Reginald Gardiner

English actor Reginald Gardiner had the rare privilege to work with Alfred Hitchcock when the director was still making silent films in Britain. In 1927 Gardiner made his big-screen debut in Hitchcock's "The Lodger," a silent film about the hunt for serial killer Jack the Ripper. In 1940 Gardiner had the opportunity to work with another British-born legend of the silver screen, Charlie Chaplin. In Chaplin's war satire, "The Great Dictator," Gardiner played the traitorous military officer Commander Schultz in a role that would prove to be his most lasting. In his later career, Gardiner was often relegated to roles that utilized his pristine British accent and courtly demeanor. As a result, he was often cast as a butler. This was the case in 1956 when Gardiner starred as Lynn Belvedere in "The 20th Century Fox-Hour"'s television adaptation of the British novel "Belvedere." In the 1960s Gardiner made numerous guest appearances on popular American television shows, including "Perry Mason," "Green Acres," and "Bewitched." His last major role was on "The Phyllis Diller Show," a short-lived sitcom that lasted from 1966 to 1967 on ABC.