Trivia of Clifton Webb

 Trivia of Clifton Webb (18 November 1899 - 13 October 1966)

*When he was still 19-year-old, Clifton Webb had become a professional ballroom dancer, often partnering with "exceedingly decorative" star dancer Bonnie Glass (she would eventually replace him with Rudolph Valentino).His debut on Broadway began when The Purple Road opened at the Liberty Theatre on April 7, 1913.

*His elegant taste kept him on Hollywood's best-dressed lists for decades. His scrupulously-private gay life has also been respective one to his personality as a true gentleman.

*Webb was in his mid-fifties when actor/director Otto Preminger 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 film noir Laura (1944).Webb recalled gruelling conditions shooting with Otto Preminger: ''Laura took ten weeks to make and I was becoming more exhausted with every approaching day. Benzedrine in the daytime to keep me going and sleeping pills at night was not a very happy combination."Webb's performance won him wide acclaim, and he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

*He had been offered the chance to appear with Fred Astaire in the MGM musical The Band Wagon (1953)--which is now considered one of the classics of the era--but passed it up to be in the film Stars and Stripes Forever (1952) play leading role as John Philip Sousa, whereas he would have only played a supporting role to Astaire in "The Band Wagon".

*Fox Studio was developing Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) as a vehicle for Webb, but when he fell ill and was unable to work, James Mason stepped into the role.

*His final film was Satan Never Sleep (1962), where Webb play for leading role with William Holden.This film made for an unhappy end to the directing career of Leo McCarey. He made no bones about his intense dislike for both leading men of the film, William Holden and Clifton Webb, and later claimed that working on the film (which was an expensive box-office failure and the recipient of several of the worst reviews of McCarey's career) had so depressed him that he never wanted to make a film again - and didn't.

*Throughout his career, Clifton Webb remained a confirmed bachelor and had no children. He lived with his mother until her death at age 90 in 1960.After Webb dead in n October 13, 1966, he is interred in the Psalms in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, alongside his mother.