Dancer, singer and stage and screen actor Clifton Webb (1893-1966), known also as Webb Parmalee Hollenbeck, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He debuted as a child in The Brownies (1900) and appeared for several years in other children's roles, including Oliver Twist and Prince Arthur in King John. After completing a grammar school education in New York City, he studied painting and voice. His baritone voice brought him a series of roles with the Aborn Opera Company of Boston, in 1911. From there he went on to play a double role in a Broadway musical comedy, The purple road (1913). With his skill in dancing, Webb next became a professional performer of ballroom dances in cabarets. For a time he capitalized on his dance skills by operating the Webb Dance Studio, with his mother as secretary and business manager. Then he became known as a dancing comedian in a series of Broadway musicals, beginning with Dancing around (1914) and ending with As you were (1920). British producer C. B. Cochran brought Webb to London for the 1921-1922 seasons. Besides appearing in two Cochran revues, Webb danced with Jenny Dolly in Elsa Maxwell's night club in Paris, France. Back in New York, he appeared in another musical, Jack and Jill (1923). The return to musical comedies brought Webb increasing acclaim over the next nine years. He played opposite Marilyn Miller for three seasons in the great success, Sunny (1925) and opposite Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence in two more musicals in 1928. In 1928 he starred in a revue, The little show. After two more more succesful revues, Webb appeared in a major Broadway hit, Irving Berlin's As thousands cheers (1933), where in various numbers he sang "Easter parade" and did impersonations of Mahatma Gandhi, Douglas Fairbanks, John D. Rockefeller Sr., and a waiter behaving like Noel Coward. Following a period of inactivity he returned to the stage in a play, And stars remain (1936), a musical, You never know (1938), and as John Worthing in a revival of The importance of being Earnest (1939). For two years, 1940 through 1941, he toured in US, playing Sheridan Whiteside in The man who came to dinner. This role cystallized for Webb the persona he would later transfer to films. He next appeared on Broadway in a great success, Blithe spirit (1941), remaining with it for three seasons in New York and on tour. Film director-producer Otto Preminger saw Webb in the play and cast him as Waldo Lydecker in his movie Laura (1944). The role established Webb as a major character actor in motion pictures and won him a nomination for an Oscar award. His performance as a pathetic socialite snob in another movie, The razor edge (1946) brought him another OSCAR nomination, and he moved permanently to Hollywood making only film apperances for the rest of his life. Among other movies he made were: For heaven's sake (1950), Cheaper by the dozen (1950), Stars and stripes forever (1952), Three coins in the fountain (1954), Boy on a dolphin (1957). His last movie was Satan never sleeps (1962). Clifton Webb's place in theatre history is that of a lifelong performer of amazing versatility, who could go from opera to cabaret dancing, on to musical comedy, and then to straigt acting and end up a movie star in his sixties
From the guide to the Clifton Webb Collection, 1930-1960, (Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute)
