George Gaynes

George Gaynes

Birth : 1917-05-16, Helsinki, Finland

Death : 2016-02-15

History

George Gaynes (1917–2016) is a Finnish-born American actor of stage, screen and television. He may be best-known as Commandant Eric Lassard in the Police Academy film series, and to television fans as Henry Warnimont on Punky Brewster.

Profile

George Gaynes

Movies

Police Academy - Behind Academy Doors: Secret Files Revealed
Self/ Commandant Eric Lassard
The making of "Police Academy".
Just Married
Father Robert
Tom Leezak and Sarah McNerney fall in love and plan to get married, despite opposition from Sarah's uptight, rich family. When they do get married, and get a chance to prove Sarah's family wrong, they go on a European honeymoon and run into disaster after disaster. They have to decide whether the honeymoon from hell and a few pre-marital mistakes are worth throwing away their love and marriage.
Wag the Dog
Senator Nole
During the final weeks of a presidential race, the President is accused of sexual misconduct. To distract the public until the election, the President's adviser hires a Hollywood producer to help him stage a fake war.
The Crucible
Judge Samuel Sewall
A Salem resident attempts to frame her ex-lover's wife for being a witch in the middle of the 1692 witchcraft trials.
Vanya on 42nd Street
Serybryakov
An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 1899 play "Uncle Vanya" played out by a company of actors. The setting is their run down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
Police Academy: Mission to Moscow
Eric Lassard
The Russians seek help in dealing with the Mafia from the veterans of the Police Academy. They head off to Moscow, in order to find evidence against Konstantin Konali, who marketed a computer game that everyone in the world is playing.
The Fantastic Four
Professor
When dosed with cosmic rays, four intrepid astronauts are given incredible powers. They decide to form a superhero group called the Fantastic Four to fight their arch-enemy, Dr. Doom.
Stepmonster
Norman
Todd Dougherty has an imagination driven by comic books. So when he accuses his soon-to-be stepmother of being a monster, no one believes him. When neighbors start turning up dead, it becomes a race against time for Todd to stop this hideous, carnivorous creature from marrying his dad and ruining his life.
Police Academy 6: City Under Siege
Lassard
Our favourite police men are called together to deal with a gang who rob banks and jewelers. Using their various talents as well as their extraordinary luck, the crooks stand no chance against our men and women in blue.
Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach
Lassard
The Police Academy misfits travel to Miami Beach for Commandant Lassard to be honored with a prestigious lifetime award pending his retirement. Things take a turn when Lassard unknowingly ends up in possession of stolen diamonds from a jewel heist.
A Taxi Driver in New York
l'ammiraglio
The Roman taxi driver Pietro Marchetti finds himself to witness a mafia crime. Having to testify at the trial, he is checked by the police, especially when he has to go to the United States to attend the graduation of his son Francesco.
Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol
Commandant Lassard
A new batch of recruits arrives at Police Academy, this time a group of civilian volunteers who have joined Commandant Lassard's new Citizens on Patrol program. Although the community relations project has strong governmental support, a disgusted Captain Harris is determined to see it fail.
Ternosecco
Don Salvatore
On a hot summer night, Raffaele, the elderly manager of a Neapolitan counter-lot, is brutally strangled in his own accommodation.
Police Academy 3: Back in Training
Comdt. Lassard
When police funding is cut, the Governor announces he must close one of the academies. To make it fair, the two police academies must compete against each other to stay in operation. Mauser persuades two officers in Lassard's academy to better his odds, but things don't quite turn out as expected...
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment
Commandant Lassard
Officer Carey Mahoney and his cohorts have finally graduated from the Police Academy and are about to hit the streets on their first assignment. Question is, are they ready to do battle with a band of graffiti-tagging terrorists? Time will tell, but don't sell short this cheerful band of doltish boys in blue.
Micki & Maude
Dr. Eugene Glztszki
TV reporter Rob Salinger is married to Micki, but because she's always busy working, they hardly ever spend time together. One night at which he got stood up by Micki again, Rob meets cellist Maude and they soon get romanticly involved. When it turns out Maude is pregnant with his baby, Rob decides to marry Maude. When he's on the verge of telling Micki, she tells him she's pregnant, so he doesn't have the heart to leave her, but he marries Maude anyway. Now married to two pregnant women who don't know about each other, Rob has a busy time taking care of both and keep them from finding out.
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Arch Angel
A man suddenly dies and makes a deal with the Archangel of Heaven to return to Earth for a week until Christmas, to show his grandson what a real white Christmas in New York is like.
Police Academy
Commandant Lassard
New rules enforced by the Lady Mayoress mean that sex, weight, height and intelligence need no longer be a factor for joining the Police Force. This opens the floodgates for all and sundry to enter the Police Academy, much to the chagrin of the instructors. Not everyone is there through choice, though. Social misfit Mahoney has been forced to sign up as the only alternative to a jail sentence and it doesn't take long before he falls foul of the boorish Lieutenant Harris. But before long, Mahoney realises that he is enjoying being a police cadet and decides he wants to stay... while Harris decides he wants Mahoney out!
To Be or Not to Be
Ravitch
A bad Polish actor is just trying to make a living when Poland is invaded by the Germans in World War II. His wife has the habit of entertaining young Polish officers while he's on stage, which is also a source of depression to him. When one of her officers comes back on a Secret Mission, the actor takes charge and comes up with a plan for them to escape.
I'm Going to Be Famous
A group of young actors audition for a play by a famous author starring and a famous star. These hopefuls have every weapon available to achieve their goal including blackmail, sex and murder.
Tootsie
John Van Horn
When struggling, out of work actor Michael Dorsey secretly adopts a female alter ego - Dorothy Michaels - in order to land a part in a daytime drama, he unwittingly becomes a feminist icon and ends up in a romantic pickle.
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
Dr. Forrest
Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.
Evita Peron
Evita's Doctor
Aspiring actress Eva Duarte rises from a minor celebrity to the wife of a powerful Argentine dictator, but her all consuming fiery rage, ambition, and hatred eventually become her downfall.
Altered States
Dr. Wissenschaft
A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from native American shamans, he explores these altered states of consciousness and finds that memory, time, and perhaps reality itself are states of mind.
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
Wiley
Six buddies spend the summer together at a Malibu beach house after each has separated from his wife at about the same time.
The Girl in the Empty Grave
David Alden
The police chief of a small town begins an investigation after a young woman, who was supposed to have died several months previously, starts appearing around town just before her parents are found mysteriously dead.
Nickelodeon
Reginald Kingsley
In the silent film era, attorney Leo Harrigan and gunslinger Buck Greenway are hired to stop an illegal film production. However, they soon team up with the filmmakers and become important players in the show business industry. Leo learns he has a talent for directing, and Buck's cowboy persona quickly earns him leading-man status — but both men fall for beautiful starlet Kathleen Cooke, leading to a heated personal rivalry.
The Flying Misfits
Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault
The dramatized World War II adventures of US Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and his Marine Attack Squadron 214, AKA The Black Sheep Squadron. The film also acted as the pilot for the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep. Former U.S. Marine pilot Greg "Pappy" Boyington is flying with the American Volunteer Group (the Flying Tigers) in China. After Pearl Harbor brings America into World War II, Greg leaves the AVG to rejoin the Marine Corps. He refuses to be relegated to a desk job and, against all military protocol, forms his own fighter squadron from a group of misfits and disciplinary cases.
Song of the Succubus
C.J. Meredith
The leader of a rock group is haunted by the ghost of a music star who took her own life at the turn of the century.
Trilogy of Terror
Dr. Chester Ramsey
A horror anthology containing three stories: a female college professor is aggressively pursued by one of her students; a prudish brunette determines that her free-spirited blonde sister is evil; and a woman's night turns upside down after she purchases an ancient Zuni fetish doll.
The Way We Were
El Morocco Captain
Two desperate people have a wonderful romance, but their political views and convictions drive them apart.
Slaughter's Big Rip Off
Warren
Vigilante Slaughter comes under attack from Duncan, a local money launderer whose hit-man traps Slaughter in a car at a cliff, but Slaughter escapes, arms himself, and goes after Duncan's hideout.
The Boy Who Cried Werewolf
Dr Marderosian
Little Richie Bridgestone goes to spend the weekend with his father at his secluded mountain cabin, and witnesses his father being attacked by 'a creature' that the boy recognizes as a werewolf. He tries to convince his mother and his therapist that his father is now a werewolf.
Doctors' Wives
Paul McGill
The wives of several high-powered doctors feel neglected due to their husbands' focus on their careers, so they embark on a regimen of sex, drugs and booze.
Marooned
Mission Director
After spending several months in an orbiting lab, three astronauts prepare to return to Earth only to find their de-orbit thrusters won't activate. After initially thinking they might have to abandon them in orbit, NASA decides to launch a daring rescue. Their plans are complicated by a Hurricane headed towards the launch site—and a shrinking air supply in the astronauts' capsule.
The Group
Brook Latham
It's 1933, and eight young women are friends and members of the upper- class group at a private girl's school, about to graduate and start their own lives. The film documents the years between their graduation and the beginning of the World War in Europe, and shows, in a serialized style, their romances and marriages, their searches for careers or meaning in their lives, their highs and their lows.
Joy House
A small-time con man on the run from the gangster-husband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women.
One Touch of Venus
Whitelaw Savory
While touring a museum, Rodney Hatch, an unremarkable barber, places an engagement ring intended for his girlfriend on the hand of a statue of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. From Mount Olympus, Venus witnesses the event and decides to visit Rodney on Earth by magically inhabiting the statue. Hilarity ensues when she starts to fall in love with Rodney and competes with his girlfriend for his attentions. This television version of Kurt Weill's successful Broadway musical is much more faithful to the stage version than the 1948 Ava Gardner film, which changed the story considerably and cut most of the songs.
Woman of the Year
Harding
The story of the tumultuous marriage of a gruff sportswriter and a sophisticated international reporter who work together on the same newspaper.