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" Final Resting Place of Montgomery Clift"


Montgomery Clift
17th October 1920 - 23rd July 1966
Method actor who was close friends with Elizabeth Taylor.
Quaker
Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.
Early life
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Ethel Fogg and William Brooks Clift, a banker with roots in the South.
Montgomery Clift had a twin sister, Roberta, and an older brother, Brooks, husband of Eleanor Clift, the columnist and political commentator, and father of their three children; Brooks also had a child by the late actress Kim Stanley.
Film career
Appearing on Broadway at the age of thirteen, Clift achieved success on the stage and starred there for 10 years before moving to Hollywood, debuting in 1948's Red River opposite John Wayne. Clift was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor that same year for The Search. Clift was billed as a new kind of leading man: sensitive, intense and broodingly handsome, the kind of man women would want to take care of. He had a highly successful film career, performing in many Oscar-nominated roles and becoming a matinee idol because of his good looks and sex appeal. His love scenes with Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun (1951) set a new standard for romance in cinema. His roles in A Place in the Sun, the 1953 classic From Here to Eternity and The Young Lions (1958) are considered signatures of his career.
Clift and his screen rival, Marlon Brando, were popularly known in Hollywood as the "Golddust Twins" because of their rapid rise to stardom. Clift reportedly turned down the starring roles in Sunset Boulevard and East of Eden.
Car accident
On May 12, 1956, while filming Raintree County, he smashed his car into a tree after leaving a party at the home of his Raintree County co-star Elizabeth Taylor and her then-husband Michael Wilding. Hearing the sounds of the crash, Elizabeth Taylor raced to Clift's side and kept him from choking to death by removing two of his teeth, which had become lodged in his throat. Clift needed extensive reconstructive surgery on his face (although his broken nose was never repaired) and he returned after several weeks to finish the film, his handsome appearance permanently disfigured. The "before and after" face of Clift is apparent in the movie. By this time, Clift had become hooked on alcohol and pain pills, and his health deteriorated. Taylor and Clift remained close friends until his death.
Post-accident career
Subsequently, Clift, with Lee Remick, appeared in Elia Kazan's Wild River (1960), a film listed in the United States National Film Registry. He then costarred in John Huston's The Misfits (1961), which turned out to be the last film for both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable.
Clift's last Oscar nomination was for best supporting actor for his riveting role in Judgment at Nuremberg (1962), a seven-minute part. The film also starred Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Burt Lancaster, and Judy Garland.
Death
Montgomery Clift died in 1966 at the age of 45 of complications brought on by his severe drug and alcohol addictions. He is interred in the Quaker Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.