MONTGOMERY CLIFT (1920
–1966):
BORN:
October 17, 1920
Edward Montgomery Clift
Omaha, Nebraska
DEATH : July 23, 1966
Occlusive coronary artery disease
Quaker Cemetery in New York
FILMS: * The Big Lift, 1950
*
A Place in the Sun, 1951
*
I Confess, 1953
* From Here to Eternity, 1953
* Indiscretion of an American Wife, 1954
*
The Young Lions, 1958
*
Lonelyhearts, 1959
*
Suddenly Last Summer, 1959
Picture
Courtesy of:http://www.montyclift.ic24.net/intro.html
The Montgomery Clift Shrine
Montgomery Clift would
have fit right in with modern day Hollywood. He was an alcoholic, druggie, and
sexually confused. A very deep, brooding, troubled character, he carried a
picture of Franz Kafka, an existentialist author. Clift never attended a public school, his mother felt
that his dramatic calling was too strong. He never graduated from high school.
After having some minor roles on Broadway, his stage career never took off. It
wasn’t until he was 26 years old that he got his break. Howard Hawks cast him
as Matt Garth in the western Red River. He played opposite the great John
Wayne, yet never really got along with him. The film was released in 1948, and
was the first of many great career successes. In 1949, he acted with Elizabeth
Taylor as co-star in A Place in the Sun. This film was completed in 1951,
and began a great friendship between the two. They wanted to work together
again, so in 1956, they decided to accept the script for Raintree County.
It was during this time that Clift suffered a near fatal car accident.
On May 12, 1956, he was traveling home from Elizabeth Taylor’s posh
home. He had reportedly drunk only one glass of wine. He crashed into a
telephone pole while maneuvering around a curve. The impact broke both his jaw
and nose, and the muscles on the left side of his face had been ripped apart.
The left side of his face was almost paralyzed as a result, and he had a small
scar on his upper lip. After this he became very depressed, and his alcoholism
and drug addictions increased. Eventually, on July 23, 1966, he died from
Occlusive coronary artery disease. Lorenzo James, his secretary who had been
helping him through the struggle of the last few years, was the one who found
him. Three days later he was buried in a Quaker cemetery in New York through the
insistence of his mother.