Jody Gilbert (née Joe Ray Swartzburg) (March 18, 1916 – February 3, 1979) was an American character actress of radio, television, and film. She was best known for comedic roles. Her screen acting career was interrupted for over a decade by the Hollywood blacklist.
Biography Gilbert was born in Fort Worth, Texas. She was the daughter of Reba Gilbert and Chas. Swartzburg. Gilbert studied voice and acting at Columbia University, and was a graduate of Pasadena Playhouse.
She worked as a stage actress in the mid-1930s, and began appearing in films in 1937. After numerous uncredited parts—for example, in Ninotchka (1939) she has a few seconds of screen time as Greta Garbo's roommate in Moscow—Gilbert delivered a brief but memorable performance in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941). She played a sarcastic diner waitress who engages in a verbal duel with her customer W.C. Fields.
Over the next decade, she was cast dozens of times (although still mostly uncredited) in movies and TV, often in humorous supporting roles as "sizeable" but confident women. Her most celebrated radio character was playing Rosa in Life with Luigi.
Gilbert's acting career was interrupted by the Hollywood blacklist. In November 1952, a writer named Harvey Narcisenfield testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that Gilbert was a Communist. When she was summoned before the Committee on March 26, 1953, she used the Fifth Amendment's shield against self-incrimination. But first she made light of the proceedings by invoking the Nineteenth Amendment, and joking that it gave women "equal rights to decline" to answer questions. When asked her profession by HUAC counsel Frank Tavenner, she replied, "Well, now, right at the moment my profession, I would say, is a witness." In addition to the Fifth Amendment, she also cited the Fifth Commandment ("Honor thy father and thy mother") when refusing to answer about her Communist Party membership.
After her HUAC testimony, Gilbert was barred from TV work until 1965. Her next film role was not until 1969 in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Her final screen appearances included small parts in episodes of the TV shows Sanford and Son, Police Woman, Starsky and Hutch, and Switch.
On February 3, 1979, Jody Gilbert died at her Sherman Oaks home from complications arising from an automobile accident that she had been involved in the previous autumn. She was 62.
Filmography Year Title Role Notes1937 Confession Actress uncredited1939 Chasing Danger Teena 1939 New Frontier Rusty's Dance Partner uncredited1939 No Place to Go Mrs. Hazelhurst uncredited1939 Ninotchka Streetcar Conductress - Moscow Roommate uncredited1939 Everything Happens at Night Hilda 1940 Little Old New York Hilda 1940 Seventeen Ethel Boke uncredited1940 Star Dust Swedish Maid 1940 Ski Patrol Fanni Nerkuu 1940 Grand Ole Opry Women's Club President uncredited1940 Brigham Young Stout Woman Who Can't Swim uncredited1940 Flowing Gold Tillie / Mrs. Harris 1940 Hit Parade of 1941 uncredited1941 Hudson's Bay Germaine 1941 Maisie Was a Lady Curly the Bearded Lady uncredited1941 Pot o' Gold Helga Svenson uncredited1941 Sergeant York Fat Woman uncredited1941 Wild Geese Calling Swede uncredited1941 Never Give a Sucker an Even Break The Waitress 1941 Shadow of the Thin Man Lana - Spider Webb's Girl uncredited1941 Hellzapoppin' Louie's Girlfriend uncredited1941 Remember the Day Mrs. Martha Avery 1942 Ride 'Em Cowboy Moonbeam uncredited1942 The Tuttles of Tahiti Effie 1942 The Affairs of Martha Hadwig uncredited1942 Iceland Fat Girl uncredited1942 Wrecking Crew Hefty Girl uncredited1942 The Black Swan Flossy Woman with Tommy uncredited1942 Journey for Margaret Madame Bornholm uncredited1942 Reunion in France Brunhilde - Stout Customer uncredited1943 The Hard Way Anderson - Masseuse uncredited1943 Hers to Hold Babe uncredited1943 Wings Over the Pacific Native Woman with Black Eye 1943 Hi Diddle Diddle Agitated Wife uncredited1943 Hi'ya, Sailor Plump Hostess uncredited1943 The Unknown Guest Mrs. Green uncredited1943 Princess O'Rourke Woman Truck Driver uncredited1944 The Story of Dr. Wassell Head Nurse uncredited1944 Ladies of Washington Nurse's Aide uncredited1944 Marriage Is a Private Affair Girl Taxi Driver uncredited1944 Lost in a Harem Native Laundress uncredited1944 Music for Millions Burly Woman Cab Driver uncredited1944 Together Again Fat Woman Fleeing Nightclub Raid uncredited1944 Can't Help Singing Bath House Attendant uncredited1945 Roughly Speaking Woman in Store uncredited1945 Christmas in Connecticut Mrs. Gerseg uncredited1945 That Night with You Masseuse uncredited1945 Strange Confession Mrs. Todd uncredited1945 Hold That Blonde Matron uncredited1945 Life with Blondie Buxom Woman uncredited1945 Texas Panhandle Millie the Blacksmith uncredited1946 Partners in Time The Bad Cook uncredited1946 Deadline for Murder Tiny 1946 Two Guys from Milwaukee Big Woman uncredited1946 Singing on the Trail Casey uncredited1946 Decoy Mrs. Noonan uncredited1946 Cross My Heart Miss Stewart uncredited1946 The Show-Off Woman scenes deleted1947 Blondie's Holiday Cynthia Thompson (Class of '32) 1947 Fun on a Weekend Customer in Clothing Shop uncredited1947 Second Chance Policewoman uncredited1947 Roses Are Red Jill's Landlady uncredited1947 Heading for Heaven Mable Foster uncredited1948 Albuquerque Pearl Eager 1948 Are You with It? Mrs. Minerva Henkle 1948 Casbah American Woman uncredited1948 Shaggy Tessie 1948 Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven Lady uncredited1948 Million Dollar Weekend Big Woman at Airline Counter uncredited1948 My Dear Secretary Hilda Sneebacher uncredited1948 Bungalow 13 Mrs. Martha Barton 1948 The Paleface Woman in Bathhouse uncredited1949 Knock on Any Door Gussie uncredited1949 The Lost Tribe Zulta, the Barmaid uncredited1949 The Lovable Cheat Madame Violette 1949 Hellfire Full Moon 1949 One Last Fling Amy Dearing 1949 Brimstone Fat Lady on Stage uncredited1949 The Doctor and the Girl Mrs. Vlacsek uncredited1950 The Blonde Bandit Bertha Fannon 1950 Blonde Dynamite Sarah Dumbrowski 1950 House by the River Flora Bantam 1950 The Yellow Cab Man Cecil's Mother uncredited1950 My Friend Irma Goes West Fat Woman uncredited1951 Gene Autry and The Mounties Squaw uncredited1951 Slaughter Trail Fat Woman at Dance uncredited1952 Something to Live For Woman in Telephone Booth uncredited1952 Actor's and Sin Mrs. Egelhofer (segment "Woman of Sin")1952 Jumping Jacks Mr. White's Secretary uncredited1953 Houdini Fat Girl uncredited1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Large Woman 1967 Dragnet: "The Fur Job" S9, E9 Mrs. Hilliard 1971 Willard Charlotte Stassen 1976 Lifeguard Woman
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