Oscar winner Cliff Robertson dies in NY at 88

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cliff Robertson, the handsome movie actor who played John F. Kennedy in "PT-109," won an Oscar for "Charly" and was famously victimized in a 1977 Hollywood forgery scandal, has died. He was 88.

His secretary of 53 years, Evelyn Christel, says he died Saturday afternoon in Stony Brook, N.Y., of natural causes.

Robertson never elevated into the top ranks of leading men, but he remained a popular actor from the mid-1950s into the following century. His later roles included kindly Uncle Ben in the "Spider-Man" movies.

His triumph came in 1968 with his Academy Award performance in "Charly," as a mentally disabled man who undergoes medical treatment that makes him a genius -- until a poignant regression to his former state.

His funeral is set for Friday in East Hampton.