Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#55566
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Cliff Clark works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Cliff Clark appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cliff. High Noon is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for western, comedy, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Fred Zinnemann, Henry King, H. C. Potter and others, Cliff Clark helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
High Noon (1952) as Ed Weaver (uncredited) · The Grapes of Wrath (1940) as City Man · The Gunfighter (1950) as Jerry Marlowe (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #55566 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1939–1952
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
High Noon
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
The Grapes of Wrath
Most frequent director
John Ford
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With John Ford
Most common genre
Western
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.4
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1950s
7.2 average MV
The 1950s are where the work and the material meet. High Noon, The Gunfighter — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1950s
7.2
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1950s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Young Mr. Lincoln, It's a Wonderful World.
Most productive era
1940s
6 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 7.12 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.41 film | 6.71 film | — |
| Crime | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.91 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sheriff Gil Billings (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1952High Noon
The current state of the argument, as Ed Weaver (uncredited).
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
10 of 10 films
as Ed Weaver (uncredited)
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
as Jerry Marlowe (uncredited)
Directed by Henry King
as Stage Driver (uncredited)
Directed by John Ford
as Sheriff Gil Billings (uncredited)
Directed by John Ford
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Ed Weaver (uncredited)
High Noon (1952)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ed Weaver (uncredited) gives Cliff Clark a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
City Man
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Performance score7.3
The Grapes of Wrath asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. City Man is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jerry Marlowe (uncredited)
The Gunfighter (1950)
Performance score6.8
The Gunfighter asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jerry Marlowe (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Stage Driver (uncredited)
Fort Apache (1948)
Performance score6.7
Fort Apache asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stage Driver (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Ed Weaver (uncredited)
Start here. High Noon is the clearest statement of what Cliff Clark does — accessible, 85 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cliff at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
A deliberate change of key after High Noon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Same director as Young Mr. Lincoln, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Fort Apache (1948)
Same director as The Grapes of Wrath, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Gunfighter (1950)
Keeps the western register of Fort Apache but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Ford
Director
3 films together
Notably The Grapes of Wrath
W.S. Van Dyke
Director
1 film together
Notably It's a Wonderful World
Michael Curtiz
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sea Wolf
Fritz Lang
Director
1 film together
Notably Western Union
Harold Young
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mummy's Tomb
H. C. Potter
Director
1 film together
Notably Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Henry King
Director
1 film together
Notably The Gunfighter
Fred Zinnemann
Director
1 film together
Notably High Noon
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Ford
Director
3 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Grapes of WrathFred Zinnemann
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
High NoonHenry King
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The GunfighterH. C. Potter
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream HouseMichael Curtiz
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sea WolfW.S. Van Dyke
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
It's a Wonderful WorldFritz Lang
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Western UnionHarold Young
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Mummy's TombSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Grapes of Wrath
as City Man
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Young Mr. Lincoln
as Sheriff Gil Billings (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Grapes of Wrath
as City Man
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
High Noon
as Ed Weaver (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
High Noon
as Ed Weaver (uncredited)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Cliff Clark has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Western Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in western, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
High Noon
as Ed Weaver (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
High Noon
as Ed Weaver (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Young Mr. Lincoln
as Sheriff Gil Billings (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
It's a Wonderful World
as Captain Haggerty
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
High Noon
as Ed Weaver (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
High Noon
as Ed Weaver (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Young Mr. Lincoln
as Sheriff Gil Billings (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Mummy's Tomb
as Sheriff C.L. Clark
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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