Reared in Tacoma, Washington, Gilmore attended Washington State University in 1931, where he was a member of the Chi chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity and a member of the Alpha Omicron chapter of Theta Chi fraternity.

[1] During World War II, he served as a fighter-director U.S. Navy officer aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean.

With a group of notable Hollywood radio stars, including Edgar Bergen, Ralph Edwards, Les Tremayne,[2] and Jim Jordan, Gilmore founded Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters in 1966.

The organization presents the Art Gilmore Career Achievement Award four times each year to celebrities who have made notable contributions to the broadcasting and related industries.

Gilmore was heard in films as the voice of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1942 production of Yankee Doodle Dandy, and in The Gallant Hours (1960), where he was the narrator for Japanese sequences.

He narrated the Joe McDoakes series of short comedies which starred George O'Hanlon, notably So You Want to Be a Detective (1948), in which he participated (with the camera as his point of view).