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Montgomery Clift
Acting
Biography
Edward Montgomery “Monty” Clift (October 17, 1920 - July 23, 1966) was an American actor of the Golden Age, known for often playing sensitive or conflicted outcast characters with realistic emotional depth and anxieties.
Clift, Marlon Brando and James Dean are the trio typically associated with the new wave of film acting, with Clift being the oldest and first to make his stage and screen debuts. Starting at age 14, he was a breakout talent on Broadway throughout 1935-1945. He finally accepted one of many Hollywood offers: starring in the Western “Red River” which was filmed in 1946 but delayed release for 2 years. Fred Zinnemann’s “The Search” preceded “Red River” as his first film in 1948…
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Edward Montgomery “Monty” Clift (October 17, 1920 - July 23, 1966) was an American actor of the Golden Age, known for often playing sensitive or conflicted outcast characters with realistic emotional depth and anxieties. Clift, Marlon Brando and James Dean are the trio typically associated with the new wave of film acting, with Clift being the oldest and first to make his stage and screen debuts. Starting at age 14, he was a breakout talent on Broadway throughout 1935-1945. He finally accepted one of many Hollywood offers: starring in the Western “Red River” which was filmed in 1946 but delayed release for 2 years. Fred Zinnemann’s “The Search” preceded “Red River” as his first film in 1948 and first Academy Award nomination. Clift’s next major films were “The Heiress” (1949) and “A Place in the Sun” (1951), cementing his romantic lead status. At the time, audiences had rarely seen a type of masculinity softened with Clift’s vulnerability. Hollywood had also never seen a young actor control his career and instant stardom the way Clift did in the late 1940’s: notoriously selective, refusing the standard seven-year studio contracts and rewriting scripts to preserve his artistic freedom. In 1953, Zinnemann again directed Clift to an Academy Award nomination in war drama “From Here to Eternity.” After suffering a near-fatal car accident during “Raintree County” (1957) he starred in acclaimed 1960’s films "Wild River,” "The Misfits” and “Judgment at Nuremberg” for which he earned a fourth and final Academy Award nomination for his 12-minute scene. Despite a 4-year hiatus and mounting health problems, Clift was eager to make a comeback in "Reflections in a Golden Eye,” secured by the insurance and insistence of co-star Elizabeth Taylor, but he tragically died of a heart attack at the age of 45 just weeks before shooting began.
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BODY OF WORK
Montgomery Clift's Filmography
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Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes
as Self (archive footage)
Rat Pack
as Self (archive footage)
Making Montgomery Clift
as Self (archive footage)
The Fabulous Allan Carr
as Self (archive footage)
Listen to Me Marlon
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Marlon Brando: An Actor Named Desire
as Self - Actor (archive footage)
No Poster
Starring Sigmund Freud
as (archive footage)
Marilyn at the Movies
as Self (archive footage)
Hitchcock's Confession: A Look at I Confess
as Self (archive footage)
Edith Head: The Paramount Years
as (archive footage)
Making 'The Misfits'
as Self (archive footage)
George Stevens and His Place In The Sun
as Self (archive footage)
Sir John Mills' Moving Memories
as Self (archive footage)
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
as Self (archive footage)
Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage
as Dr. Cukrowicz (archive footage)
Gay! Gay! Hollywood
Hollywood Heaven: Tragic Lives, Tragic Deaths
as Self (archive footage)
Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies
as (archive footage) (uncredited)
Montgomery Clift: The Hidden Star
as Self (archive footage)
Eve and Marilyn
as Self (archive photo)
George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey
as (archive footage)
Montgomery Clift
as Self (archive footage)
The Men Who Made the Movies: Howard Hawks
as Self (archive footage)
The Defector
as Professor James Bower
No Poster
William Faulkner's Mississippi
as Self - Narrator
Freud: The Secret Passion
as Sigmund Freud
Judgment at Nuremberg
as Rudolph Petersen
The Misfits
as Perce Howland
Wild River
as Chuck Glover
Suddenly, Last Summer
as Dr. Cukrowicz
Lonelyhearts
as Adam White
The Young Lions
as Noah Ackerman
Raintree County
as John Wickliff Shawnessy
Operation Raintree
as Self
From Here to Eternity
as Pvt. Robert E. Lee 'Prew' Prewitt
Indiscretion of an American Wife
as Giovanni Doria
I Confess
as Fr. Michael William Logan
A Place in the Sun
as George Eastman
The Big Lift
as Sgt. 1st Class Danny MacCullough
The Heiress
as Morris Townsend
Red River
as Matthew Garth
The Search
as Ralph Stevenson