Willard Waterman Collection

Willard Waterman
(1914 – 1995)

The gangsters, the deep dish pizzas, the skyscrapers: in the 1930s, Chicago was roaring, one of America's most celebrated metropoles. If you had a golden voice and aspired to a career in the then-dominant medium, radio, and you lived outside Chicago, it was like living near LA as an aspiring actor in the latter part of the 20th century.

Enter into this environment Madison, WI's Willard Waterman. Waterman began working at the university's radio station and stepped into the world of a radio workhorse, announcing, doing voices, shelving records. He decided that going into engineering may not be for him, and he drove to the nearby Mecca of Chicago to begin working on various radio dramas produced there.

He built up a reputation as a jack of all trades, lending his voice to disparate roles on shows such as Today's Children, The Chicago Theater of the Air and The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters.

About a decade into his career, Willard went from being a Chicago radio star to being a Los Angeles radio star. He moved out to Tinsel Town when the production of a show he was in, Those Websters, moved there. His career of appearing in a dizzying array of programs chugged along uninterrupted in his new home. He appeared in The Whistler, The Lux Radio Theater, and Amos And Andy.

At the close of the 1940's, Willard, the now-veteran character actor, received a huge favor from one of the day's radio stars, Harold Peary. Peary was embroiled in negotiations with Kraft Foods, sponsor of the show in which he starred, The Great Gildersleeve. Ultimately, he opted to head on over to CBS. With an opening on the very popular Gildersleeve, NBC opted to go with the business veteran, Waterman.

In 1950, the mustachioed actor slid seamlessly into the lead role of Throckmorton Gildersleeve. During this time, some of the supporting characters on the show, having grown up and necessarily changing stations in life during the show's run, began to appear less and less. In 1954, a bigger change occurred when the show switched to a 15-minute format with no studio audience.

Willard went onto television with the show, drawing some reservations from critics, who observed he was several inches too tall for Gildersleeve, who was known on the radio version to be short and self-conscious about it.

Whether Waterman or Peary was your favorite Gildersleeve, there can be no doubt that Willard Waterman has a very solid place in the history of old time radio, not only for starring in one of its signature programs, but also for playing bit roles in so many other series.