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Oscar winner Cliff Robertson dies at 88
Source: Agencies |
September 12, 2011, Monday
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CLIFF Robertson, the handsome movie actor who played John F. Kennedy in "PT-109," won an Oscar for "Charly" and was famously victimized in a 1977 Hollywood forgery scandal, died on Saturday. He was 88.
His longtime secretary, Evelyn Christel, said he died in Stony Brook of natural causes a day after his 88th birthday.
Robertson never elevated into the top ranks of leading men, but he remained a popular actor from the mid-1950s into the following century. His later roles included kindly Uncle Ben in the "Spider-Man" movies.
He also gained attention for his second marriage to actress and heiress Dina Merrill, daughter of financier E.F. Hutton and Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post cereal fortune and one of the world's richest women.
His triumph came in 1968 with his Academy Award performance in "Charly," as a mentally disabled man who undergoes medical treatment that makes him a genius - until a poignant regression to his former state.
In 1977 Robertson made headlines again, this time by blowing the whistle on a Hollywood financial scandal. He had discovered that David Begelman, president of Columbia Pictures, had forged his signature on a US$10,000 salary check, and he called the FBI and the Burbank and Beverly Hills police departments. Hollywood insiders were not happy with the ugly publicity.
"I got phone calls from powerful people who said, 'You've been very fortunate in this business; I'm sure you wouldn't want all this to come to an end,'" Robertson recalled in 1984.
Begelman served time for embezzlement, but he returned to the film business. He committed suicide in 1995. Robertson said neither the studios nor the networks would hire him for four years.
His longtime secretary, Evelyn Christel, said he died in Stony Brook of natural causes a day after his 88th birthday.
Robertson never elevated into the top ranks of leading men, but he remained a popular actor from the mid-1950s into the following century. His later roles included kindly Uncle Ben in the "Spider-Man" movies.
He also gained attention for his second marriage to actress and heiress Dina Merrill, daughter of financier E.F. Hutton and Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post cereal fortune and one of the world's richest women.
His triumph came in 1968 with his Academy Award performance in "Charly," as a mentally disabled man who undergoes medical treatment that makes him a genius - until a poignant regression to his former state.
In 1977 Robertson made headlines again, this time by blowing the whistle on a Hollywood financial scandal. He had discovered that David Begelman, president of Columbia Pictures, had forged his signature on a US$10,000 salary check, and he called the FBI and the Burbank and Beverly Hills police departments. Hollywood insiders were not happy with the ugly publicity.
"I got phone calls from powerful people who said, 'You've been very fortunate in this business; I'm sure you wouldn't want all this to come to an end,'" Robertson recalled in 1984.
Begelman served time for embezzlement, but he returned to the film business. He committed suicide in 1995. Robertson said neither the studios nor the networks would hire him for four years.
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