Charles Clifford Tatum II, professionally known as Clifford "Cliff" Tatum Jr., was born circa 1938 in Florida to Renee and Charles Clifford Tatum. His father was a Florida native, and his mother hailed from New York. The family relocated to New York City, where his father worked in an office position with the Long Island Railroad, and later settled in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, New York.
Cliff Tatum grew up in Queens, attending P.S. 99 from 1944 to 1948. His early interest in acting led him to replace an actor in the role of "Little Jake" in the Broadway production of "Annie Get Your Gun" starring Ethel Merman. The show closed in 1949, and Tatum went on to appear in "A Month in the Country" in Westport, Connecticut, alongside Ruth Gordon and directed by Garson Kanin. That same year, he appeared in a television production of "The Canterville Ghost."
In 1951, Tatum moved to Hollywood to play a bitter handicapped polio victim adopted by Cary Grant and Betsy Drake in the film "Room for One More" (1952). This marked his only theatrical movie performance, but it left a lasting impression. Like his character in the movie, Tatum was an active member of the Boy Scouts, belonging to Troop 15 in Queens.
Tatum returned to New York, where he continued to act in television productions as he entered Forest Hills High School in Queens in 1952. In 1953, he became the first actor to portray Huckleberry Finn for television and appeared as an abandoned boy in Horton Foote's "John Turner Davis" on television. He apparently graduated from Forest Hills High School in 1955.
In 1956, Tatum appeared in a short-lived Broadway production, "The Hot Corner," and later that year, he appeared on TV in "Roar of the Lion" as a dangerous juvenile menacing a widow and her young son. The production and Tatum's performance were highly praised by television columnist Charles Mercer. He closed the year and his acting career in "The Chess Game," playing a 15-year-old fugitive wanted for murder, being sheltered by a cynical intellectual played by Ronald Colman.
Tatum then removed to Florida and attended the University of Miami, where he was a member of the Air Force ROTC. He joined the Air Force in 1960, marrying that same year. As a fighter pilot, he was stationed at Okinawa for several years, then at Eglin Air Force Base. He flew combat missions over Vietnam and Laos, later serving as a carrier pilot on the U.S.S. Enterprise from 1972 to 1975.
After retiring from the Air Force as a decorated Colonel, Tatum entered commercial aviation as an airline pilot, charter pilot, and instructor. In 2009, he was living in Redondo Beach, California, remaining active in aviation and veteran's affairs.
