History
Clifton webb was born with the name Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck in Indianapolis. He started his career as a professional ballroom dancer when he was nineteen. In 1924, he appeared on Broadway, making a few roles in silent films. He worked mostly as a stage actor, musical interviews and also Noel Coward’s comedies (Blithe Spirit and Present Laughter).
He began having his chances as a movie stardom at the age of fifty-five and he found himself being cast as columnist Waldo Lydecker in Laura (1944) by Otto Preminger. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor as the movie was a huge success. He received a second Oscar nomination for his role in The Razor’s Edge (1946) two years later.
According to reports of Scotty Bowers: “Webb was obsessively proper, correct and well-mannered...polite to the point of being irritating. He lived with his overbearing mother Mabelle his entire life. Even though she knew he was gay, she would never discuss the fact with anyone. He took his mother everywhere: to movie sets, dinner parties, and even on vacation. They were inseparable.”
Bowers writes that “Cliff was so outlandishly camp that he advertised his sexuality to all and sundry merely by walking into a room. When asked if he were gay by director Jean Negulesco in 1952, Webb drew himself to full height and replied, “Devout, my boy, devout.””
In 1960, his mother died after having lived with him for all his life. Clifton had trouble to recover from his mother’s death, and when he died six years later, he was buried next to her in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
He began having his chances as a movie stardom at the age of fifty-five and he found himself being cast as columnist Waldo Lydecker in Laura (1944) by Otto Preminger. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor as the movie was a huge success. He received a second Oscar nomination for his role in The Razor’s Edge (1946) two years later.
According to reports of Scotty Bowers: “Webb was obsessively proper, correct and well-mannered...polite to the point of being irritating. He lived with his overbearing mother Mabelle his entire life. Even though she knew he was gay, she would never discuss the fact with anyone. He took his mother everywhere: to movie sets, dinner parties, and even on vacation. They were inseparable.”
Bowers writes that “Cliff was so outlandishly camp that he advertised his sexuality to all and sundry merely by walking into a room. When asked if he were gay by director Jean Negulesco in 1952, Webb drew himself to full height and replied, “Devout, my boy, devout.””
In 1960, his mother died after having lived with him for all his life. Clifton had trouble to recover from his mother’s death, and when he died six years later, he was buried next to her in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
My opinion
The reason why I chose this character is first because he was homosexual, but also because he was a warm-hearted man. He never really told anyone directly that he was homosexual, but he never really hid it either. He wasn’t ashamed to be who he was and never regretted it. The fact that his mother supported him as well even though she might not have liked it also made me want to show him on this expo. Many parents whose children are homosexual today accept them, but many don’t as well. Clifton Webb shows us that one of the reason he grew up to be accepted and famous is because he had one other person to carry all the weight of all the difficulties caused by his homosexuality with him.