Clifford Osman Ebrahim ’59

Clifford Osman Ebrahim ’59, also known by the stage name Cliff Osmond, passed away on December 22, 2012, at his home in Pacific Palisades, California. Cliff entered Dartmouth from Emerson High School in Union City, New Jersey. At Dartmouth Cliff was an English major; a member of The Players for four years and student director in his senior year; chairman and director of the Student Theater. He starred in many productions, including as Pozzo in Waiting for Godot. En-route to California he worked at the Dallas Theatre Center, where he met his future wife, Gretchen. Cliff’s first big opportunity was as guest lead on an episode of Rifleman. He became a prolific character actor in film and television, most notably in Billy Wilder comedies The Fortune Cookie, Kiss Me, Stupid, The Front Page and Irma La Duce. He appeared more than 100 times during four decades on TV shows, including Gunsmoke, All in the Family and The Twilight Zone. He wrote and directed the film, The Penitent, starring Raul Julia and Armand Assante. He also wrote network TV episodes and film scripts and in the 1980s started to teach acting, subsequently writing the book, Acting is Living. He ran his own acting schools in three cities and served as visiting guest artist and guest adjunct professor of acting at Georgetown University in 2004. He also had an M.B.A. in finance from UCLA. He is survived by Gretchen, his wife of 50 years, daughter Margaret and son Eric.