Harold (Hal) Peary

 Harold (Hal) Peary (July 25, 1908 – March 30, 1985)

Peary was an actor, comedian and singer in radio, films, television, and animation. By 1929, he had his own radio show and got his big break in 1935 when he was cast in the Fibber McGee and Molly Show as Throckmorton Gildersleeve. In 1939, Peary was making a personal appearance in a theatre promoting the Fibber McGee and Mollie Show and casually did what would be his trademark giggle. It caught on with the audience and Peary incorporated it in the Gildersleeve character. Peary eventually got his own radio show, The Great Gildersleeve, which debuted in 1941 and ran for 17 years. It was one of the longest-running comedy shows in radio history, leaving the air in 1958. Peary left the Gildersleeve radio show in 1951. He went on to make numerous feature films, four of them based on the Great Gildersleeve radio show. His career in films tapered off by the fifties, but he became busy in television and records in that decade. Peary appeared in the Walt Disney movie A Tiger Walks (1964) and the Elvis Presley film Clambake (1967). He also worked in television, playing murderer Freddy Fell in the 1965 Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Lover's Gamble." Peary also made guest appearances on The Dick Van Dyke Show, My Three Sons, The Addams Family, My Mother the Car, Petticoat Junction, That Girl, The Brady Bunch and Love, American Style, among others.

In the 1960s and '70s, Peary was also featured in a series of popular television ads for Faygo soda. In the 1970s, Peary found work as a voice actor, most memorably as Big Ben, the whale with a clock in its tail, in two Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer productions, Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) and Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979), the latter being Peary's final acting credit. He died on March 30, 1985 of a heart attack at age 76. Peary was cremated, and his ashes scattered.