Cliff Arquette

Clifford Charles "Cliff" Arquette (December 27, 1905 – September 23, 1974) was an American actor and comedian, famous for his TV role as “Charley Weaver.”

Early life and career

Arquette was born on December 27, 1905, in Toledo, Ohio, as the son of Winifred Ethel (née Clark) and Charles Augustus Arquette, a vaudevillian. He was of part French-Canadian descent, and his family's surname was originally "Arcouet". The eventual patriarch of the Arquette show business family, which became famous because of him, Arquette was the father of actor Lewis Arquette and the grandfather of actors Patricia, Rosanna, Alexis, Richmond, and David Arquette. In his early career, Cliff was a nightclub pianist, later joining the Henry Halstead orchestra in 1923.

In the late 1930s, Arquette invented the modern rubber theatrical prosthetic mask, flexible enough to allow changing facial expressions, and porous enough to allow air to reach the actor's skin.

Arquette had been a busy, yet not nationally known, performer in radio, theatre, and motion pictures until 1956, when he retired from show business. At one time, he was credited with performing in 13 different daily radio shows at different stations in the Chicago market, getting from one studio to the other by way of motorboats along the Chicago River through its downtown. One such radio series he performed on was The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok. Arquette and Dave Willock had their own radio show, Dave and Charley, in the early 1950s as well as a television show by the same name that was on the air for three months. It was when Arquette performed on the shows that he created, and inaugurated his performances as, his eventual trademark character of Charley Weaver.