Gil Lamb

Biography

Lean and lanky Gil Lamb should have been a professional contortionist. Every part of him seemed to be elastic. He could bend at the hip and jackknife to the floor, his head almost touching the ground, face turned sideways. That face was also peculiarly long and lugubrious. His 'fish-eyed' double-take became one of his trademarks. Even his neck and Adam's apple lent themselves to a comedy routine in which he pretended to have swallowed a harmonica. An eccentric dancer and funny man, Gil came from a vaudeville background. He got his entry visa to films via a stint as a character named Homer Clinker opposite Verna Felton in a slapstick radio segment of the "Rudy Vallee Show" in 1942. He was then signed by Paramount and enlivened several musicals of the 1940's as perennial comic relief and specialty dancer. Best of these were The Fleet's In (1942) and Star Spangled Rhythm (1942). One of Gil's most typical screen incarnations was that of the comic sailor, as in the Technicolor romp Rainbow Island (1944), starring (predictably) a sarong-clad Dorothy Lamour. Between 1949 and 1953, Gil starred in his own series of eight two-reel comedies for RKO, which were directed by Hal Yates. In these, he invariably played an accident-prone goofball named Slim, who leaves disaster in his wake. This was true slapstick in the old style, but very well made. In the 1950's, Gil entered the world of television, often in supporting roles or cameos as drunks, party guests or janitors, allowing him to brush up some of his old routines for episodes of popular shows like Pistols 'n' Petticoats (1966) and The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (1968). He was an 1890's policeman in "Once Upon a Time", a curious slapstick entry into the The Twilight Zone (1959), starring Buster Keaton. On stage, Gil played Ichabod Crane in a 1949 Broadway run of "Sleepy Hollow", alas, rather short-lived. However, that same year Disney animators used his looks and movement as inspiration for Ichabod in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).