Gilbert's burly frame and gruff voice made him a good comic villain, and within the year he was working consistently for producer Roach.

He appeared in support of Roach's comedy stars Laurel and Hardy, Charley Chase, Thelma Todd, and Our Gang.

Gilbert regularly starred in Roach's short-comedy series The Taxi Boys, opposite comedians Clyde Cook, Billy Bevan, Franklin Pangborn, and finally Ben Blue.

[citation needed] One of his standard routines had Gilbert progressively getting excited or nervous about something, and his speech would break down into facial spasms, culminating in a big, loud sneeze.

He used this bit so frequently that Walt Disney thought of him immediately when casting the voice of Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

Gilbert did the sneeze routine in a memorable cameo in the Paramount comedy Million Dollar Legs (1932) starring W. C. Fields, Jack Oakie, Susan Fleming, and Ben Turpin.

He appeared as "Herring" – a parody of Nazi official Hermann Göring – the minister of war in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

[2] He danced with Alice Faye and Betty Grable in Tin Pan Alley; he stole scenes as a dim-witted process server in the fast-paced comedy His Girl Friday; playing an Italian character, he played opposite singer Gloria Jean in The Under-Pup and A Little Bit of Heaven.

[4] In the 1950s, Billy Gilbert worked frequently in television, including a memorable pantomime sketch with Buster Keaton on You Asked for It.

Her father was Robert Baxter McKenzie, who always wore an orange flower on the Twelfth of July, Orangeman's Day in Northern Ireland, in remembrance of the family background and cultural heritage.

In late 1943, Gilbert appeared with Ella in a USO show, entertaining the US Marines stationed in Derry, Northern Ireland.