Clifton Webb
Encyclopedia
Clifton Webb was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for his Oscar
-nominated roles in such films as Laura
, The Razor's Edge
, and Sitting Pretty. In the theatrical world he was known for his appearances in the plays of Noël Coward
, notably Blithe Spirit
, as well as career on Broadway in a number of incredibly successful musical revues.
), and performed in about two dozen operettas before debuting on Broadway
as Bosco in The Purple Road, which opened at the Liberty Theatre on April 7, 1913, and ran for 136 performances before closing in August. His mother (billed as Mabel Parmalee) was listed in the program as a member of the opening night cast. His next musical was an Al Jolson
vehicle, Sigmund Romberg
's Dancing Around. It opened at the Winter Garden Theatre
on October 10, 1914, and had 145 performances, closing in February, 1915. Later that year, Webb was in the all-star revue Ned Wayburn
's Town Topics
, which boasted 117 famous performers, including Will Rogers
, listed in the Century Theatre
opening night program of September 23, 1915. It closed 68 performances later on November 20, 1915. In 1916, he had another short run with Cole Porter
's comic opera
See America First
, which opened at the Maxine Elliott Theatre
on March 28, 1916, and closed after 15 performances on April 8, 1916. The World War I
year of 1917 proved to be better, with a 233-performance run of Jerome Kern
's Love o'Mike, which opened at the Shubert Theatre
on January 15, 1917. After moving to Maxine Elliott's Theatre and Casino Theatre, it closed on September 29, 1917. Future Mama
star Peggy Wood
was also in the cast. Webb's final show of the 1910s, the musical Listen Lester, had the longest run, 272 performances. It opened at the Knickerbocker Theatre
December 23, 1918, and closed in August 1919.
The 1920s saw Webb in no fewer than eight Broadway shows, numerous other stage appearances, including vaudeville
, and a handful of silent films. The revue As You Were, with additional songs by Cole Porter
, opened at the Central Theatre on January 29, 1920, and closed 143 performances later on May 29, 1920. Busy with films, tours and vaudeville, (including an appearance at the London Pavilion
in 1921 as Mr. St. Louis in Fun of the Fayre and the next year in Phi-Phi
), he did not return to Broadway until 1923, with the musical Jack and Jill (Globe Theatre
) which had 92 performances between March 22, 1923, and June 9, 1923, and Lynn Starling's comic play Meet the Wife which opened on November 26, 1923, and ran into the summer of 1924, closing in August. The play's juvenile lead was 24-year old Humphrey Bogart
.
In 1925, Webb appeared on stage in a dance act with vaudeville star and silent film actress Mary Hay. Later that year, when she and her husband, Tol'able David
star Richard Barthelmess
, decided to produce and star in New Toys, they chose Webb to be second lead. The movie proved to be financially successful, but 19 more years would pass before Webb appeared in another feature film.
Webb's mainstay was the Broadway theatre
. Between 1913 and 1947, the tall and slender performer who sang in a clear, gentle tenor, appeared in 23 Broadway shows, starting with major supporting roles and quickly progressing to leads. He introduced Irving Berlin
's "Easter Parade" and George
and Ira Gershwin
's "I've Got a Crush on You" in Treasure Girl (1928); Arthur Schwartz
and Howard Dietz
's "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan" in The Little Show (1929) and "Louisiana Hayride" in Flying Colors
(1932); and Irving Berlin
's "Not for All the Rice in China" in As Thousands Cheer (1933). One of his stage sketches, performed with co-star Fred Allen
, was filmed by Vitaphone
as a short subject titled The Still Alarm. (Allen's experiences while working with Clifton Webb appear in Allen's memoirs.)
Most of Webb's Broadway shows were musicals, but he also starred in Oscar Wilde
's The Importance of Being Earnest
, and his longtime friend Noel Coward
's Blithe Spirit
and Present Laughter
.
chose him over the objections of 20th Century Fox
chief Darryl F. Zanuck
to play the elegant but evil radio
columnist Waldo Lydecker, who is obsessed with Gene Tierney
's character in the 1944 film noir
Laura
. (Zanuck reportedly found Webb too effeminate as a person and an actor.) His performance won him wide acclaim, and despite Zanuck's original objection, Webb was signed to a long-term contract with Fox. Two years later he was reunited with Tierney in another highly praised role as the elitist Elliott Templeton in The Razor's Edge
(1946). He received Academy Award
nominations for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
for both.
Webb also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role
in 1949 for Sitting Pretty, the first in a three-film series of comedic "Mr. Belvedere
" features with Webb portraying a snide and omniscient babysitter.
In the 1950 film Cheaper by the Dozen
, Webb and Myrna Loy
played Frank
and Lillian Gilbreth
, real-life efficiency experts of the 1910s and 1920s, and the parents of 12 children. The film's success led to a sequel, Belles on Their Toes
, with Webb appearing only in a cameo flashback as the movie covers the family's life after the death of the father.
Webb's subsequent movie roles include that of college professor Thornton Sayre, who in his younger days was known as silent film idol Bruce "Dreamboat" Blair. Now a distinguished academic who wants no part of his past fame, he sets out to stop the showing of his old films on television
in 1952's Dreamboat
which concludes with Webb's alter ego Sayre watching himself star in Sitting Pretty. Also in 1952 he starred in the Technicolor
movie biography of bandmaster John Philip Sousa
, Stars and Stripes Forever
. In 1953, he had his most dramatic role as the doomed but brave husband of unfaithful Barbara Stanwyck
in Titanic
and in 1954 played the (fictional) novelist John Frederick Shadwell in Three Coins in the Fountain. The 1956 British film The Man Who Never Was
saw him playing the part of Royal Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu in the true story of Operation Mincemeat
the elaborate plan to trick the Axis powers about the Allied invasion of Italy during World War II
. In 1957's Boy on a Dolphin
, second-billed to Alan Ladd
, with third-billed Sophia Loren
, he portrayed a wealthy sophisticate who enjoyed collecting illegally obtained Greek
antiquities. In a nod to his own identity, the character's name was "Victor Parmalee".
Webb's final film role was an initially sarcastic, but ultimately self-sacrificing Catholic
priest in Leo McCarey
's Satan Never Sleeps
. The film, which was set in China
, showed the victory of Mao Tse-tung's armies in the Chinese civil war, which ended with his ascension to power in 1949, but was actually filmed in England during the summer of 1961, using sets from the 1958 film, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
, which had the same setting.
to remark, apropos Webb's grieving, "It must be terrible to be orphaned at 71."
Actor Robert Wagner
, who co-starred with Webb in the movies Stars and Stripes Forever and Titanic and considered the actor one of his mentors, stated in his memoirs, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, that "Clifton Webb was gay, of course, but he never made a pass at me, not that he would have."
, eventually succumbing to a heart attack
at the age of 76. He is interred in crypt 2350, corridor G-6, Abbey of the Psalms in Hollywood Forever Cemetery
, alongside his mother.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Clifton Webb has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 6840 Hollywood Boulevard.
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-nominated roles in such films as Laura
Laura (1944 film)
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....
, The Razor's Edge
The Razor's Edge (1946 film)
The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. It was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, supporting cast Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham....
, and Sitting Pretty. In the theatrical world he was known for his appearances in the plays of Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, notably Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
, as well as career on Broadway in a number of incredibly successful musical revues.
Broadway
By the age of nineteen, using the name Clifton Webb, he had become a professional ballroom dancer, often partnering "exceedingly decorative" star dancer Bonnie Glass (she eventually replaced him with Rudolph ValentinoRudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
), and performed in about two dozen operettas before debuting on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
as Bosco in The Purple Road, which opened at the Liberty Theatre on April 7, 1913, and ran for 136 performances before closing in August. His mother (billed as Mabel Parmalee) was listed in the program as a member of the opening night cast. His next musical was an Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
vehicle, Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
's Dancing Around. It opened at the Winter Garden Theatre
Winter Garden Theatre
The Winter Garden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1634 Broadway in midtown Manhattan.-History:The structure was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1896 to be the American Horse Exchange....
on October 10, 1914, and had 145 performances, closing in February, 1915. Later that year, Webb was in the all-star revue Ned Wayburn
Ned Wayburn
Ned Wayburn, born Edward Claudius Weyburn, was a choreographer. He was born in Pennsylvania but spent much of his childhood in Chicago where he was introduced to theater and studied classical piano. At the age of 21, he abandoned his family’s tradition of manufacturing and began teaching at the...
's Town Topics
Town Topics (musical)
Ned Wayburn's Town Topics was a musical comedy revue that ran at the Century Theatre from 23 September 1915 to 20 November 1915. It was written Harry B. Smith, Thomas J. Gray and Robert B. Smith and composed by Harold Orlob....
, which boasted 117 famous performers, including Will Rogers
Will Rogers
William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....
, listed in the Century Theatre
Century Theatre
The Century Theatre, originally the New Theatre, was a theater located at 62nd Street and Central Park West in New York City. Opened on November 6, 1909, it was noted for its fine architecture but due to poor acoustics and an inconvenient location it was financially unsuccessful...
opening night program of September 23, 1915. It closed 68 performances later on November 20, 1915. In 1916, he had another short run with Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
's comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
See America First
See America First
See America First is a comic opera with a book by T. Lawrason Riggs and music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The first work by Porter to be produced on Broadway, it was a critical and commercial flop.-Background:...
, which opened at the Maxine Elliott Theatre
Maxine Elliott Theatre
The Maxine Elliott Theatre was a Broadway theater located at 109 West 39th Street in New York City. Built in 1908, it was demolished in 1960. The theater was designed by architect Benjamin Marshall of the Chicago firm Marshall and Fox....
on March 28, 1916, and closed after 15 performances on April 8, 1916. The World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
year of 1917 proved to be better, with a 233-performance run of Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
's Love o'Mike, which opened at the Shubert Theatre
Shubert Theatre (Broadway)
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 225 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States.Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts, it was named after Sam S. Shubert, the second oldest of the three brothers of the theatrical producing family...
on January 15, 1917. After moving to Maxine Elliott's Theatre and Casino Theatre, it closed on September 29, 1917. Future Mama
Mama (TV series)
Mama is a weekly Maxwell House-sponsored CBS television comedy-drama series which ran from July 1, 1949 until March 17, 1957.Based on the Kathryn Forbes memoir Mama's Bank Account, which was also adapted for the 1944 John Van Druten play and subsequent 1948 film I Remember Mama, it told the...
star Peggy Wood
Peggy Wood
Peggy Wood was an American actress of stage, film and television.-Early career:She was born Mary Margaret Wood in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Eugene Wood, a journalist, and Mary Gardner, a telegraph operator. She was a direct descendant of Daniel Boone...
was also in the cast. Webb's final show of the 1910s, the musical Listen Lester, had the longest run, 272 performances. It opened at the Knickerbocker Theatre
Knickerbocker Theatre (Broadway)
The Knickerbocker Theatre — previously known as Abbey's Theatre and Henry Abbey's Theatre — was a Broadway theatre located at 1396 Broadway in New York City. It operated from 1893 to 1930...
December 23, 1918, and closed in August 1919.
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
, and a handful of silent films. The revue As You Were, with additional songs by Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
, opened at the Central Theatre on January 29, 1920, and closed 143 performances later on May 29, 1920. Busy with films, tours and vaudeville, (including an appearance at the London Pavilion
London Pavilion
The London Pavilion is a building located on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street on the north-east side of, and facing, Piccadilly Circus in London...
in 1921 as Mr. St. Louis in Fun of the Fayre and the next year in Phi-Phi
Phi-Phi
Phi-Phi is an opérette légère in three acts with music by Henri Christiné and a French libretto by Albert Willemetz and Fabien Solar. The piece was one which founded the new style of French comédie musicale, the first to really use the latest rhythms of jazz along with a plot which emphasised...
), he did not return to Broadway until 1923, with the musical Jack and Jill (Globe Theatre
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 205 West 46th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by the architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings, it was built by producer Charles Dillingham and opened as the Globe Theatre, in honor of London's Shakespearean playhouse, on...
) which had 92 performances between March 22, 1923, and June 9, 1923, and Lynn Starling's comic play Meet the Wife which opened on November 26, 1923, and ran into the summer of 1924, closing in August. The play's juvenile lead was 24-year old Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
.
In 1925, Webb appeared on stage in a dance act with vaudeville star and silent film actress Mary Hay. Later that year, when she and her husband, Tol'able David
Tol'able David
Tol'able David is a 1921 American silent film based on the Joseph Hergesheimer short story. It was adapted to the screen by Edmund Goulding and directed by Henry King for Inspiration Pictures....
star Richard Barthelmess
Richard Barthelmess
Richard Semler "Dick" Barthelmess was an Oscar-nominated silent film star.-Early life:Barthelmess was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut...
, decided to produce and star in New Toys, they chose Webb to be second lead. The movie proved to be financially successful, but 19 more years would pass before Webb appeared in another feature film.
Webb's mainstay was the Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. Between 1913 and 1947, the tall and slender performer who sang in a clear, gentle tenor, appeared in 23 Broadway shows, starting with major supporting roles and quickly progressing to leads. He introduced Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's "Easter Parade" and George
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
's "I've Got a Crush on You" in Treasure Girl (1928); Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer.Schwartz supported his legal studies at New York University and postgraduate studies at Columbia University by playing piano before concentrating his talents on vaudeville, Broadway theatre and Hollywood.Among his Broadway musicals are The...
and Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Dietz was born in New York City and studied journalism at Columbia University...
's "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan" in The Little Show (1929) and "Louisiana Hayride" in Flying Colors
Flying Colors (musical)
Flying Colors is a musical revue with a book, lyrics, and music by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz and sketch contributions by George S. Kaufman, Corey Ford, and Charles Sherman....
(1932); and Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's "Not for All the Rice in China" in As Thousands Cheer (1933). One of his stage sketches, performed with co-star Fred Allen
Fred Allen
Fred Allen was an American comedian whose absurdist, topically pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny, but it...
, was filmed by Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
as a short subject titled The Still Alarm. (Allen's experiences while working with Clifton Webb appear in Allen's memoirs.)
Most of Webb's Broadway shows were musicals, but he also starred in Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
, and his longtime friend Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
and Present Laughter
Present Laughter
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
.
Hollywood
Webb was in his mid-fifties when actor/director Otto PremingerOtto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
chose him over the objections of 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
chief Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...
to play the elegant but evil radio
Radio programming
Radio programming is the Broadcast programming of a Radio format or content that is organized for Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting radio stations....
columnist Waldo Lydecker, who is obsessed with Gene Tierney
Gene Tierney
Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven .Other notable roles include...
's character in the 1944 film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
Laura
Laura (1944 film)
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....
. (Zanuck reportedly found Webb too effeminate as a person and an actor.) His performance won him wide acclaim, and despite Zanuck's original objection, Webb was signed to a long-term contract with Fox. Two years later he was reunited with Tierney in another highly praised role as the elitist Elliott Templeton in The Razor's Edge
The Razor's Edge (1946 film)
The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. It was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, supporting cast Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham....
(1946). He received Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
nominations for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
for both.
Webb also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
in 1949 for Sitting Pretty, the first in a three-film series of comedic "Mr. Belvedere
Lynn Aloysius Belvedere
Lynn Aloysius Belvedere is a fictional character created by Gwen Davenport for her 1947 novel Belvedere and later adapted for film and television.-Film:Three films featured the character, starring Clifton Webb as Lynn Belvedere:...
" features with Webb portraying a snide and omniscient babysitter.
In the 1950 film Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen (1950 film)
Cheaper by the Dozen is a 1950 film based upon the 1948 book Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The film and book describe growing up in a family with twelve children in Montclair, New Jersey. It was made in Technicolor with Leon Shamroy as cinematographer...
, Webb and Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...
played Frank
Frank Bunker Gilbreth
Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. was an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of motion study, but is perhaps best known as the father and central figure of Cheaper by the Dozen.- Biography :...
and Lillian Gilbreth
Lillian Moller Gilbreth
Lillian Moller Gilbreth was an American psychologist and industrial engineer. One of the first working female engineers holding a Ph.D., she is arguably the first true industrial/organizational psychologist. She and her husband Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr...
, real-life efficiency experts of the 1910s and 1920s, and the parents of 12 children. The film's success led to a sequel, Belles on Their Toes
Belles on their Toes (film)
Belles on Their Toes is a film based on the eponymous novel, Belles on Their Toes by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The film had its debut in New York City on May 2, 1952. It was directed by Henry Levin. Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron wrote the screenplay...
, with Webb appearing only in a cameo flashback as the movie covers the family's life after the death of the father.
Webb's subsequent movie roles include that of college professor Thornton Sayre, who in his younger days was known as silent film idol Bruce "Dreamboat" Blair. Now a distinguished academic who wants no part of his past fame, he sets out to stop the showing of his old films on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
in 1952's Dreamboat
Dreamboat (film)
Dreamboat is a 1952 comedy film starring Clifton Webb as a college professor with a mysterious past.-Plot:The respectable lives of Professor of English literature Thornton Sayre and his daughter Carol are severely disrupted when it is revealed that he was once a matinee idol known as "Dreamboat"...
which concludes with Webb's alter ego Sayre watching himself star in Sitting Pretty. Also in 1952 he starred in the Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
movie biography of bandmaster John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
, Stars and Stripes Forever
Stars and Stripes Forever (film)
Stars and Stripes Forever is a 1952 American biographical film about late 19th/early 20th Century composer John Philip Sousa, played by Clifton Webb...
. In 1953, he had his most dramatic role as the doomed but brave husband of unfaithful Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
in Titanic
Titanic (1953 film)
Titanic is a 1953 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco. Its plot centers on an estranged couple sailing on the maiden voyage of the , which took place in April 1912.-Plot:...
and in 1954 played the (fictional) novelist John Frederick Shadwell in Three Coins in the Fountain. The 1956 British film The Man Who Never Was
The Man Who Never Was
The Man Who Never Was is a nonfiction 1953 book by Ewen Montagu and a 1956 Second World War war film, based on the book and dramatising actual events...
saw him playing the part of Royal Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu in the true story of Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception plan during World War II. As part of the widespread deception plan Operation Barclay to cover the intended invasion of Italy from North Africa, Mincemeat helped to convince the German high command that the Allies planned to invade Greece and...
the elaborate plan to trick the Axis powers about the Allied invasion of Italy during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In 1957's Boy on a Dolphin
Boy on a Dolphin
Boy on a Dolphin is a 1957 20th Century Fox romantic film set in Greece and made in CinemaScope. It was directed by Jean Negulesco and produced by Samuel G. Engel from a screenplay by Ivan Moffat and Dwight Taylor, based on the novel by David Divine....
, second-billed to Alan Ladd
Alan Ladd
-Early life:Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter...
, with third-billed Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
, he portrayed a wealthy sophisticate who enjoyed collecting illegally obtained Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
antiquities. In a nod to his own identity, the character's name was "Victor Parmalee".
Webb's final film role was an initially sarcastic, but ultimately self-sacrificing Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
priest in Leo McCarey
Leo McCarey
Thomas Leo McCarey was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. During his lifetime he was involved in nearly 200 movies, especially comedies...
's Satan Never Sleeps
Satan Never Sleeps
Satan Never Sleeps , a film directed by Leo McCarey , is his final film. It is about a priest, Father O'Banion , who arrives at a mission-post in China accompanied by a young native girl, Siu Lan , who has joined him along the way...
. The film, which was set in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, showed the victory of Mao Tse-tung's armies in the Chinese civil war, which ended with his ascension to power in 1949, but was actually filmed in England during the summer of 1961, using sets from the 1958 film, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a 1958 American 20th Century Fox film based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, a tenacious British maid, who became a missionary in China during the tumultuous years leading up to World War II...
, which had the same setting.
Personal life
The never married Webb lived with his mother until her death at age 91 in 1960, leading Noël CowardNoël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
to remark, apropos Webb's grieving, "It must be terrible to be orphaned at 71."
Actor Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...
, who co-starred with Webb in the movies Stars and Stripes Forever and Titanic and considered the actor one of his mentors, stated in his memoirs, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, that "Clifton Webb was gay, of course, but he never made a pass at me, not that he would have."
Death
Because of health problems, Webb spent the last five years of his life as a recluse at his home in Beverly Hills, CaliforniaBeverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
, eventually succumbing to a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at the age of 76. He is interred in crypt 2350, corridor G-6, Abbey of the Psalms in Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...
, alongside his mother.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Clifton Webb has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6840 Hollywood Boulevard.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1917 | National Red Cross Pageant | Dancer, The Pavane - French episode | |
| 1920 | Polly with a Past | Harry Richardson | Uncredited |
| 1924 | Let Not Man Put Asunder | Major Bertie | Uncredited |
| 1925 | New Toys | Tom Lawrence | |
| The Heart of a Siren | Maxim | Alternative title: The Heart of a Temptress | |
| 1930 | The Still Alarm | ||
| 1944 | Laura Laura (1944 film) Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary.... |
Waldo Lydecker | |
| 1946 | The Dark Corner The Dark Corner The Dark Corner is a 1946 film noir directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Lucille Ball, Mark Stevens and Clifton Webb. The film is an example of a classic film noir and features a rare dramatic role for Ball.-Plot:... |
Hardy Cathcart | |
| The Razor's Edge The Razor's Edge (1946 film) The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. It was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, supporting cast Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham.... |
Elliott Templeton | ||
| 1948 | Sitting Pretty | Lynn Belvedere | |
| 1949 | Mr. Belvedere Goes to College Mr. Belvedere Goes to College Mr. Belvedere Goes to College is a 1949 American comedy film directed by Elliott Nugent. The screenplay written by Mary Loos, Mary C. McCall, Jr., and Richard Sale was based on characters created by Gwen Davenport... |
Lynn Belvedere | |
| 1950 | Cheaper by the Dozen Cheaper by the Dozen (1950 film) Cheaper by the Dozen is a 1950 film based upon the 1948 book Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The film and book describe growing up in a family with twelve children in Montclair, New Jersey. It was made in Technicolor with Leon Shamroy as cinematographer... |
Frank Bunker Gilbreth | |
| For Heaven's Sake For Heaven's Sake (1950 film) For Heaven's Sake is a 1950 fantasy film starring Clifton Webb as an angel trying to save the marriage of a couple played by Joan Bennett and Robert Cummings... |
Charles/Slim Charles | ||
| 1951 | Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell is a 1951 comedy film, the third and final one starring Clifton Webb as Lynn Belvedere. Mr. Belvedere lies about his age and lives in a senior citizens home to determine if there was any point in growing old... |
Lynn Belvedere | Alternative title: Mr. Belvedere Blows His Whistle |
| Elopement | Howard Osborne | ||
| 1952 | Belles on Their Toes Belles on their Toes (film) Belles on Their Toes is a film based on the eponymous novel, Belles on Their Toes by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The film had its debut in New York City on May 2, 1952. It was directed by Henry Levin. Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron wrote the screenplay... |
Frank Bunker Gilbreth | Uncredited |
| Dreamboat Dreamboat (film) Dreamboat is a 1952 comedy film starring Clifton Webb as a college professor with a mysterious past.-Plot:The respectable lives of Professor of English literature Thornton Sayre and his daughter Carol are severely disrupted when it is revealed that he was once a matinee idol known as "Dreamboat"... |
Thornton Sayre/Dreamboat/Bruce Blair | ||
| Stars and Stripes Forever Stars and Stripes Forever (film) Stars and Stripes Forever is a 1952 American biographical film about late 19th/early 20th Century composer John Philip Sousa, played by Clifton Webb... |
John Philip Sousa | Alternative title: Marching Along | |
| 1953 | Titanic Titanic (1953 film) Titanic is a 1953 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco. Its plot centers on an estranged couple sailing on the maiden voyage of the , which took place in April 1912.-Plot:... |
Richard Ward Sturges | |
| Mr. Scoutmaster | Robert Jordan | ||
| 1954 | Three Coins in the Fountain | John Frederick Shadwell | |
| Woman's World Woman's World (film) Woman's World, also known as A Woman's World, is a 1954 drama film about corporate America. Three men compete for the top job at a large company.-Plot:... |
Ernest Gifford | Alternative title: A Woman's World | |
| 1956 | The Man Who Never Was The Man Who Never Was The Man Who Never Was is a nonfiction 1953 book by Ewen Montagu and a 1956 Second World War war film, based on the book and dramatising actual events... |
Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu | |
| 1957 | Boy on a Dolphin Boy on a Dolphin Boy on a Dolphin is a 1957 20th Century Fox romantic film set in Greece and made in CinemaScope. It was directed by Jean Negulesco and produced by Samuel G. Engel from a screenplay by Ivan Moffat and Dwight Taylor, based on the novel by David Divine.... |
Victor Parmalee | |
| 1959 | The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker | Mr. Horace Pennypacker | |
| Holiday for Lovers Holiday for Lovers Holiday for Lovers is a 1959 comedy film directed by Henry Levin. Based on a 1957 play by Ronald Alexander, the film stars Clifton Webb, Jane Wyman, Jill St. John and Carol Lynley.-Plot:... |
Robert Dean | ||
| 1962 | Satan Never Sleeps Satan Never Sleeps Satan Never Sleeps , a film directed by Leo McCarey , is his final film. It is about a priest, Father O'Banion , who arrives at a mission-post in China accompanied by a young native girl, Siu Lan , who has joined him along the way... |
Father Bovard | Alternative titles: The Devil Never Sleeps Flight from Terror |
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Result | Category | Film |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1945 | Academy Award | Nominated | Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the... |
Laura |
| 1947 | The Razor's Edge | |||
| 1949 | Best Actor in a Leading Role Academy Award for Best Actor Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry... |
Sitting Pretty | ||
| 1947 | Golden Globe Award Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
Won | Best Supporting Actor | The Razor's Edge |
| 1953 | Nominated | Best Motion Picture Actor - Musical/Comedy | Stars and Stripes Forever |