![]() ![]() When the final shot was finished, Hepburn, angry over the directors’ treatment of Clift, spit in his face and walked off the set.ĭirected by John Huston, The Misfits, with a script by Arthur Miller, was the last film for Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, but it includes one of Clift’s best screen performances. Director Joseph Mankiewicz wanted Clift replaced and was openly hostile to him. In 1959, Clift appeared with Taylor and Katharine Hepburn in the film version of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer. It has a strong supporting cast that includes Maximillian Schell (who would star with Clift in Judgment at Nuremberg), Hope Lange, and Lee van Cleef. Like similar films before it, the story revolves around three soldiers and how their lives have changed by their military experiences. In 1958, he appeared opposite Marlon Brando and Dean Martin in The Young Lions. The accident also brought continual intestinal problems. Perhaps his most renowned male lover was choreographer Jerome Robbins.įollowing Raintree County, Clift started relying on alcohol and prescription medication. ![]() ![]() He turned down Sunset Blvd, because he thought it reflected their relationship. He wasn’t seen much in public, yet he had a close relationship with Elizabeth Taylor and was linked to the older Libby Holman. Clift remained in pain for the rest of his life.īisexual, Clift kept his private life private. He broke his jaw and his nose, fractured a sinus and had facial gashes that were treated with plastic surgery. ![]() Taylor rushed to her friend’s side and pulled two teeth out of his tongue when he started choking. Following a party at the home of his co-star and her husband, Michael Wilding, Clift fell asleep at the wheel and smashed into a telephone pole. He signed to co-star with Elizabeth Taylor in the Civil War melodrama, Raintree County. The all-star cast included Oscar-winner Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed and Ernest Borgnine. Lee Prewitt, the bugle-playing soldier in From Here to Eternity. Disappointed, he returned to Hollywood, where, in quick succession, he starred in Hitchcock’s I Confess, co-starring Ann Baxter Indiscretion of an American Wife with Jennifer Jones ( and as Robert E. While individual performances were celebrated, the production was not. However, his next stint was his first real failure.Ĭlift returned to New York, for a much-anticipated revival of Chekhov’s The Seagull, featuring Judith Evelyn, John Fiedler, Will Geer, Sam Jaffe, and his good friends Kevin McCarthy and Maureen Stapleton. The movie was a hit and he remained lifelong friends with Taylor. As research for this production, Clift actually spent a night in a state prison. In 1951 he was cast opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun, George Stevens’ remake of An American Tragedy. One of the first method actors in cinema, he was invited to study with Strasberg and Elia Kazan. However, de Havilland, (who won her second Academy Award for her striking performance) and Clift didn’t get along and his sex-symbol marketing was unappealing, especially to Clift. The 1949 production of The Heiress is an outstanding movie where he was cast as Morris Townsend opposite Olivia de Havilland’s Catherine Sloper (based on Henry James’ Washington Square). He made his film debut opposite John Wayne in Red River, directed by Howard Hawks, still one of the best Westerns ever made. Among his early appearances were Cole Porter’s Jubilee, the original production of Thornton Wilder’s Skin of our Teeth and Robert Sherwood’s There Shall Be No Night, starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who would give him a photograph signed “from your real parents.” Following a stint in summer stock, Clift made his debut in New York, where he worked with Frederic March, Tallulah Bankhead and the Lunts. Like Marlon Brando, he was born and raised in Omaha. He preferred to live in New York, (although a property he owned in Hollywood is now owned by Sharon Stone, who has preserved it). He was the sensitive young man who worked in both theatre and movies. Montgomery Clift (1920-1966) Marlon Brando (1924-2004) and James Dean (1931-1955) are prime examples of actors whose dedication to these techniques remain influential. Acting coaches like Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Uta Hagen, Sanford Meisner and Viola Spolin developed techniques, many based on the teachings of Stanislavski. The craft of acting was seriously challenged in the late 1940s. ![]()
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