Claude Gillingwater
Birthday: 1870-08-02
Place of Birth: Louisiana, Missouri, USA
Synopsis
Tall, balding character actor in US films from 1921 until the year he died, usually portraying obstinate or irascible types.
A man so disagreeable on celluloid, Claude Gillingwater's characters seemed to subsist on a steady diet of persimmons. Fondly recalled as the cranky old skinflint whose seemingly cold heart could only be warmed by the actions of a cute little tyke, the tall and rangy Gillingwater invariably played much older than he was. He, with the omnipresent bushy brows, crop of silver hair and perpetually sour puss, had a much more versatile career than perhaps realized -- on both stage and in film. Most assuredly, this caustic screen image he perfected belied a softer, gentler off-screen demeanor for he was a kind and sympathetic gent and devoted husband to wife Carlyn Stiletz (or Stellith). Their only child, Claude Gillingwater Jr., briefly became an actor himself. Sadly, Gillingwater Sr.'s thriving character career ended on a grim and tragic note in 1939. A serious accident on the movie set of the picture Florida Special (1936) (he fell from a platform and injured his back) damaged his health and threatened his career, and the death of his long-time wife Carlyn left him irrevocably depressed. Fearing the possibility of becoming an invalid and wishing not to become a serious burden to anyone, the 69-year-old actor committed suicide at his Beverly Hills home with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Gillingwater left a fine Hollywood legacy and the fun of some of his old films is watching his vinegar turn to sugar.
Date of Birth 2 August 1870, Louisiana, Missouri
Date of Death 2 November 1939, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California (suicide)
Acting
Cafe Society
as Old Christopher West
A pampered heiress (Madeleine Carroll) elopes with a shipboard reporter (Fred MacMurray) just to get her name in a society column.
A Yank at Oxford
as Ben Dalton
A brash young American aristocrat attending Oxford University gets a chance to prove himself and win the heart of his antagonist's sister.
There Goes My Heart
as Cyrus W. Butterfield
An heiress takes a job as a department store clerk.
Just Around the Corner
as Samuel G. Henshaw
Penny helps her idealistic architect father get his dream of a slum clearance project; The little miss dances with Corporal Jones.
Conquest
as Stephan
A Polish countess is dispatched by her country to become Napoleon Bonaparte's mistress at the urging of Polish leaders, who feel she might influence him to support Polish independence.
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The Prisoner of Shark Island
as Colonel Dyer
After healing the leg of the murderer John Wilkes Booth, responsible for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, perpetrated on April 14, 1865, during a performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington; Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, considered part of the atrocious conspiracy, is sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to the sinister Shark Island Prison.
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Poor Little Rich Girl
as Simon Peck
Cossetted and bored, Barbara Barry is finally sent off to school by her busy if doting widowed soap manufacturer father. When her nurse is injured en route, Barbara finds herself alone in town, ending up as part of radio song-and-dance act Dolan and Dolan sponsored by a rival soap company.
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Counterfeit
as Tom Perkins
A cop goes undercover to infiltrate and break up a counterfeiting ring.
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Calm Yourself
as Col. Allenby
A recently-fired advertising executive starts his own company, Confidential Services, to help clients solve their unusual and problematic situations.
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Green Eyes
as Steven Kester
The owner of a large mansion in the country throws a costume party for some of his friends. However, the party turns sour when he is found stabbed to death in a closet. The police and a guest try to discover who committed the murder.
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Before Midnight
as John Fry
A detective tries to figure out who killed a man who predicted his own death.
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Back Page
as Sam Webster
A former New York reporter (Peggy Shannon) is hired as editor of a failing, small town newspaper in California.
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Tess of the Storm Country
as Frederick Garfield Sr
When Captain Howland decides that his daughter Tess is getting a bit to old to continue to go to sea with him, they move into a small cottage on the coast of Maine, but not for long. A local millionaire, Frederick Garfield, lays a false claim to the property and has them evicted. Later, when Tess saves a young man about her age from drowning, she is a bit dismayed to learn that he is Garfield's son. But when her father is jailed on a false-accusation charge of murder, the younger Garfield comes to their aid and proves he himself.
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Illicit
as Richard Ives Sr.
Ann, a young woman with outrageously advanced ideas, has been living in sin with Dick, her lover, because of her conviction that marriage would destroy their love; but social pressure ends up paying off, so Ann and Dick get married.
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Daddy Long Legs
as Riggs
Wealthy Jervis Pendleton acts as benefactor for orphan Judy Abbott, anonymously sponsoring her in her boarding school. But as she grows up, he finds himself falling in love with her, and she with him, though she does not know that the man she has fallen for is her benefactor.
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The Flirting Widow
as Faraday
An older daughter invents a fiancé so that her father will allow her younger sister to marry. However, the lie comes back to haunt her.
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Dumb-bells in Ermine
as Uncle Roger
In a small town in Virginia, Faith Corey, daughter of a socially prominent family, meets and falls in love with Jerry Malone, a prizefighter, though her straitlaced mother wants her to marry Siegfried, a spellbinding "missionary reformer." Though Grandma Corey promotes the romance with the prizefighter, Mike, the fighter's hardboiled, wisecracking manager, tries to keep them apart; following a quarrel, Faith reconciles herself to marrying Siegfried, but when he invites a group of "weak sisters" to a revival meeting, he is disgraced when one accuses him of her downfall. Finally, with Mike's advice, Jerry wins back Faith and they are united with the family's blessings.
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The Gorilla
as Cyrus Townsend
An ape is suspected of committing a series of murders.
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Barbed Wire
as Jean Moreau
During WWI, a French farm girl and a German P.O.W. fall in love.
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Naughty But Nice
as Judge J. R. Altewood
Naughty But Nice was based on The Bigamists, a story by Lewis Alen Brown. Gawky country girl Berenice Summers (Colleen Moore) is catapulted head-first into High Society when her Uncle Seth (Burr McIntosh) strikes oil. Shipped off to a fancy boarding school, Berenice suffers at the hands of her snooty classmates, but the last straw comes when she's publicly humiliated by local wise-guy Paul Carroll (Donald Reed).
