
Besides co-starring with Haley, Gillingwater appeared in films with three other cast members from “The Wizard of Oz” – Bert “The Cowardly Lion” Lahr, Margaret “The Wicked Witch of the West” Hamilton and Charley “Dorothy’s Uncle Henry” Grapewin.
Curtain time
Gillingwater’s back injury seemed to hurt more as time went on.
But it was the death of his beloved wife, Carlyn Kaeferle Strelitz, on April 22, 1937, that sent the actor into a deep depression.
The two had been married in St. Louis on Feb. 9, 1905, and their only child, Claude Jr., was born there on Oct. 25, 1911.
Gillingwater’s last film, the comedy romance “Café Society,” was released on March 3, 1939. Despondent over his failing health and his wife’s passing, Gillingwater killed himself on Nov. 1, 1939. He left a note saying he didn’t want to be a burden on anyone.
“The shocking death of bushy-browed Claude Gillingwater, 69, lovable character actor of stage and screen, stirred the film colony today,” The Associated Press wrote on Nov. 2. “Detectives, summoned by the kindly old fellow’s housekeeper, found the body late yesterday in a chair in a closet of Gillingwater’s quiet (Beverly Hills) home, a self-inflicted bullet wound through the chest.”
“Gillingwater left a fine Hollywood legacy, and the fun of some of his old films is watching his vinegar turn to sugar,” Brumburgh wrote in his IMDB biography.
One more thing
Several other people who’ve called Louisiana home made their mark in the movies.
Ten years after Gillingwater was born, Neil Cameron Hardin arrived. He would go on to make 27 films and shorts between 1915 and 1920, although none were with Gillingwater.
Hardin died in Louisiana on Nov. 22, 1969. His actress wife, New York City native Gloria Payton Hardin, made nine movies between 1916 and 1921.
Like her husband, Hardin never worked with Gillingwater. She lived in Louisiana until her death on Aug. 1, 1989.
Lucy Payton, who was no relation to Gloria Payton Hardin, starred in 15 films in 1916 and 1917, even writing one entitled “Where Are My Children?” She died in Louisiana on Jan. 15, 1969, at age 91.
John Prettyman was born in Louisiana on St. Patrick’s Day in 1906, and was an assistant director or second unit director on 23 films, including such huge hits as “Sergeant York,” “The Maltese Falcon,” “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He died in Los Angeles on July 17, 1976.
Katherine Chilson was born in Louisiana on Jan. 31, 1965, and appeared in the 2004 thriller “Atlantic City Serenade.”
Emily Harrison, who was born in Louisiana on June 13, 1977, has appeared in 15 movies, videos or television shows since 1995. Her last role was as Ashley in the 2013 movie “Defending Santa.”
And Claude Gillingwater Jr. had a brief movie career – including one film with Betty Grable – before going on to work as an artist on such seminal movies as “Citizen Kane” and “Spartacus.” He died May 23, 1996, in Prescott, Ariz.