Paul Guilfoyle (July 14, 1902 – June 27, 1961) was an American stage, film and television actor. Later in his career, he also directed films and television episodes.
Guilfoyle was born in Jersey City, New Jersey.
He started off working on stage, performing on Broadway in 16 plays according to the Internet Broadway Database, beginning with The Jolly Roger and Cyrano de Bergerac in 1923 and ending with Jayhawker in 1934. He appeared in many films that starred Lee Tracy in the 1930s. In the 1949 crime film White Heat, he played (uncredited) a treacherous prison inmate trapped in the trunk of a car and then shot by James Cagney's lead character.
In 1950, Guilfoyle was arrested and charged with lewd vagrancy after making advances towards undercover vice officers in a North Hollywood park. He was a gay man and was later entrapped and blackmailed by men pretending to be police officers who demanded sixty thousand dollars to keep the scandal out of the papers. Guilfoyle also struggled with alcoholism but overcame his addiction when he joined the motion picture branch of Alcoholics Anonymous. He became known as such a stirring speaker at his AA meetings that he was invited to speak at other AA meetings throughout the nation.
He died of a heart attack on June 27, 1961, in Hollywood. He had a son, Anthony. Guilfoyle was interred in Glendale, California's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.