While researching something else this evening on the Internet, I stumbled across the fact that Cliff Norton died in January of this year. It's odd how that one got past me because Norton was my favorite kind of actor: The guy who appeared in everything but most folks never knew his name. Stop and take a look at his listing in the Internet Movie Database…and I'm guessing this is about 25% of all he did in his long career.
For one thing, it doesn't mention a couple of shows that Mr. Norton did on KTLA, a local station in Los Angeles around '63. One which I recall vividly was a five minute program he did weeknights at 11:15 PM for a time. The KTLA local news was on from 11:00 to 11:15 and the syndicated Steve Allen Show started at 11:20. In-between, Norton did a weather forecast show that packed in more laughs than many hour programs…and told you if it was going to rain tomorrow, as well. He also had a daytime series in the style of Dave Garroway, for whom he once worked as second banana and comedy relief.
Norton was also a songwriter of sorts. His most wonderful composition was a very funny song called "No Shit" that he recorded with a full chorus and the Joseph Galicchio orchestra primarily as a Christmas gift for his friends. The tune had a long, healthy life of being performed at parties and in nightclub acts, and even made it onto a few "party" records. Just a few years ago, I went to see Jack Jones in Las Vegas and he sang it…magnificently, I might add. (If anyone reading this has Norton's version on MP3, drop me a line. I have it on an LP but I have no idea where.)
For the most part, Norton was just a familiar face that popped up in practically every TV show of the sixties and a whole mess of movies. (He's in the cast list of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World where he supposedly played a reporter. But as many times as I've seen the film, I've never spotted him.) The last time I saw him, a few years ago, was when I attended a live reading of a radio-style drama. True to form, he had a small part but he did as much with it as humanly possible. That was how Cliff Norton functioned throughout his entire career. No shit.