Ralph Clanton

Ralph Woodward Clanton (September 11, 1914 – December 29, 2002) was an American actor born in Fresno, California, whose career spanned film, stage, and television from the early 1940s through the 1980s. He appeared on Broadway between 1941 and 1972 in productions including King Richard II, Cyrano de Bergerac, Lute Song, Antony and Cleopatra, and Macbeth, and later played Claude Nau in Robert Bolt's Vivat! Vivat Regina!

Clanton's most widely seen screen performance came in the 1950 film Cyrano de Bergerac, in which he portrayed Comte De Guiche. The production was the first English-language sound adaptation of Edmond Rostand's play and the film for which José Ferrer received the Academy Award for Best Actor. Clanton had originated the role of De Guiche opposite Ferrer in the 1946 Broadway revival of the play, making him the only cast member besides Ferrer to carry over into the film version. He reprised the role a third time alongside Ferrer in a 1953 New York City Center production. A playbill for the 1946 Broadway revival identified Clanton as a direct descendant of members of the Clanton gang, which participated in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

His film work in the late 1940s and 1950s included serving as the uncredited opening narrator in Canadian Pacific (1949) and taking the American lead role of David Morgan in the British war film They Were Not Divided (1950). He played Colonel Cross in Pharaoh's Curse (1957), General Gage in Johnny Tremain (1957), Mr. Ingram in the science fiction thriller The 27th Day (1957), and the Duke of Anjou in The Vagabond King (1956). One of his final film appearances was a small role as Official #1 in Trading Places (1983).

Television occupied a significant portion of Clanton's career. He appeared in seven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock's television program across multiple seasons, with roles including Sir Stephen Hurstwood, Randolph Burnside, Perry Harrison, Sir Robert Walton, and Mr. Saunders, among others. He made several appearances on the Hallmark Hall of Fame and guest starred in four episodes of Perry Mason, beginning with the role of Mervyn Aldritch in the series premiere, "The Case of the Restless Redhead," in 1957. He returned as murder victim Charles Brewster in "The Case of the Fancy Figures" in 1958 and as Karl Colby in "The Case of the Stand-in Sister" in 1962. Clanton also played the recurring role of Jasper Delaney on the soap opera Another World and its spinoff Somerset. In 1976, he portrayed George Washington in a PBS television production of Sidney Kingsley's drama The Patriots.