Harold Peary

Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 193 (article "The Great Gildersleeve"). New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387

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 '50s, but he became busy in television and records in that decade.

He had a son, Harold Jose Faria (born March 9, 1947), with his second wife, Gloria. In 1958, when Harold was 11, he changed his name to Page Peary.

He and his second wife, Gloria, were wed unofficially in a ceremony on July 8, 1946, in Tijuana, Mexico. Their nuptials were in secret and not legal. They officially tied the knot on June 24, 1947, just four days after the dissolution of his marriage to Betty Jourdaine.

Best known for playing Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve on radio in the 1940s.

In 1939, Peary was making a personal appearance in a theatre promoting the Fibber McGee and Molly 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 on 8-31-41 and ran for 17 years.

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.

A talented singer as a child, Peary later went into radio in 1925.

He was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for radio at 1639 Vine Street and for television at 1719 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.