Gene Sheldon
Encyclopedia
Gene Sheldon was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film and television actor and musician. He is best remembered as the mute servant Bernardo on Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

's live-action TV series Zorro (1957-1959
1957 in television
The year 1957 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1957.-Events:*January 6 – Elvis Presley makes final appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show....

).

Biography and career

Born Eugene Hume in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

, he began acting at an early age, serving as stage assistant to his father Earl, a magician
Magic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...

. His tasks included appearing as a girl, dressed appropriately but not speaking. Sheldon also gained experience as a radio announcer at age 17, broadcasting on Toledo
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...

 radio in 1925.

His film debut was in the 1934 movie Susie's Affairs, as Slug the Banjoist. The next year, he had a brief specialty part playing banjo in the early Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...

, Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....

 musical Roberta
Roberta (1935 film)
Roberta is a 1935 musical film by RKO starring Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Randolph Scott. It was an adaptation of a 1933 Broadway theatre musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller...

.

Sheldon appeared in the Broadway revue Priorities of 1942, performing a comedy banjo act in which he did not speak, wearing an outfit resembling the costume of silent film comedian Harry Langdon
Harry Langdon
Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...

 and mimicking some of Langdon's distinctive gestures.

He appeared in The Dolly Sisters as the seal trainer, Professor Winnup.

In the 1950s and 1960s, most of Sheldon's work was on various Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 programs. An often-seen act, in the "Golden Horseshoe Revue" episode of the Walt Disney anthology television series, was as a banjo player who kept getting his fingers stuck in the strings. After several minutes he would finally get them "un-stuck" and play a vigorous riff on his banjo.

Sheldon appeared in a speaking role as the genie Ali in the 1945
1945 in film
The year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins....

 movie musical Where Do We Go From Here? and in the 1960
1960 in film
The year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...

 film Toby Tyler
Toby Tyler
Toby Tyler is a Disney film released on January 21, 1960 by Buena Vista Distribution Company, based on the 1880 children's book Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus by James Otis Kaler....

, in which he played Sam Treat, a clown and animal trainer who is one of Toby's mentors and protectors. Toby's other protector, gruff wagon driver Ben Cotter, was played by Henry Calvin
Henry Calvin
Henry Calvin was an American comic actor best known for his role as Sergeant Garcia on Walt Disney's live-action television series Zorro .-Early life:...

, who co-starred on Zorro as Sergeant Garcia.

Sheldon starred in Disney's 1961 version of Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

's operetta Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (1961 film)
Babes in Toyland is a 1961 Christmas musical film in Technicolor, directed by Jack Donohue, produced by Walt Disney, and distributed to theatres by Buena Vista Distribution. It stars Ray Bolger as Barnaby, Annette Funicello as Mary Contrary, Tommy Sands as Tom Piper, and Ed Wynn as the Toymaker.The...

, which was released during the Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 season. He was teamed with Calvin once more as a kind of ersatz Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...

 team (Laurel and Hardy had starred in the 1934 version of Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (1934 film)
Babes in Toyland is a Laurel and Hardy musical film released in November 1934. The film is also known by its alternate titles Laurel and Hardy in Toyland, Revenge Is Sweet , March of the Wooden Soldiers and Wooden Soldiers .Based on Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, the film...

).

Zorro

Sheldon's best-remembered role was Bernardo, Diego's mute (but not deaf) servant on Zorro. As established in the series' first episode, when Diego de la Vega confides to Bernardo his intention to pretend to be a helpless intellectual rather than a man of action, Bernardo decides to support him by pretending to be deaf. In this way, Bernardo is able to spy for Diego/Zorro without arousing suspicion. This characterization, an innovation over the deaf-mute Bernardo of the original stories, employed Sheldon's pantomime skills while making the character more integral to the series. As with Sergeant Garcia, Bernardo was usually accompanied onscreen by a humorous musical theme. Sheldon reprised the role in four further Zorro adventures that appeared on the Walt Disney anthology television series in 1960-1961.

Personal

Gene married Margaret McCann on December 11, 1944 in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

. They had a son, David, and a daughter, Tracy. Sheldon died in Tarzana, Los Angeles, California
Tarzana, Los Angeles, California
Tarzana is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. The neighborhood is located on the site of a former ranch owned by author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who named it Tarzana after his jungle hero character Tarzan.-Geography:Tarzana, a district...

, from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

on May 1, 1982. His body was cremated.

External links

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