I'm just trying to be an actor
- not a movie star
Montgomery Clift
B: 17 October 1920
D: 23 July 1966 aged 45
|
|
Never at ease with his sexuality, Montgomery Clift began his acting career on the theatrical
stage with performances that soon had Hollywood knocking at his door. Yet Clift did not succumb
easily to their charms, turning down many a lucrative contract to concentrate on his stage work.
When eventually he did say yes, he demonstrated a cinematic sensitivity that few had seen before
in such memorable works as his film debut RED RIVER / 1948 with John Wayne, A PLACE IN THE
SUN / 1951 alongside close friend Elizabeth Taylor and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY / 1953
with Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr and Frank Sinatra, for which he received his
third Academy® nomination.
Yet it was a career that would become increasingly erratic, one divided into pre and post
chapters by way of a severe car accident in May 1956 that left him in need of extensive
facial surgery. Whilst the filming of the Civil War epic RAINTREE COUNTY was eventually
completed, scenes shot before and after the accident are all but obvious.
Key works thereafter included the Tennessee Williams adaptation SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER / 1959,
namely his third and final collaboration with Elizabeth Taylor and the Clark Gable / Marilyn
Monroe swan song THE MISFITS / 1961. By this time however, all was not well in his life,
with his emotional state of mind prompting Monroe to describe Clift as
"the only person I know who is in worse shape than I am."
Yet inspite of such, Clift was to receive a fourth and final Academy® nomination for
his supporting role in the dramatic feature JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG / 1961; a stunning
cameo performance of a Holocaust survivor that is all the more remarkable given
director Stanley Kramer had to work around an actor struggling to remember his lines.
He died of a heart attack in July 1966 aged 45, burnt out well before his time through a
combination of alcohol and drug abuse and a post-accident lifestyle that became known
whether rightly or wrongly, as "the longest suicide in Hollywood," dominated as it
was by his torment over the state of both his career and sexuality.
|
