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I can do everything with ease on the stage, whereas in real life I feel too big and clumsy. So I didn't choose acting. It chose me.
Ingrid Bergman
Reginald Gardiner was summoned to Buckingham Palace to give a performance in person.
Reginald Gardiner
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William Reginald Gardiner
27 February 1903, London, England
7 July 1980, Westwood, California
Reginald Gardiner (27 February 1903 - 7 July 1980) was an English-born actor in film and television and a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in Britain. He made his film debut in 1926 in the silent film The Lodger, by Alfred Hitchcock. Moving to Hollywood, he was cast in numerous roles, often as a British butler. One of his most famous roles was that of Schultz in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Toward the end of his career, Gardiner made increasing guest appearances on the leading television sitcoms of the 1960s, including Fess Parker's ABC series, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as the lead guest in the episode "Citizen Bellows". His last major role was alongside Phyllis Diller in her short-lived ABC sitcom The Pruitts of Southampton (1966-67).
He also recorded a curious and eccentric classic called "Trains" which was regularly played on a British radio program called Children's Favourites during the 1950s. This consisted of Gardiner, sounding slightly tipsy, reciting a monologue about steam railway engines (which he claimed were 'livid beasts') and impersonating both the engines themselves and the sound of trains running on the track. This latter he famously characterised as 'diddly-dee, diddly-dum' to mimic the sound pattern as the four pairs of bogie wheels ran over joins between the lengths of track. (A sound no longer heard since welded rail joins were introduced.) "Trains" was released as a 78 and 45 by English Decca Records (F 5278) which remained on catalogue into the 1970s. At the end of the record, Gardiner signs off with "Well folks, that's all: back to the asylum."
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