Trivia of Montgomery Clift

Trivia of Montgomery Clift

*His father was a violent, abusive, ultra-conservative and did not get along with his son. As an actor, whenever Clift was playing characters snapping as they went up against ignorance or brutality, Clift was said to have acted with his father in mind as an antagonist.

*From the time of his Hollywood debut, Montgomery Clift refused to abide by Hollywood tradition by acting in films to cash in on his good looks. Always regarding himself primarily as an actor, Clift became exceptionally selective over his film roles.He turned down the role played by William Holden in Sunset Blvd. (1950) and the role of James Dean's brother in East of Eden (1955).

*Clift was either homosexual or bisexual, though his relationships with men were not widely known during his lifetime. He had close platonic relationships with several including Nancy Walker, Libby Holman, Myrna Loy, and most famously Elizabeth Taylor, his co-star in Suddenly Last Summer, A Place in the Sun and Raintree County.

*He greatly disliked Richard Burton, and the feeling was mutual. Clift once said, "Richard Burton doesn't act, he just recites.".

*In 1956, while filming Raintree County, Clift was involved in a serious car accident leaving Taylor's house. (The actress rushed to his side after his car accident and pulled a tooth out of his tongue that he was choking on.) He suffered a broken jaw and nose, a fractured sinus, and serious facial lacerations that required plastic surgery. After weeks of recovery, he return to film his final scenes, though he looked noticeably different.

*Marlon Brando, who calls him a "friend" in his autobiography, says that Clift was a tormented soul addicted to alcohol and chloral hydrate, a depressant and sedative which he drank. On the set of The Young Lions (1958), he warned Clift that he was destroying himself like Brando's own alcoholic mother had. For his part, Clift was always supportive of Brando as an actor, even when his career began faltering after Mutiny on the Bounty (1962).

*Was Elizabeth Taylor's choice to play her husband, the closeted homosexual Major Weldon Penderton, in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). He died before the film began shooting and was replaced by Marlon Brando, who at one time was considered his only rival as an attractive leading man who was also a great actor.