Gil Lamb

Lean and lanky Gil Lamb should have been a professional contortionist. Every part of him seemed to be elastic. He could bend at the hip and jackknife to the floor, his head almost touching the ground, face turned sideways. That face was also peculiarly long and lugubrious. His 'fish-eyed' double-take became one of his trademarks. Even his neck and Adam's apple lent themselves to a comedy routine in which he pretended to have swallowed a harmonica. An eccentric dancer and funny man, Gil came from a vaudeville background. He got his entry visa to films via a stint as a character named Homer Clinker opposite Verna Felton in a slapstick radio segment of the "Rudy Vallee Show" in 1942. He was then signed by Paramount and enlivened several musicals of the 1940's as perennial comic relief and specialty dancer. Best of these were The Fleet's In (1942) and Star Spangled Rhythm (1942). One of Gil's most typical screen incarnations was that of the comic sailor, as in the Technicolor romp Rainbow