Clifton Webb

ANECDOTE...

Actor Clifton Webb was devoted to his mother, who had campaigned on his behalf with producers and directors throughout his career. A tireless exhibitionist, she was still dancing the cancan at Hollywood parties in her ninetieth year. When she finally died, Webb's health rapidly declined. "Poor dear," remarked Noel Coward. "It must be tough to be orphaned at seventy-one."


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE...
(1889–1966)
U.S. actor, dancer, singer. Already trained in dance and theater, Webb quit school at age 13 to study music and painting. By 19 he was a professional ballroom dancer in New York, and by his mid-twenties he was performing in musicals, dramas on Broadway and in London, and in silent movies. His first real success in film came in middle age as the classy villain Waldo Lydecker in Laura (1944), followed by the part of Elliott Templeton in The Razor's Edge (1946) — both of which won him Oscar nominations. My favorite of his films is Cheaper by the Dozen (1950). He always played a dapper sophisticated character back in the black and white movie days. His priggish Mr. Belvedere (series) was supposedly not far removed from his real life persona; he was inseparable from his mother, Maybelle, with whom he lived until her death.