Aviation Hall of Fame salutes the late Cliff Robertson

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — The National Aviation Hall of Fame is saluting the late Cliff Robertson, the actor and pilot who was enshrined in the hall of fame in 2006 and played a role in the 2008 startup of an aviation film festival in Dayton.

Robertson, 88, died on Saturday in Stony Brook, N.Y. Among his best-known movie roles are playing former president John Kennedy in the 1963 film “PT-109” and an Academy Award portrayal of a mentally retarded man in the 1968 movie “Charly,” based on the novel “Flowers for Algernon.”

Robertson attended the initial Reel Stuff Film Festival of Aviation in Dayton in 2008 and discussed his memories of filming “633 Squadron,” a movie in which he starred as a Royal Air Force squadron commander. In 2009, he returned to present “The Pilot,” a 1980 movie he directed and starred in about an airline pilot.

He would fly to Dayton from his New York home in his own Beech Baron airplane, the National Aviation Hall of Fame noted. He attended the organization’s annual enshrinement ceremonies and would sometimes conclude them with a reading of the poem “High Flight.”

“It was ever obvious that the aviation community was one that Cliff adored and was proud to contribute his talents to,” the hall of fame noted in a tribute posted on its website at www.nationalaviation.org.

The organization is housed in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Its annual July enshrinement ceremonies are attended by executives of prominent aerospace companies and receive corporate sponsor support.