Clifford Tatum Jr.
- Actor
Clifford "Cliff" Tatum Jr. was born Charles Clifford Tatum II circa
1938 in Florida, the son of Renee and Charles Clifford Tatum. His
father was a Florida native, and his mother was from New York. They
settled in New York City, where his father had an office position with
the Long Island Railroad. They later moved to Kew Gardens section of
Queens, New York, where Cliff grew up, attending P.S. 99. from 1944 to
1948. He started acting on radio and on stage, replacing an actor in
the role of "Little Jake" in "Annie Get Your Gun" with Ethel Merman.
That hit show closed in 1949 and he and appeared that same year in "A
Month in the Country" in Westport, Connecticut, with Ruth Gordon and
directed by Garson Kanin. That same year he appeared in a television
production of "The Canterville Ghost." In 1951 he went to Hollywood to
play an bitter handicapped polio victim adopted by Cary Grant and Betsy
Drake in A Room for One More (1952). It would be his only theatrical
movie performance, but was one that left a lasting impression. Like his
character in the movie, Tatum was in the Boy Scouts, in Troop 15 in
Queens. He returned to New York, acting in a number of television
productions as he entered Forest Hills High School in Queens in 1952.
In 1953 he became the first actor to portray Huckleberry Finn for
television and appeared as an abandoned boy in Horton Foote's "John
Turner Davis" on television. He apparently graduated from Forest Hills
High School in 1955. In 1956 he appeared in a short-lived Broadway
production, "The Hot Corner." Later that year he appeared on TV in
"Roar of the Lion" as a dangerous juvenile menacing a widow and her
young son: the production and Tatum's performance were highly praised
by television columnist Charles Mercer. Tatum closed the year - and his
acting career, it seems - in "The Chess Game," playing a 15-year-old
fugitive wanted for murder, being sheltered by a cynical intellectual
played by Ronald Colman. Tatum removed to Florida and attended the
University of Miami. He was in the Air Force ROTC and joined the Air
Force in 1960; he was married that same year. He became a fighter
pilot, stationed at Okinawa for several years, then at Eaglin Air Force
Base. He flew combat mission over Vietnam and Laos, later serving as a
carrier pilot on the U.S.S. Enterprise from 1972 to 1975. He retired
from the Air Force a decorated Colonel and entered commercial aviation
as an airline pilot, charter pilot and instructor. In 2009 he was
living in Redondo Beach, California, remaining active in aviation and
veteran's affairs.