Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#88995
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Steve Clemente 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.
Steve Clemente appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Steve. King Kong is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, physical performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for western, action, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with John Ford, Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel and others, Steve Clemente 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.
King Kong (1933) as Skull Island Witch Doctor · Stagecoach (1939) as Bit (uncredited) · The Most Dangerous Game (1932) as Tartar
Career snapshot
Ranked #88995 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1932–1939
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
King Kong
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Stagecoach
Most frequent director
Ernest B. Schoedsack
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Ernest B. Schoedsack
Most common genre
Horror
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 19m
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
6.3
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
1930s
6.6 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. Stagecoach, The Son of Kong, King Kong — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.6
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
6.6
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. Stagecoach, The Son of Kong, King Kong.
Most productive era
1930s
5 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 |
|---|---|
| Action | 6.32 films |
| Thriller | 6.32 films |
| Horror | 6.54 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tartar.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1933King Kong
7.4 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
1939Stagecoach
The current state of the argument, as Bit (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.
5 of 5 films
as Bit (uncredited)
Directed by John Ford
as Skull Island Witch Doctor
Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack
as Tartar
Directed by Irving Pichel
as Native Witch King (uncredited)
Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack
as Knife Thrower (uncredited)
Directed by Charles Brabin
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Bit (uncredited)
Stagecoach (1939)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bit (uncredited) gives Steve Clemente a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Skull Island Witch Doctor
King Kong (1933)
Performance score7.2
King Kong asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Skull Island Witch Doctor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tartar
The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
Performance score6.9
The Most Dangerous Game asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tartar is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Native Witch King (uncredited)
The Son of Kong (1933)
Performance score6.5
The Son of Kong asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Native Witch King (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 Bit (uncredited)
Start here. Stagecoach is the clearest statement of what Steve Clemente does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Steve 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.
The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
A deliberate change of key after Stagecoach — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
Keeps the horror register of The Most Dangerous Game but asks for a colder reading of it.
King Kong (1933)
Keeps the horror register of The Mask of Fu Manchu but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Son of Kong (1933)
Same director as King Kong, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ernest B. Schoedsack
Director
2 films together
Notably King Kong
Charles Brabin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mask of Fu Manchu
Irving Pichel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Most Dangerous Game
John Ford
Director
1 film together
Notably Stagecoach
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ernest B. Schoedsack
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
King KongJohn Ford
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
StagecoachIrving Pichel
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 Most Dangerous GameCharles Brabin
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 Mask of Fu ManchuSix 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
King Kong
as Skull Island Witch Doctor
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
King Kong
as Skull Island Witch Doctor
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
King Kong
as Skull Island Witch Doctor
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Stagecoach
as Bit (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Stagecoach
as Bit (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. Steve Clemente 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.
Horror Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in horror, 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
King Kong
as Skull Island Witch Doctor
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
King Kong
as Skull Island Witch Doctor
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
King Kong
as Skull Island Witch Doctor
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
King Kong
as Skull Island Witch Doctor
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Most Dangerous Game
as Tartar
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Most Dangerous Game
as Tartar
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Stagecoach
as Bit (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Mask of Fu Manchu
as Knife Thrower (uncredited)
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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