Oscar recipient Robertson, 88, dies
NEW YORK – Cliff Robertson, the handsome movie actor who played John F. Kennedy in “PT-109” and won an Oscar for “Charly,” died Saturday. He was 88.
His secretary of 53 years, Evelyn Christel, said he died in Stony Brook, N.Y., 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.
Robertson had created a string of impressive performances in television and on Broadway, but always saw his role played in films by bigger names. His TV performances in “Days of Wine and Roses” and “The Hustler,” for example, were filmed with Jack Lemmon and Paul Newman, respectively.
Robertson first appeared in the “Charly” story in a TV version, “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon.” Both were based on “Flowers for Algernon,” a short story that author Daniel Keyes later revised into a novel. Robertson was determined that this time the big-screen role would not go to another actor.
“I bought the movie rights to the show, and I tried for eight years to persuade a studio to make it,” he said in 1968. “Finally I found a new company, ABC Films. I owned 50 percent of the gross, but I gave half of it to Ralph Nelson to direct.”
Another memorable movie role, portraying future President Kennedy in the World War II drama “PT-109,” presented other challenges.
Released in 1963, it was the first movie to be made about a sitting president, and dozens of actors were considered. Kennedy himself favored Robertson, but he warned him he didn’t want someone trying to imitate his distinctive New England accent.