Fred Gwynne

Fred Gwynne
Gwynne (left) and Joe E. Ross in Car 54, Where Are You?, 1962
Born	Frederick Hubbard Gwynne (1926-07-10)July 10, 1926 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	July 2, 1993(1993-07-02) (aged 66) Taneytown, Maryland, U.S.
Resting place	Sandy Mount United Methodist Church Cemetery, Finksburg, Maryland, United States
Alma mater	Harvard University, 1951
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1951–1992
Height	6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Spouses	Jean "Foxy" Reynard ​ ​ (m. 1952; div. 1980)​ Deborah Flater ​ ​ (m. 1988)​
Children	5

Frederick Hubbard Gwynne (July 10, 1926 – July 2, 1993) was an American actor, artist and author. Gwynne was best known for his roles in the 1960s sitcoms Car 54, Where Are You? and as Herman Munster in The Munsters, as well as his later roles in The Cotton Club, Pet Sematary and My Cousin Vinny.

Early life

Dorothy Ficken, Gwynne's mother, in 1917

Gwynne was born on July 10, 1926, in New York City, the son of Frederick Walker Gwynne, a partner in the securities firm Gwynne Brothers, and his wife Dorothy Ficken Gwynne. His paternal grandfather, Walker Gwynne, was an Anglican priest, born in Camus, near Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland, around 1846, who married an American woman, Helen Lea Bowers, and his maternal grandfather, Henry Edwards Ficken, was an emigrant from London, England, who married an American woman, Josephine or Josephina Preston Hubbard.

He had at least two siblings, Dorothy Gwynne and Bowers Gynne, who both died young. Although Gwynne grew up in Tuxedo Park, New York, he spent most of his childhood in South Carolina, Florida, and Colorado because his father traveled extensively. He attended the Groton School.

During World War II, Gwynne served in the United States Navy as a radioman on a submarine chaser. He later studied art under the G.I. Bill before attending Harvard, where he was affiliated with Adams House, graduating in 1951. He was a member of the Fly Club, sang with the a cappella group the Harvard Krokodiloes, was a cartoonist for the Harvard Lampoon (eventually becoming its president), and acted in the Hasty Pudding Theatricals shows.

Career

Gwynne as Herman Munster, sharing a toast with Al Lewis (Grandpa) while Beverley Owen (Marilyn) looks on

Gwynne joined the Brattle Theatre Repertory Company after his 1951 graduation, then moved to New York City. To support himself, Gwynne worked as a copywriter for J. Walter Thompson, resigning in 1952 upon being cast in his first Broadway role, a gangster in a comedy called Mrs. McThing starring Helen Hayes.

In 1954, he made his first cinematic appearance playing – in an uncredited role – the laconic character "Slim" in the Oscar-winning film On the Waterfront opposite Marlon Brando and Lee J. Cobb. Shortly afterwards Phil Silvers sought him out for his television show because he had been impressed by Gwynne's comedic work in Mrs. McThing. As a result, in 1955, Gwynne made a memorable appearance on The Phil Silvers Show, in the episode "The Eating Contest" as the character Corporal Ed Honnergar, whose depressive eating binges are exploited by Sgt. Bilko (Phil Silvers), who seeks prize money by entering Honnergar in an eating contest.

Gwynne's second appearance on The Phil Silvers Show (in the episode "Its For The Birds" in 1956 in which Bilko persuades bird expert Honnergar to go on The $64,000 Question) and appearances on many other shows led writer-producer Nat Hiken to cast him in the sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? as New York City Patrolman Francis Muldoon, opposite Joe E. Ross. During the two-season run of the program he met longtime friend and later co-star, Al Lewis.

Gwynne was 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall, an attribute that contributed to his being cast as Herman Munster, a goofy parody of Frankenstein's monster, in the sitcom The Munsters. For his role he had to wear 40 or 50 lbs of padding, makeup, and 4-inch asphalt-spreader boots. His face was painted a bright violet because it captured the most light on the black-and-white film. Gwynne was known for his sense of humor and retained fond recollections of Herman, saying in later life, "... I might as well tell you the truth. I love old Herman Munster. Much as I try not to, I can't stop liking that fellow."

After his iconic role in The Munsters, he found himself typecast, unable to gain new cinema character roles for over two years. In 1969, he was cast as Jonathan Brewster in a television production of Arsenic and Old Lace. (The Brewster character had originally been played by Boris Karloff in the Broadway theater production of the play; Karloff had also famously played the movies' Frankenstein character that Gwynne's Herman Munster character was based on.) Gwynne then found success as a stage actor in regional state productions across the United States while maintaining a low Hollywood profile, before being rediscovered.

A talented vocalist, Gwynne sang in a Hallmark Hall of Fame made-for-television production, The Littlest Angel (1969), and went on to perform in a variety of roles on stage and screen. In 1974, drawing upon his own Southern roots, he appeared in the role of Big Daddy Pollitt in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Ashley, Keir Dullea and Kate Reid. In 1975 he played the Stage Manager in Our Town at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut.

He returned to Broadway in 1976 as Colonel J. C. Kinkaid in two parts of A Texas Trilogy. In 1984, Gwynne was auditioning for the part of Henry on the show Punky Brewster. Gwynne withdrew from the audition in frustration when a director identified him as Herman Munster rather than by his real name. The role of Henry subsequently went to George Gaynes. In 1987, Fred Gwynne starred in a short-lived TV series Jake's M.O. where he played an investigative reporter.

Fred Gwynne's performance as Jud Crandall in Pet Sematary was based on author Stephen King himself, who is only an inch shorter than the actor, and uses a similarly thick Maine dialect. The character's likeness and accent, as played by Gwynne, have been used in a number of episodes of the animated show South Park, beginning in 2001 and as recently as 2019. Gwynne also had roles in the movies Simon, On the Waterfront, So Fine, Disorganized Crime, The Cotton Club, Captains Courageous, The Secret of My Success, Water, Ironweed, Fatal Attraction, and The Boy Who Could Fly. Despite his misgiving about having been typecast, he also agreed to reprise the role of Herman Munster for the 1981 TV reunion movie The Munsters' Revenge. Gwynne played Judge Chamberlain Haller in his last film, the 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny. As a Yale University-educated judge in the film, he used a Southern accent in his verbal sparring with Joe Pesci's character, Vincent "Vinny" Gambini.

As painter and illustrator

In addition to his acting career, Gwynne sang professionally, painted, and wrote and illustrated children's books, including Best In Show (later titled It's Easy to See Why), A Chocolate Moose for Dinner, The King Who Rained, Pondlarker, The Battle of the Frogs and Mice, and A Little Pigeon Toad. Many of these efforts were based on children's frequent misperceptions of things they hear from adults, such as the "chocolate moose for dinner", which was illustrated as a large brown antlered quadruped seated at the dinner table. The other books on this theme were "The King Who Rained", "A Little Pigeon Toad" (in which a child's mother thus describes her father), and "The Sixteen Hand Horse".

Perhaps one of the reasons the books did not achieve wider popularity initially was the fact that their format was geared to a very young audience, but the concept itself was more appealing to older children and adults, achieving critical success and eventually becoming regular bestsellers for their publisher. He also lent his voice talents to commercials and radio shows such as CBS Radio Mystery Theater ("Kill Now and Pay Later", "Gate 27"), and for some radio fans, he is known foremost for his contribution to CBSRMT's success. Later, he held a number of shows of his artwork, the first in 1989.

Personal life

In 1952, Gwynne married socialite Jean "Foxy" Reynard, a granddaughter of New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor. Before divorcing in 1980, the couple had five children: Kieron (son, b. 1952); Gaynor (daughter, b. 1954); Evan (son, b. 1956); Madyn (daughter, b. 1965) and Dylan (son, b. September 1962 / d. July 12, 1963, drowning).

In 1988, Gwynne married Deborah Flater.

Death

Fred Gwynne died of complications from pancreatic cancer, in the cigar room at his home in Taneytown, Maryland, on July 2, 1993, eight days short of his 67th birthday. He is buried at Sandy Mount United Methodist Church Cemetery in Finksburg, Maryland.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref.
1954	On the Waterfront	Mladen "Slim" Sekulovich
1966	Munster, Go Home!	Herman Munster
1977	Captains Courageous	Long Jack	TV film
1979	La Luna	Douglas Winter
1980	Simon	Maj. Gen. Korey
1981	So Fine	Chairman Lincoln
1982	The Mysterious Stranger	Balthasar Hoffman	TV film
1984	The Cotton Club	Frenchy Demange
1985	Water	Spender
1986	Off Beat	Police commissioner
1986	The Boy Who Could Fly	Uncle Hugo
1986	The Christmas Star	Waters
1987	The Secret of My Success	Donald Davenport
1987	Fatal Attraction	Arthur
1987	Ironweed	Oscar Reo
1987	Jake's M.O.	Jake Tekulve
1989	Disorganized Crime	Max Green
1989	Pet Sematary	Jud Crandall
1991	Shadows and Fog	Hacker's Follower
1992	My Cousin Vinny	Judge Chamberlain Haller

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1952	The Repertory Theatre	Performer	Episode: "A Man's Game"
1953	You Are There	Davy Crockett	2 episodes
1955–1956	The Phil Silvers Show	Cpl. Ed Honnegan	2 episodes
1956	Studio One in Hollywood	Little Dude	Episode: "The Landady's Daughter"
1957	The Kaiser Aluminum Hour	Egghead	Episode: "A Man's Game"
1957	Suspicion	Hughie	Episode: "Hand in Glove"
1957	Kraft Theatre	Performer	2 episodes
1958	The Steve Allen Show	Comedian	Episode: #3.23
1958	The Investigator	Performer	Episode: #1.07
1958	DuPont Show of the Month	E.J. Loffgrin	2 episodes
1961	The Play of the Week	Performer	Episode: "The Old Foolishness"
1961–1963	Car 54, Where Are You?	Officer Francis Muldoon	60 episodes
1962	The DuPont Show of the Week	William Magee	Episode: "Seven Keys to Baldgate"
1963	The United States Steel Hour	Willie Botsford	Episode: "Don't Shake the Family Tree"
1964	Brenner	Francis X. Fish	Episode: "Charlie Paradise: The Tragic Flute"
1964	My Son, the Witch Doctor	Performer	TV film
1964-1966	The Munsters	Herman Munster	Main role; 70 episodes produced
1965	The Red Skelton Show	Herman Munster	Episode: "Ta-Ra-Ra-Bum-Today"
1966	The Danny Kaye Show	Herman Munster	Episode: "Fred Gwynne"
1966	New York Television Theatre	The Professor	Episode: "The Lesson"
1967	NET Playhouse	Officer Avonzino	Episode: "Infancy and Childhood"
1968	Mad Mad Scientist	Warren Springer	TV film
1969	Arsenic and Old Lace	Jonathan Brewster	TV film
1969	Anderson and Company	Marshall Anderson	TV film
1969	The Littlest Angel	Guardian Angel	TV film
1971	Dames at Sea	Hennesey	TV film
1971	Great Performances	Pike	Episode: "Paradise Lost"
1971	The Police	Sergeant	TV film
1972	Harvey	Cab Driver	TV film
1972	Norman Corwin Presents	Performer	Episode: "Aunt Dorothy's Playroom"
1976	Bound for Freedom	Waldruss	TV film
1976	Captains and the Kings	Performer	Miniseries
1977	Captains Courageous	Long Jack	TV film
1979	Sanctuary of Fear	Judge Potter	TV film
1980	A Day with Conrad Green	Conrad Green	TV film
1981	The Munsters' Revenge	Herman Munster	TV film
1982–1987	American Playhouse	Charles Dickens	2 episodes
1982	The Mysterious Stranger	Balthasar Hoffman	TV film
1985	Kane & Abel	Davis LeRoy	2 episodes
1986	Vanishing Act	Father Macklin	TV film
1987	Murder by the Book	Victor Greville	TV film
1990	Murder in Black and White	Brannigan	TV film
1990	Earthday Birthday	Fred the Moose	Voice, TV film
1992	Lincoln	Edwin Stanton	Voice, TV film

External links

• Fred Gwynne at IMDb
• Fred Gwynne at the Internet Broadway Database
• Fred Gwynne at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Fred Gwynne at Find a Grave