Eight years later, Mary Pickford saw him act and secured him for her picture, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921), which launched his film career.

He proved to be an excellent crabapple foil for 20th Century Fox moppet star Shirley Temple in Poor Little Rich Girl (1936) and subsequently appeared in Just Around the Corner (1938) and Little Miss Broadway (1938).

In February, 1936, while filming Florida Special (1936) at Paramount studios, he fell from a platform, resulting in a severe back injury from which he never fully recovered.

[1] On November 1, 1939, a housekeeper found Gillingwater dead, sitting in a chair inside a closet of his Beverly Hills, California home from a self-inflicted bullet wound to the chest.

[1] His cremated remains were interred at the Columbarium of Prayer, Niche 10628, in The Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.