Biografia
Clifford "Cliff" Tatum Jr., born Charles Clifford Tatum II around 1938 in Florida, was the son of Renee and Charles Clifford Tatum. His father was a native of Florida, while his mother hailed from New York. The family relocated to New York City, where his father worked in an office position for the Long Island Railroad. Later, they moved to Kew Gardens in Queens, New York, where Cliff was raised and attended P.S. 99 from 1944 to 1948.
He began acting in radio and on stage, stepping in as "Little Jake" in "Annie Get Your Gun" alongside Ethel Merman. After the show's closure in 1949, he appeared that same year in "A Month in the Country" in Westport, Connecticut, with Ruth Gordon and under the direction of Garson Kanin. Also in 1949, he featured in a television production of "The Canterville Ghost."
In 1951, he moved to Hollywood to portray a bitter handicapped polio victim adopted by Cary Grant and Betsy Drake in Room for One More (1952). This was his only theatrical film role but made a lasting impact. Like his character, Tatum was a Boy Scout in Troop 15 in Queens. Returning to New York, he acted in various television productions while attending Forest Hills High School in Queens starting in 1952.
In 1953, he became the first actor to portray Huckleberry Finn on television and appeared as an abandoned boy in Horton Foote's "John Turner Davis." He likely graduated from Forest Hills High School in 1955. In 1956, he performed in the short-lived Broadway play "The Hot Corner." Later that year, he starred on TV in "Roar of the Lion" as a dangerous juvenile threatening a widow and her son; his performance received high praise from television columnist Charles Mercer. Tatum ended the year—and apparently his acting career—with "The Chess Game," portraying a 15-year-old fugitive wanted for murder, sheltered by a cynical intellectual played by Ronald Colman.
Tatum relocated to Florida and attended the University of Miami, joining the Air Force ROTC. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1960, the same year he married. He became a fighter pilot, stationed for several years in Okinawa and later at Eglin Air Force Base. He flew combat missions over Vietnam and Laos, then served as a carrier pilot aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise from 1972 to 1975. Retiring as a decorated Colonel, he transitioned to commercial aviation as an airline pilot, charter pilot, and instructor. As of 2009, he resided in Redondo Beach, California, remaining active in aviation and veterans' affairs.
