Montgomery Clift Biography

Actor

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Montgomery Clift was a leading man of stage and screen, most widely known for his Oscar-nominated performance as Pvt. Prewitt in the movie From Here to Eternity (1953, with Frank Sinatra and Burt Lancaster). Clift grew up in the midwest and on the east coast, and started acting on Broadway as a teenager; by age 18 he was playing leading roles and was an early member of the prestigious Actor's Studio. He eventually moved on to Hollywood, where his brooding, reluctant-hero presence was a novelty and made him a popular leading man of the post-war era. His most notable roles -- for which he was also Oscar-nominated -- were in the films The Search (1948), A Place In the Sun (1951), and The Misfits (1961, Marilyn Monroe's last film). Clift is also known for the turmoil in his private life. His sexual preference was the subject of much speculation and he sometimes drank heavily, especially after a 1957 car crash that broke his jaw and nose and damaged his face badly. Clift and Elizabeth Taylor had a famous friendship and co-starred in the films A Place in the Sun (1951), Raintree Country (1957, with Eva Marie Saint) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959, with Katharine Hepburn).