(1893-1966)
Born Webb Parmalee Hollenbeck in Indianapolis, Indiana, Clifton Webb began his career as a child actor under the firm guidance of his driven mother. Less interested in theatre than art and music, he tried both before returning to the stage in 1911 as a musical performer in The Purple Road. He appeared as a juvenile in a series of musicals in New York and London during the 1910s, returning to Broadway in the nonmusical Meet the Wife (1923). Webb mostly appeared in musicals until the early 1930s, when he began acting more frequently in motion pictures, returning successfully to Broadway in two Noël Coward comedies, Blithe Spirit (1941) and Present Laughter (1946), after becoming a major movie star.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.