Reginald Gardiner

He enlivened many a film with his comic presence, most notably A Damsel in Distress (1937), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) (his character "Beverly Carlton" brilliantly lampooning Noël Coward) and Cluny Brown (1946).

In 1936, he appeared in his first Hollywood film, Born to Dance (1936) (starring Eleanor Powell and James Stewart), Gardiner playing a traffic cop with symphonic delusions. His instant popularity resulted in further film offers and he soon found himself in constant demand to impersonate butlers and "silly ass" upper-crust English twits. With his suave attire, thin moustache and obtuse mannerisms, he took to playing those caricatures with obvious glee.

At the prompting of Beatrice Lillie he departed England for America in 1935. After appearing in two of her shows he delighted Broadway audiences in "An Evening with Beatrice Lillie and Reginald Gardiner", performing a series of clever impersonations of such inanimate items as lighthouses and wallpaper.

English-born Reginald Gardiner, graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, became an established revue and musical star on the London stage in the 1930's.

His first foray into the film business was in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927). However, it was in Hollywood where his career really took off.