Fred Gwynne

Acting

Fred Gwynne

Born 1926-07-10 · New York City, New York, USA

Fred Gwynne (July 10, 1926–July 2, 1993) was an American actor. He was best known for his roles in the 1960s sitcoms “Car 54, Where Are You?” and “The Munsters,” as well as his later roles in the films “The Cotton Club,” “Pet Sematary,” and “My Cousin Vinny.” He passed away from pancreatic cancer at age 66 in 1993.

Acting credits

The Boy Who Could Fly poster
6.3

Milly and Louis, and their recently-widowed mom, Charlene, move to a new neighborhood. Once there, they all deal with a variety of personal problems, but Milly finds a friend in Eric, her autistic next door neighbor. Eric has a fascination with flight, and as the story progresses, he exerts an enthralling force of change on all those around him.

The Boy Who Could Fly

1986

Pet Sematary poster
6.7

After the Creed family's cat is accidentally killed, a friendly neighbor advises its burial in a mysterious nearby cemetery.

Pet Sematary

1989

Fatal Attraction poster
6.8

A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.

Fatal Attraction

1987

My Cousin Vinny poster
7.5

Two carefree pals traveling through rural Alabama on their way back to college are mistakenly arrested and charged with murder. Fortunately, one of them has a cousin who's a lawyer - Vincent Gambini, a former auto mechanic from Brooklyn who has just passed his bar exam after his sixth try. When he arrives with his leather-clad girlfriend to try his first case, it's a real shock - for him and the Deep South!

My Cousin Vinny

1992

The Secret of My Success poster
6.5

Brantley Foster, a well-educated kid from Kansas, has always dreamed of making it big in New York City, but once there, he learns that jobs - and girls - are hard to get. When he visits his uncle, Howard Prescott, who runs a multi-million-dollar company, he is given a job in the mail room.

The Secret of My Success

1987

The Cotton Club poster
6.5

Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

The Cotton Club

1984

On the Waterfront poster
7.9

A prizefighter-turned-longshoreman with a conscience goes up against labor leaders to expose corruption, extortion, and murder among the union ranks.

On the Waterfront

1954

Shadows and Fog poster
6.7

With a serial strangler on the loose, a bookkeeper wanders around town searching for the vigilante group intent on catching the killer.

Shadows and Fog

1991

Luna poster
6.3

While touring in Italy, a recently-widowed American opera singer has an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old son to help him overcome his heroin addiction.

Luna

1979

Off Beat poster
4.7

Joe Gower's job is skating through library shelves, fetching books. A police officer/friend of his is chosen to participate in a charity dance performance. Gower agrees to take his place in the show by posing as a police officer. He falls for a female officer in the show and gets into various scrapes with fellow cops and also crooks. And he dances.

Off Beat

1986

Waking Sleeping Beauty poster
7.2

By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovate and old timers not yet ready to relinquish control. These conditions produced a series of box-office flops and pessimistic forecasts: maybe the best days of animation were over. Maybe the public didn't care. Only a miracle or a magic spell could produce a happy ending. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It's the true story of how Disney regained its magic with a staggering output of hits - "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast ," "Aladdin," "The Lion King," and more - over a 10-year period.

Waking Sleeping Beauty

2009

Ironweed poster
6.3

An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.

Ironweed

1987

Vanishing Act poster
7.1

A man honeymooning with his new wife in the Rockies reports her disappearance to the police. A few days later, a woman escorted by the local priest claims to be his missing wife, despite the man's failure to recognize her. Is a stranger impersonating her or is he delusional?

Vanishing Act

1986

Simon poster
6.3

A group of scientists take Simon, a psychology professor, as a test person for a brainwashing experiment and try to convince him that he is a living being from another planet.

Simon

1980

Disorganized Crime poster
5.4

Lou Diamond Phillips and Fred Gwynne team up with a gang of professional criminals who have everything it takes to rob a bank. The only things they do have going for them are a cop and his partner, who are dumber than they are! By the time the gang hits the bank vault, it's a safe bet there's going to be organized insanity and disorganized crime!

Disorganized Crime

1989

So Fine poster
4.7

While trying to get his father out of a financial jam, a man comes up with an idea that turns into an unexpected overnight financial fashion success - the bottomless pants.

So Fine

1981

The Ten-Year Lunch poster
6.5

The story of the legendary wits who lunched daily at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s. The core of the so-called Round Table group included short story and poetry writer Dorothy Parker; comic actor and writer Robert Benchley; The New Yorker founder Harold Ross; columnist and social reformer Heywood Broun; critic Alexander Woollcott; and playwrights George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber and Robert Sherwood.

The Ten-Year Lunch

1987

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead poster
6.7

A look at the history of the American comedy publication and production company, National Lampoon, from its beginning in the 1970s to 2010, featuring rare and never before seen footage, this is the mind boggling story of The National Lampoon from its subversive and electrifying beginnings, to rebirth as an unlikely Hollywood heavyweight, and beyond. A humour empire like no other, the impact of the magazines irreverent, often shocking, sensibility was nothing short of seismic: this is an institution whose (drunk stoned brilliant) alumni left their fingerprints all over popular culture. Both insanely great and breathtakingly innovative, The National Lampoon created the foundation of modern comic sensibility by setting the bar in comedy impossibly high.

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead

2015

Munster, Go Home! poster
6.4

Herman discovers he's the new lord of Munster Hall in England. The family sails to Britain, where they receive a tepid welcome from Lady Effigy and Freddie Munster, who throws tantrums because he wasn't named Lord Munster. An on-board romance had blossomed between Marilyn and Roger, but on land Marilyn discovers Roger's family holds a longstanding grudge against the Munsters.

Munster, Go Home!

1966

Water poster
6.1

The British governor of a tiny island nation in the Caribbean Commonwealth finds his idyllic existence thrown into chaos when an American drilling company finds a huge source of natural mineral water there.

Water

1985

The Littlest Angel poster
5.6

Adapted from the book by Charles Tazewell. Michael, a shepherd boy living in Biblical times, finds himself transported to Heaven on his eighth birthday. Michael doesn't fully understand where he is, or why he's there. A guardian angel named Patience is given the task of showing Michael the joys of Heaven and helping him find his place in the Hereafter.

The Littlest Angel

1969

The Christmas Star poster
5.6

A counterfeiter finds the true meaning of the holidays.

The Christmas Star

1986

Murder in Black and White poster
7.0

A recently appointed black police commissioner is killed. So, Frank Janek is assigned to investigate.

Murder in Black and White

1990

Harvey poster
6.6

Elwood P. Dowd's constant companion is Harvey, a six-foot tall invisible rabbit. To his sister, his obsession with Harvey has been a thorn in her plans to marry off her daughter. However, when she decides to put Elwood in a mental institution, a mix-up occurs, and she finds herself committed instead. It's now up to Elwood and "Harvey" to straighten out the mess.

Harvey

1972