Background

Clifford Charles Arquettewas was born on December 28, 1905 in Toledo, Ohio, United States. His parents were a vaudeville team of uneven quality who left the stage to settle down and raise a family in Toledo. His father worked as a barber. The Arquette household continued to have loose ties to the world of show business and was home to itinerant musicians. At age six, Arquette dyed his hair black, affixed a tiny mustache, and won a Charlie Chaplin contest, besting 300 other children.

Education

Although Arquette had no formal training in music, he took up several instruments and left high school at age fourteen to become a professional musician.

Career

Arquette's band, Cliff Arquette and His Purple Derbies, found steady work for three years at Cleveland's Euclid Beach amusement park.

When he was seventeen, Arquette moved to Los Angeles, where he worked at a variety of odd jobs. After a stint in a band that played one-night stands throughout the South and West, Arquette formed several vaudeville acts, including Cliff and Lolly, the Nuts of Harmony, and the Three Public Enemies.

By the early 1930's, Arquette's troupe had established itself as a successful attraction. Vaudeville was in decline, however, and so in 1936 Arquette moved to radio, which was attracting many former vaudevillians. Here he found his medium, gaining notice for his comic renditions of old people. Arquette first appeared on a network radio show with Fred Astaire and Charlie Butterworth, where he was described as the "Grandpaw Sneed of the Fred Astaire programs. " In the popular "Fibber McGee and Molly" show, he played the "Oldtimer, " which became his best-known radio role.

After the irrepressible Fibber spun an elaborate tall tale, the Oldtimer inevitably responded, "That's purty good, Johnny, but that ain't the way I heerd it. " The rejoinder, delivered with impeccable timing, never failed to get a laugh from the audience. His other radio credits include "Hollywood Mardi Gras, " "The Dick Haymes Show, " "Lum and Abner, " "Clamour Manor, " and "Point Sublime. " The Oldtimer became the prototype of the character Charley Weaver, who was introduced to television audiences in the early 1950's on the comedy show "Dave 'n' Charley, " which Arquette did with his friend Dave Willock.

Dressed in a turned-up hat, fake mustache, skinny suspenders, low-slung trousers, goldrimmed spectacles and white wig (Arquette himself was balding), Charley delivered cornpone humor and caustic comebacks with folksy aplomb. The show aired for three years, but while it received high marks from critics, it had a limited audience. Don Page of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The only trouble was Dave and Cliff were too advanced for television at that stage of its development. " The duo eschewed a script, preferring instead to ad-lib bits that they had sketched out on the way to the studio.

Arquette and Willock tried again in 1955 with "Do It Yourself. " Ostensibly concerned with home improvements and other hobbies, the show gave the two the opportunity to exchange repartee while Arquette, as Charley, made a mess of a project. Between the two programs, Arquette kept busy with roles in the "RCA Victor Show" and "Dragnet. " At one time, he even played Jack Benny's father. Arquette took pains to establish Charley Weaver as a fellow audiences laughed with, rather than at. Charley was the "smart bumpkin" who always managed to get in the last word against more sophisticated people.

Arquette often visited old-age homes, studying senior citizens in order to develop a sympathetic character. Seniors wrote to Arquette to commend his portrayal of older people. In 1955, Arquette retired from his hectic life to run a commercial film firm while also engaging in his favorite hobby, woodworking. He was a military history aficionado, gourmet cook, photographer, artist, and collector of Americana. During his radio days, one writer described Arquette as a "cartoonist, song and radio script writer, pianist, tap dancer, character actor and makeup artist. " Without his Charley Weaver getup, Arquette had the appearance of a genial businessman.

Unrecognizable to his fans, Arquette could slip with ease into anonymity whenever he chose. In 1957, ack Paar, host of "The Tonight Show, " offhandedly mused on the air one night, "Whatever happened to Cliff Arquette?" Arquette, who was watching at the time, had a sudden relapse of show-business fever. He got in touch with Paar, who several weeks later put Charley Weaver on the show. Arquette garnered so much acclaim that he was made a regular. Charley was the perfect foil for Paar's emotional high jinks. In the wake of a typical Paar outpouring, Arquette would slow the show to a crawl with a letter from "Mamma in Mt. Idy. " This mythical town in Ohio supplied Charley with gossip about innumerable characters.

Arquette also gained fame for matching (and outmatching) wits with Paar's guests. While adopting Charley's trademark slightly befuddled air, Arquette was usually one step ahead of his opponent in the verbal joust. "No one wants to insult an old man on the air, " he told Newsweek magazine. "That means they can't bomb you. Also, I talk slow and think fast. " Paar warned his guests, "Watch that old man. He'll let you have it. " Arquette's collaboration with Paar lasted until the volatile host was fired in 1962. During that time, Arquette launched a show of his own, "Charley Weaver's Hobby Lobby. " The point of the show was for Arquette to interview famous guests about their favorite pastimes, but Charley Weaver's jokes about Mt. Idy were more interesting, and the hobbies were soon discarded.

Renamed the "Charley Weaver Show, " it never found a workable format and was soon canceled. Arquette's Mt. Idy books, Charley Weaver's Letters from Mamma (1959), Charley Weaver's Family Album (1960), and Things Are Fine in Mt. Idy (1960), were more successful. Life magazine called Charley "an antidote for too much civilization. " While on "The Tonight Show, " Arquette bought a 125-year-old farmhouse in Gettysburg, Pa. Formerly a Civil War orphanage, it was converted into a Civil War museum for Arquette's Americana collection and wood carvings. Arquette dressed his wood soldiers in authentic scaled-down uniforms that he had been researching for the past twenty-five years. In an apartment above the museum, Arquette went into semiretirement in 1962, explaining, "People say to me that I owe it to the public to keep going. But I figure the public owes me a rest. "

For the next six years, Arquette remained outside the spotlight, while damping the occasional flare-up of show-biz fever through appearances on the "Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, " and the "Jonathan Winters Show. " In 1968, however, Charley Weaver became one of the two regular panelists on the popular "Hollywood Squares" game show, a perfect vehicle for Arquette. The stars were asked questions and gave responses that contestants were to judge true or false. Arquette's specialty was giving an answer that sounded absurd but was correct.

The show gave him ample opportunity for wise-cracking. Most of his fans had never known Cliff Arquette the radio and TV comedian and assumed Charley Weaver was a real person. In 1972, after a heart attack and debilitating stroke, it appeared that Arquette would retire permanently. But his show-business blood got the better of him, and he returned to "Hollywood Squares" in 1973.

He died in Los Angeles the following year and then was cremated.

Achievements

• Arquette became famous for his persona and appearance in different television shows. He 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.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Here's Charley Weaver, Mamma and Mt. Idy

    (Charley Weaver (Cliff Arquette) was the foxiest, funniest...)

  • Charlie Weaver's Family Album

    (Charlie Weaver's Family Album)

  • Charley Weaver's Family Album: (These Are My People)

    (TV comic from 50's and 60's. Charley Weaver's Family Albu...)

  • Charley Weaver's Letters from Mamma

    (Vintage paperback)

  • Things are fine in Mount Idy

    (8.5"x5.75".5" hardcover edition)

Personality

Throughout his life Arquette remained a hard-workind and busy man.

Connections

Arquette was married twice. He had two children.

Father:

Charles-Augustus Arquette

Mother:

Winifred Ethel (Clark) Arquette

Spouse:

Mildred S. (LeMay) Arquette

Brother:

Lester Arquette

Brother:

Russell Arquette

Sister:

Naomi V. "Jane" Arquette

Son :

Lewis Arquette

Son :

Alden Arquette