 Cliff Robertson, a pilot
who happens to also be an Academy Award and Emmy Award
winning screen star, says he remembers reading “Time
Must Have a Stop,” by Aldous Huxley, years ago, and
wondering about the title.
“ I never knew what he meant, but I'm beginning to
realize now,” he said. “We need more time!"
Robertson would like more time to devote to his
immediate family--his oldest daughter Stephanie, who
lives in Charleston, and Heather, who lives in New York
City--as well as to his closest friends, who are his
"aviation buddies," and to flying his airplanes.
That includes his Grob
Twin Astir, a German two-place glider he keeps at High
Country Soaring in Minden, Nev., on the eastern side of
the High Sierras. He's glided in and out of a few other
places, but says that High Country, 38 miles south of
Reno, run by Gordon and Melissa Boeatger, is the best place to soar in
the world.
" They're good people; they're like family to me,"
Robertson said. "When I go up there, they put me in the
back room. I spend two, three or four days. That's my
Walden's Pond.”
He adds that glider pilots from around the world come to
High Country Soaring, because the conditions there are
so unique. Robertson's been gliding for over 16 years,
and has his diamond altitude, for over 26,000 feet. A
few years back, he and a friend set a Nevada state
record for distance in a two-place glider--240 miles,
from Tonopah to Parowan.
He shares that passion with friends like Barron Hilton,
whose Flying M Ranch is about 35 miles from High
Country. Robertson will be there this summer to
celebrate with the winners of this year’s Hilton Cup.
But gliding is only a part of his aviation "obsession."
" I have a big hole in my head and a stable of planes,"
says the man who holds single-engine land and sea,
multiengine, instrument and commercial licenses, as well
as balloon, gliding and seaplane ratings.
Those planes include a Beech Baron 58; a Messerschmitt
Me-108, which is on display in the Parker-O’Malley Air
Museum in Ghent, in upstate New York; and a Stampe SV4,
a French fully aerobatic open-cockpit biplane. In the
past, he’s also owned three Tiger Moths, as well as a
Spitfire Mk.IX.
Once upon a time in La Jolla
Born Clifford Parker Robertson III, on Sept. 9, 1925,
Robertson was raised by his grandmother and an uncle,
after his mother died when he was two and a half. He
recalls becoming aware of aviation when he was five
years old, living in La Jolla, Calif.
" I saw a little yellow airplane doing aerobatics over
our house," he said. "My uncle and another man were
standing there watching the aerobatics, wagging their
heads sagely, and one said, 'You'll never get me up in
one of those little airplanes.' Then the little airplane
turned southward and started to hum its way home. We got
into the Ford alongside the curb and it wouldn't start.
In my little mind, I was thinking, 'What's wrong with
this picture?' I think I began to become a partisan for
aviation at an early age. I was defending it then, and I
still am." Living 13 miles from San Diego, when Robertson was 14,
during the summer, he began riding his bicycle, six days
a week, into a "little sleepy airport."
" Speer Airport had one little sandy runway," he said.
"I would go and work eight hours a day cleaning
airplanes and engine parts and never got paid a nickel,
but every third or fourth day, the chief pilot would
say, 'Cliff, go get your cushion.' I was short for my
age. I'd take my cushion out to a little red Piper Cub
and he'd take me up for 15 minutes and let me at the
controls once we took off. I thought I was the ace of
aces. It was a magic time."
From Off-Off Broadway to Hollywood
As many do who flirt with aviation in their youth,
Robertson abandoned it for a period while sorting out
what to do with his life. He served in the Maritime
Services for
three and a half years in the South Pacific, North
Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters of war.
Then, he attended Antioch College. He entered a program
that allowed him to work at the same time, so he began
writing for the "Springfield Daily News." While working
for the paper, he was told he should write for the
theater "instead of a deadline," because he had talent
that would be more suited there than for writing general
assignments for a newspaper.
" I said, 'I don't know; we'll see,'" Robertson said.
"Ultimately, I fell in with bad companions, and did
off-off Broadway and Broadway."
When he arrived in New York, he knew nothing about the
theater.
" They said, 'You have to go out and do the hustling, go
out into the regions, the provinces and learn about the
theater, if you're going to write for it,'" he said.
"So, I went out and learned to drive a truck and build
flats. I didn't take it very seriously. They looked
at this callow kid. It irritated my fellow actors who
took it and themselves very seriously."
Robertson said he acted because everybody else in the
company did.
" I had the audacity, in spite of myself, to get good
reviews, which really ticked them off," he said. "I was
actually kind of hovering over making a living. I was
kind of hanging in there in New York. I did a lot of
things, but eventually I was making a living in the
theater and then in early television and then finally
Hollywood." After two years with a touring company, Robertson
appeared in a few, small, un-credited roles in films in
the late forties, and in television installments of
"Kraft Television Theatre" in 1947, "Robert Montgomery
Presents" in 1950, and "Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers"
in 1953 and 1954. His first credited film role was in
"Picnic," in 1955, directed by Joshua Logan, after
starring in the Broadway production in 1952. That same
year, he played Joan Crawford's schizophrenic boyfriend
in "Autumn Leaves."
Over the next years he switched back and forth between
TV and motion pictures, receiving accolades for his
performance as an alcoholic in the 1958 Playhouse 90's
"Days of Wine and Roses" and in "Twilight Zone" and "The
Outer Limits" installments, and playing roles including
the original Big Kahuna in "Gidget" in 1959.
In 1961, Robertson took a completely different
role--that of Charly Gordon, a mentally retarded bakery
worker who becomes a genius after undergoing
experimental brain surgery, in an hour-long Theater
Guild television adaptation of Daniel Keye's short
story, "Flowers for Algernon." Collaborating with the
screenwriter hired by the Theater Guild, he wrote most
of the second act of "The Two Worlds of Charly Gordon."
" It got such recognition that I secured the film
rights, thinking, ‘Now I can think of a movie,'" he
said. "Up to that time, I was sort of always a
bridesmaid and never a bride."
Securing film rights was something Robertson hadn't been
able to do with "Days of Wine and Roses." Jack Lemmon
did that, and cast himself in the starring role in the
film released in 1962.
" I can't blame him," said Robertson. "If I'd had his
money, I would have probably done the same thing."
Seven years would go by before "Charly" would be
released as a motion picture. In the meantime, while
working on a movie at Paramount, Robertson received a
call from a White House representative, requesting he go
to Warner Brothers the following day to do a test for
"PT 109." The film was the story of Navy Lieutenant John
F. Kennedy's fight to keep his crew alive when their
boat sunk in the South Pacific.
" I said, 'You're kidding me,'" Robertson said. "They
said, 'No,’ and I said, 'I'm working on this picture.'
The key words were, 'It's been arranged.' When I heard
it had been arranged, I knew it was by somebody big."
That somebody was President Kennedy, who, upon hearing
that a book written about his WWII South Pacific
experiences was to be made into a movie, made three
requests. " One was that it be historically accurate, because
Hollywood is not known for its accuracy; they have a
tendency to exaggerate," Robertson said. "Two was that
any monies that would be coming to him, since it was a
story about him, would be directed to the survivors of
PT 109, which he commanded, or if they were no longer
alive, to their families. Three was that he be allowed
to pick the actor."
Robertson said at that time there was a lot of talk
about who was going to play the young Kennedy.
" I remember Warren Beatty was rumored, and Peter
Fonda," he said.
Robertson did the test; three days later, he learned he
had the part when he received a call from a friend in
New York who had seen his picture, alongside Kennedy’s,
in the New York Times.
While doing "Sunday in New York" with Jane Fonda,
Robertson received a call from the president.
" He asked me if I'd like to come down and visit, so I
did," he said. "It turned out he'd seen things that I'd
done." " PT 109" and "Sunday in New York" were released in
1963. By that time, Robertson had traveled to England
for filming. There, he found the opportunity to
"seriously" get involved in aviation. |
