Jack H. Clifford

Jack H. Clifford, born John Clifford Cooley on December 25, 1888, in Elmira, New York, was an American character actor, singer, and comedian who worked across vaudeville, Broadway, film, and radio. He spent his formative years in Atlanta, Georgia, later attended the University of Washington, and eventually settled in San Jose, California. On stage he was also known as Jack "Rube" Clifford, a stage name adopted to distinguish him from another vaudeville performer of the same name and to signal his specialty in portraying rustic, unsophisticated characters.

Before establishing himself as a solo headliner, Clifford partnered with his first wife, Miriam Wills, between 1916 and 1921 in an act billed as Clifford and Wills, best known for an original skit titled "At Jasper Junction." The existence of a separate, already prominent vaudeville artist named Jack Clifford — the dance partner and eventual husband of Evelyn Nesbit — created recurring confusion in the press. When both acts appeared on the same bill at San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre in June 1917, San Francisco Examiner critic Thomas Nunan noted the situation and jokingly suggested calling Wills's partner "Jasper" to avoid further mix-ups. The following month, a mock wedding ceremony involving the two Cliffords was reported, with the other Jack Clifford serving as best man and Nesbit as matron of honor. Following Clifford and Wills's divorce in 1921, Clifford adopted the "Rube" designation as a formal part of his stage name and became a headliner on the Orpheum Circuit.

Among his most celebrated character portrayals was Anderson Crow, a rustic detective drawn from novelist George Barr McCutcheon's fiction. Reviewing Clifford's performance at the Palace Theatre in New York on April 16, 1923, Billboard called it "as fine a characterization of an old rube detective as may be boasted of either on the vaudeville or the legitimate stage," adding that the act "stopped the show absolutely." In December 1923, Daily Illini critic Rudolph Kagey, reviewing Clifford's vaudeville routine "Camera Eye Carter" at the Orpheum in Champaign, Illinois, ranked him "without doubt, as one of the best solo comedians that has appeared on the Orph stage this year." For much of 1925, Clifford presented a sketch alternately titled "The Idle Hour" and "Moving Picture Shows Twenty Years Ago," a parodic recreation of early cinema, as part of Fanchon and Marco's touring revue series.

Clifford's Broadway career spanned 1922 to 1930 and included the musical Glory and the play Frankie and Johnnie. In Glory, written by the same playwright-lyricist-composer team behind the hit musical Irene, Clifford played Hiram Dexter, a town miser. The New York Times noted that he "furnished a considerable part of the comedy," singling out his quiet, understated performance in the character's final scene of repentance. Percy Hammond of the New York Tribune, arguing that American stage actors deserved recognition equal to that being lavished on the visiting Moscow Art Theatre, compiled a list of deserving performers that included Clifford alongside David Warfield, Helen Menken, Ruth Draper, and others. Returning to Broadway in 1926, Clifford appeared in Garrett Chatfield Pier's The Jeweled Tree, a period piece that closed after 37 performances. The following year he was part of the cast of Bartlett Cormack's The Racket, which Daily News critic Burns Mantle described as having a company "as perfect as casts can be." That production also featured a young Edward G. Robinson, as well as actor-directors John Cromwell and Norman Foster.

Clifford's film work began in the silent era. Moving Picture World reviewer Sumner Smith cited his "great work" in the 1926 two-reel comedy Long Pants, in which he portrayed the father of protagonist Glenn Tryon. That same year, Clifford and Tryon were reteamed in the two-reeler 45 Minutes from Hollywood, now notable as one of the rare films in which Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared — independently — before their official pairing in 1927. In 1925, both Motion Picture News and Moving Picture World reported his casting in an important role in the Charles Ray vehicle ultimately released as Sweet Adeline, in which he played the protagonist's bullying older brother. Clifford appeared as the dog catcher in the 1931 Academy Award-nominated film Skippy and received fourth billing in the 1936 John Wayne western King of the Pecos, playing the chief accomplice of Wayne's cattle baron antagonist. The Hollywood Reporter, reviewing the 1931 western The Sunrise Trail, singled out his performance as Kansas as "very, very good," while Variety praised his "dry, smooth delivery and believable performance" in the 1937 film One Man Justice. He also played the sheriff in the 1945 Three Stooges western farce Rockin' in the Rockies.

In radio, Clifford held recurring roles on KFWB's Hi-Jinks and on KNX's The Gilmore Circus. His recurring portrayal of a sheriff character — developed originally in vaudeville during the 1920s and later heard on radio — has been identified by radio historians as a possible inspiration for the Warner Bros. cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn. Voice actor Mel Blanc, speaking with radio historian Ben Ohmart, recalled witnessing a vaudeville act featuring a deaf sheriff who repeated phrases such as "Pay attenshun, I'm talkin' to you, boy," and stated that he drew on that memory when developing the voice for Foghorn Leghorn. Animator Robert McKimson has also been associated with the character's creation.

Clifford died in October 1974.