
Cliff Secord in 1938.
Cliff Record (1916 - 1978) was an American pilot from Los Ángeles, California.
Biography[]
Cliff Secord was born in Pomona, California in 1916. He Lost his parents in a car accident in 1920 and he was raised by his uncle Ambrose Peabody, an American pilot.
In 1938, Cliff and A. "Peevy" Peabody found a mysterious rocket pack inside a biplane of their employer's hangar. Cliff experimented with it, but Peevy persuaded him to leave the rocket alone until he could understand its design and fine-tune it.
Shortly afterward, at an airshow, Cliff used the rocket (with Peevy's newly designed, face-hiding helmet) to heroically rescue his elderly friend Malcolm piloting a malfunctioned aircraft. Having been seen by the audience, a media sensation ensues, and Cliff, as the anonymous hero, is dubbed "the Rocketeer". However, Cliff and his aspiring actress girlfriend, Jenny Blake, began to have relationship issues after Cliff visited her on-set of a film and inadvertently caused an accident. Jenny was fired over Cliff's accident; however, Neville Sinclair, who was portraying the lead role of the production, overhears Cliff's attempt to tell Jenny about the rocket pack. After Cliff left, Sinclair made up to Jenny and invites her to dinner at the famed South Seas Club. Sinclair then sends his assistant, Lothar, to search the airfield for Cliff.
Cliff consulted with Peevy in their shared home, where Lothar attacks and seizes detailed rocket pack schematics drawn up by Peevy, but they are interrupted by the arrival of the FBI. Cliff and Peevy escape with the rocket. Cliff and Peevy arrive at the local diner but are trapped by a team of mobsters who are searching for Cliff but don't recognize him. Overhearing them consult with Eddie over the diner's phone, Cliff learns of Jenny's date with Sinclair and the latter's involvement with the crime. The diner patrons overpower the mobsters, but a stray ricochet punctures the rocket pack's fuel tank, which Peevy provisionally patches with Cliff's chewing gum. Cliff proceeds to and infiltrates the South Seas Club but is nearly trapped by Valentine's gang, and in the ensuing melée, Jenny is kidnapped by Sinclair.
Sinclair tries to seduce Jenny at his villa, but she knocks him out and, trying to escape, discovers that he is a spy. Sinclair recaptures her with Lothar's aid and leaves a message for Cliff: bring the rocket pack to the Griffith Observatory that very night in exchange for Jenny's life. Cliff hides the rocket just before he is arrested by the FBI, who takes him to Howard Hughes. Hughes reveals that the rocket, called the Cirrus X-3, was a prototype similar to one Nazi scientists were unsuccessfully developing to invade the United States (as shown in a propaganda film the FBI show Cliff that was smuggled out of Nazi Germany). When Hughes demands the return of the rocket, Cliff explains that he needs it to rescue Jenny; when the FBI protests, Cliff escapes, but inadvertently leaves behind a clue to the location of the exchange.
Recostumed as the Rocketeer, Cliff flies to the rendezvous where Sinclair, Lothar, and the Valentine gang are waiting. When Sinclair demands the rocket, Cliff divulges to the gang that the actor is a Nazi spy. Eddie, drawing the line at treason, turns on Sinclair, but Sinclair unexpectedly summons Nazi Waffen SS commandos hidden nearby and the gang is held at gunpoint as a Nazi Zeppelin, Luxembourg, touring America in a "gesture of friendship" but actually secretly assisting the mission, appears overhead. A fight ensues between the Nazis and the FBI agents who have followed Cliff, as well as Eddie and his men, but Sinclair and Lothar escape with Jenny aboard the Zeppelin. Cliff uses the rocket to reach and board the Zeppelin, but during the ensuing showdown, Jenny accidentally sets the craft on fire with a flare gun. Sinclair takes the rocket to save himself, but not before Cliff thumbs off the chewing gum patch; with the leaking fuel ignited by the exhaust flame, Sinclair died crashing down upon the last four giant letters of the "Hollywoodland" sign. Lothar was engulfed in flames as the Zeppelin explodes, but Cliff and Jenny are rescued at the last instant by Hughes and Peevy in an autogyro.
Some time afterward, Hughes presented Cliff with a brand-new Gee Bee racing aircraft as a compensation for the one he lost at the start of the adventure. As Hughes leaves, Jenny presents Peabody with the rocket blueprints she found in Sinclair's villa. Peabody decides that with some modifications, he can build an even better one.
Cliff fought in World War II as a pilot in Europe. He married Jenny and had two children. Cliff died in 1978.