Cliff Robertson

Highest Rated: 100% The Best Man (1964)

Lowest Rated: 12% Renaissance Man (1994)

Birthday: Sep 9, 1923

Birthplace: La Jolla, California, USA

As a child growing up in an idyllic California coastal town in the years before the Great Depression, Cliff Robertson was raised to value hard work and perseverance. He saw action in the South Pacific during World War II and worked as a newspaperman before heading to New York City to make a name for himself as an actor. Classes with the Actor's Studio led to his Broadway debut and a busy schedule of work on stage, on television and in such feature films as "PT 109" (1962) and "The Best Man" (1963). An Academy Award winner for playing the title role in "Charly" (1969), Robertson segued smoothly from star roles to character parts in the mid-Seventies but his career was derailed by the 1977 "Hollywoodgate" scandal. After exposing the embezzlement of more than half a million dollars by the head of Columbia Pictures, the actor found himself blacklisted in the industry. Robertson reemerged in a run of high profile films in the early Eighties, reestablishing himself as a venerable American actor, among the last of a dying breed, and a true survivor.