Lauren Gilbert

Born in Fairbury, Nebraska^[1] and raised in Kearney and Lincoln,^[6][7] Gilbert was the son of Rev. and Mrs. Marvin E. Gilbert.^[8] Having entered Nebraska Wesleyan University at age 15, Gilbert graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1930, and later earned his MA from the University of Michigan. In the interim, he was employed for three years as an announcer at radio station KFAB in Omaha.^[9]

Entering the U.S. Navy in October 1943, Gilbert was one of many Hollywood enlistees assigned to help in the production of Navy-produced films, in his case usually as a narrator.^[10] But the best known of these projects—at least since its release to the general public in 2013—is Combat Fatigue Irritability (1945), starring Gene Kelly as Bob Lucas, a traumatized Navy fireman, Jocelyn Brando as his fiancée Sue, and Gilbert as Dr. Bush, the psychiatric officer assigned to treat him.^[5][11]

In October 1949, a Kraft Television Theater episode entitled "To Dream Again" afforded Gilbert, by then an actor well versed in the works of Shakespeare,^[12] the rare opportunity to portray the Bard himself, seen here "return[ing] to England as a wise and worldly gentleman, sufficiently human to fall in love." Gilbert costars with Janet De Gore.^[13]

The summer of 1952 featured two TV collaborations with Grace Kelly, first on the Philco Playhouse episode, "Leaves Out of a Book," starring Gilbert and Claudia Morgan, and then, co-starring with Kelly in Kraft Television Theatre's presentation of the George S. Kaufman/Leueen MacGrath play, The Small Hours,^[14] detailing the last-minute salvation of a seemingly crumbling marriage.

In September 1960, Gilbert's brief return to the stage accompanied that of costar Joan Fontaine in the Paper Mill Playhouse revival of Rachel Crothers' Susan and God, with Gilbert cast as Susan's disconcerted, "driven to drink" spouse, who attempts to get—and stay—on board the wagon in hopes of rekindling their long dormant relationship.^[15][16][17] Later that month, it was reported that Gilbert had been signed for the role of Mr. Shelton in the Warner Brothers film, Girl of the Night, adapted from Dr. Harold Greenwald's psychoanalytic study, The Call Girl.^[18]

Beginning on December 29, 1940, in a ceremony conducted by his father, and continuing until her death in 1994, Gilbert was married to actress Jackson Perkins,^[19][20] whose onstage collaboration with her future husband extended at least as far back as 1934.^[21][22] Their union produced three children, a son and two daughters.^[10]

Gilbert died on February 6, 1998, at age 86, in Los Angeles.^[23]