Montgomery Clift

Who was Montgomery Clift?

Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men".

He often played outsiders and "victim-heroes"; examples include the social climber in George Stevens's A Place in the Sun, the anguished Catholic priest in Hitchcock's I Confess, the doomed regular soldier Robert E. Lee Prewitt in Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity, and the Jewish GI bullied by antisemites in Edward Dmytryk's The Young Lions.

Later, after a car crash in 1956 that scarred Clift's face, and alcohol and prescription drug abuse, he became erratic. Nevertheless, he continued his acting career, playing such parts as "the reckless, alcoholic, mother-fixated rodeo performer" in John Huston's The Misfits and the title role in Huston's Freud.

In 1961, with the scars still visible from the 1956 car crash, Clift portrayed Rudolph Peterson, an emotionally unstable and physically tortured concentration camp victim in the Stanley Kramer film Judgment at Nuremberg, earning a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Clift received four Academy Award nominations during his career, three for Best Actor and one for Best Supporting Actor.