Name SS President Cleveland Route Trans-Pacific Laid down 28 August 1944 Launched 23 June 1946 | Namesake Grover Cleveland Yard number 9509 Construction started 28 August 1944 | |
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Operator American President Lines Builder Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation | ||
SS President Cleveland was an American passenger ship originally ordered by the Maritime Commission during World War II, as one of the Admiral-class Type P2-SE2-R1 transport ships, and intended to be named USS Admiral D. W. Taylor (AP-128). The ship was laid down on 28 August 1944 at the Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Alameda, California, but was cancelled on 16 December 1944.
Redesigned for passenger service long before, she was launched on 23 June 1946 as President Cleveland, completed in 1947, and bareboat chartered to American President Lines.
One of the ship's most famous passengers was the Nobel Prize–winning author Sigrid Undset, who fled the Nazis by travelling across Russia and sailed to the USA on the President Cleveland.
The ship was used in the film Susan Slade, filmed in 1961, featuring Connie Stevens, Troy Donahue, Dorothy Maguire and Lloyd Nolan.
The ship was featured in a 1962 Britannica Films production called "The Seaport", filmed in San Francisco.
She was sold to Oceanic Cruise Development, Inc. (C.Y. Tung Group) on 9 February 1973, and renamed Oriental President. The ship was scrapped at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 1974.