Cliff Robertson

Clifford Parker Robertson III became a fairly successful leading man through most of his career without ever becoming a major star. Following strong stage and television experience, he made an interesting film debut in a supporting role in Picnic (1955).

He then played Joan Crawford's deranged young husband in Autumn Leaves (1956) and was given leads in films of fair quality such as The Naked and the Dead (1958), Gidget (1959) and The Big Show (1961). He was born to Clifford Parker Robertson Jr. and Audrey Olga (nee Willingham) Robertson. Robertson Jr. was described as "the idle heir to a tidy sum of ranching money". They have divorced when he was a year old, and his mother died of peritonitis a year later in El Paso, Texas. Young Cliff was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mary Eleanor Willingham as well as an aunt and uncle.

He supplemented his somewhat unsatisfactory big-screen work with interesting appearances on television, including the lead role in Days Of Wine & Roses - Cliff Robertson & Piper Laurie, "Playhouse 90" Original TV Version: Days of Wine and Roses (1958). Robertson was effective playing a chilling petty criminal obsessed with avenging his father in the B-feature Underworld U. S. A.

Alfred Hitchcock considered him for the role of Sam Loomis in Psycho (1960), but the role went to John Gavin. Robert Wise considered him for the lead role in The Sand Pebbles (1966), but that role went to Steve McQueen.

(1961) or a pleasant doctor in the popular hospital melodrama The Interns (1962). However, significant public notice eluded him until he was picked by President John F.

Kennedy to play the young JFK during the latter's World War II experience in PT 109 (1963).

Moving into slightly better pictures, Robertson gave some of his best performances: a ruthless presidential candidate in The Best Man (1964), a modern-day Mosca in an updated version of Ben Jonson's "Volpone", The Honey Pot (1967), and most memorably as a mentally retarded man in Charly (1968), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Both he and his then wife Dina Merrill played "Special Guest Villains" in Batman (1966).

His critical success with Charly (1968) allowed him to continue starring in some good films in the 1970s, including Too Late the Hero (1970), The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972), and Obsession (1976).

Was responsible for unraveling a major studio fraud in the 1970s, which led to the downfall of powerful Columbia Pictures president David Begelman. The morality of Hollywood was such that it did more short-term harm to Robertson's career than to Begelman's, who soon after was hired to run MGM. The full story is told in David McClintick's 1982 bestseller, "Indecent Exposure".

He starred in, directed and co-produced the fine rodeo drama J W Coop (1971) and, less interestingly, The Pilot (1980).

In 1972, he said that "Nobody made more mediocre films than I did", including Too Late the Hero (1970), which he described as "a bunch of junk".

He personally campaigned for Congressman Mo Udall in the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential primary in 1976.

Robertson was the director and an actor in the film "Morning, Winter and Night" which began filming in Massachusetts in 1978 but shut down after one week when the production ran out of money. A featured actor was Brooke Shields.

He remained active mostly in supporting roles, notably playing Hugh Hefner in Star 80 (1983). More recently, he had supporting parts in John Carpenter's Escape From L. A.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on December 17, 1986.

Was a member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1989.

(1996) and Spider-Man (2002).

Special guest at Roger Ebert's 4th annual Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois. [March 2002]

Inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2006 in the Advocate category.

He owned a number of vintage aircraft, including an original German Messerschmitt ME-108, which was on display at the Parker-O'Malley Air Museum (closed in 2009) in Ghent, New York.