Claude Gillingwater

Biography

Claude Gillingwater was an American actor who began on the stage and went on to appear in more than 90 films from 1918 to 1939. He was born in Louisiana, Missouri, and studied law, but he did not want to become a lawyer like his father, so he worked as a traveling salesman selling vinegar before joining a theatrical company led by David Belasco. Mary Pickford saw him perform and brought him into her 1921 film Little Lord Fauntleroy, which started his screen career. He became known for curmudgeonly character parts, and his best-known role was likely Jarvis Lorry in David O. Selznick's A Tale of Two Cities (1935). He also acted in the Academy Award-nominated Conquest (1937), Mississippi (1935), The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), and A Yank at Oxford (1938), and was a fine foil for Shirley Temple in Poor Little Rich Girl (1936), Just Around the Corner (1938), and Little Miss Broadway (1938).