David Selby in INHERIT THE WIND, 1965

Michael Flanagan and David Selby in INHERIT THE WIND, 1965.

In his memoir "My Shadowed Past," David Selby doesn't have much to say about his performance in INHERIT THE WIND. Even as a student he was a busy stage actor, and his role as "Henry Drummond" in 1965 was just one of many that he accumulated before putting his skills to the test as a working professional a few years later.

At the time, INHERIT THE WIND was a mere ten years old: Paul Muni had played Drummond on Broadway a decade earlier, with Spencer Tracy stepping up in 1960 to star in the feature film adaption. In 1965, Selby was a student at Southern Illinois University when the school's drama department added INHERIT THE WIND to their schedule.

The play got a lot of press coverage in the region. Unfortunately, those photos and stories didn't fare well in the digital conversion. That photo at the top is the best of the bunch, and was published in the Aug. 12, 1965, issue of The Southern Illinoisan. I've posted a handful of related photos and newspaper clippings from the production at the CHS Tumblr feed, which you can find HERE.