Walter Tetley (b. Walter Campbell Tetzlaff, New York City,2 June, 1915; d. 4 September, 1975), a United States voice actor, turned a hormonal condition into a career as probably the finest child impersonator in radio's classic era---especially with regular roles on The Great Gildersleeve and The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show---as well as continuing as a voice-over artist in animated cartoons, commercials, and spoken-word record albums.

Tetley was a precocious performer even when he really was a child, beginning at age seven performing Harry Lauder imitations. His hormonal condition prevented his voice from breaking into maturity as well as preventing his further physical growth, and Tetley would sound forever as though he was stranded on the bridge between boyhood and pre-teen adolescence. Combined with his excellent delivery and spot-on comic timing, he parlayed his condition into a radio career that lasted nearly a quarter of a century, with some of radio's biggest stars included Tetley in their shows, including but not limited to Fred Allen, Jack Benny, W.C. Fields, and others.

Tetley moved to Hollywood in 1938 and acted in a number of MGM films, but radio was his truest metier, and he proved it with the two roles for which he's probably remembered best. First, he was cast to play spunky nephew Leroy on The Great Gildersleeve, beginning in 1941. (Leroy's "Ah you kiddin'?" became almost as much of a show catch-phrase as the title character's booming trill, "You're a brii-ii-iiight boooooy, Leroy!") Tetley stayed with that role for just about the entire life of that show, voicing Leroy in and out of jams from making nitroglycerin with his home chemistry set to helping Uncle Gildersleeve (Harold Peary) break out of the public library into which they got locked accidentally, after hours. The bad news: His short physical stature obstructed him from playing Leroy in four Gildersleeve feature films.

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