Biography: Dapper, debonair New York-based actor Alexander Clark spent most of his 50-year-plus acting career on the Broadway stage, with a limited number of big-screen credits to his name. But two of his small-screen performances, each involving less than three days' work, ended up eclipsing most of his theater work in terms of their longevity before the public. Clark made his professional debut with Helen Hayes in 1921 in the play Golden Days, establishing a friendship with the actress that lasted for the rest of her days. He steadily worked for the next half-century, the highlights of his theatrical career including Biography, with Ina Claire in 1932, Too Good to Be True with Beatrice Lillie in 1939, Native Son with Canada Lee in 1942, Legend of Lovers with Richard Burton in 1951, and Calculated Risk with Joseph Cotten in 1962. In addition to his range as an actor, which placed him in demand for handsome leading man roles and, later, supporting parts, Clark was noted for his affable personality and as a font of theatrical lore. Additionally, in middle-age, he was part of the circle of Algonquin Round Table regulars whose ranks included Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, etc. As a member of the New York branch of the Escholier Club, he was in charge of rounding up the celebrity guests for the organization's renowned lunches at the "21" Club, Lutece, and the Four Seasons, which included Gertrude Lawrence, Vivien Leigh, Edith Piaf, Salvador Dali, and, together for one occasion, Maria Callas and Adlai Stevenson. He was also an author and journalist, responsible for numerous articles in The New Yorker, as well as serving as theater editor of Vanity Fair during the 1930s. Clark's interests also extended to history, which led him to found the Friends of Richard III, an organization devoted to establishing the fact that the British king was not the murderer depicted in Shakespeare's work.
Clark's most successful Broadway portrayal was in the 1942 revival of Elmer Rice's Counselor-at-Law, starring Paul Muni, in the role of Roy Darwin (the Melvyn Douglas part on the film version); but as with almost all Broadway portrayals, that success was consigned to memory upon the closing of the play. He appeared in only one motion picture, A Double Life (1947), but as a New York-based performer his opportunities to work on the big screen were limited. Clark was much more active in live television, which was centered in New York during the 1950s, and could be seen in productions such as The U.S. Steel Hour's No Time for Sergeants, and Edward, My Son, and the Rodgers & HammersteinCinderella (1957). But it was a pair of appearances on The Honeymooners that ended up being among his most widely known work. In one of the "classic 39" filmed episodes, entitled "On Stage," he portrayed Herbert J. Whiteside, a movie producer who sees Alice Kramden (Audrey Meadows) as a potential new screen personality; and in "Pardon My Glove," he was Andre, the interior decorator who plans a makeover of the Kramden apartment. Because those two shows were part of the 39-episode film package that has been shown almost continuously since 1956, they upstaged virtually all of Clark's other work on television, which included episodes of the daytime drama Secret Storm and, in his final appearance, the 1973 primetime special The Man Without a Country, starring Cliff Robertson and including fellow veteran New York actors such as Walter Abel and Shepperd Strudwick. Clark passed away in 1995, in New York, at the age of 94. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
DVDs that Alexander Clark appeared in...
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