AT RISE: the Stage Is in Darkness

A one-person play

Anthony Lawrence

ACT ONE

AT RISE: The stage is in darkness.

LIGHTS COME UP to reveal MONTGOMERY CLIFT, sitting in a chair, hunched shoulders, skeletal framework, old before its time-- once perfect face, now puffed and haggard, the hands gnarled and trembling. (His face is kept in shadow now so that we cannot quite see how much it has been damaged)

It is like night inside his TOWNHOUSE, (217 East 61st Street) the shades drawn over a large bay window SL, shutting out the daylight that intermittently allows a streak of dusty sun particles to bounce through the room like mischievous poltergeists.

The townhouse living room is at SL, simply decorated, a sofa, comfortable chairs, functional tables.

On one of the tables are a phone and an intercom.

In the darkness at rear of CS is a LARGE SCREEN on which are projected some of the following articles and photographs.

Around Monty are mementos of the sweet days that once were his life: a Civil War Union Army bracelet on a table next to a photo of Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, along with Playbill articles about the famous pair.

There is a large family photo album and a number of other standing framed photos, young unidentified males, still shots on the table of himself, in the Roddy McDowell style, from various films, and beautiful one of Elizabeth Taylor with her raven hair and violet eyes. 2

There is also a still shot photo of Frank Sinatra in a prominent place.

There are scripts everywhere, on the table, on the floor.

Close by is a shiny brass bugle, silent now, though we seem to HEAR reverberations far in the distance, a plaintive, echoing "Taps" that mixes in counterpoint with the MUSIC coming from a record player, a recording of BILLIE HOLLIDAY doing one of her best.

Billie’s “Don’t Explain” will be a theme, vocal and instrumental, through various parts of the play.

There is a guitar resting against a large beanbag “Sea urchin” chair near the leather sofa.

Sitting on the table is also a small straggly CHRISTMAS TREE with a few ornaments and lights on it that denotes the time of year. There are flowers in pots and vases, and a large poinsettia plant someone sent to him.

Monty is breathing heavier now, anxiety breathing. He pours a glass of scotch, drinks a large slug.

(The INTERCOM rings. Monty reacts, frustrated, goes to the intercom, picks it up eagerly)

Adrian, is somebody here?

No? okay. Okay, Yeah, okay, thanks Adrian – Remember, I want to know if there are any notes, cards, anything --

(PHONE RINGS, Monty hangs up the intercom, picks up the phone eagerly)

Hello -- (Reacts, disappointed)

Hey, Michael. What? I said what? Yeah, I know I called you, but why would I say that? I just wanted you to come to the party.

Somebody’s trying to kill me? Must have been the scotch. 3

What? Oh, yeah, Merry Christmas to you, too.

(Monty collapses into the sofa, haggard, drinks some more scotch)

Yeah, yeah, I understand. I got a turn-down from Lauren Bacall. Mira sent me a fucking poinsettia plant and the flowers are from Roddy. He had commitments in Hollywood.

(Takes another slug of scotch)

You know what, Miguel? I think I’m about to be evicted. No, I’m serious. Way behind in my bills. No, no, you can’t help me. I need work, but I’ve been fucking blackballed in the industry.

(Monty puts his hand to his eyes as if they hurt him)

My eyes, they’re bothering me again Michael.

I may have to have another operation... for cataracts. Fuckin’ old man problem. Didn’t think I’d have that to worry about for another fifty years

Yes, Michael, I’m still waiting to hear from Elizabeth...yeah, she’s in London... I know she'll call.

Do you know what she did, Miguel? I haven't been insurable since Freud, you know.

Well, Bessie put up her whole salary as insurance for me. Yeah, for her role in Reflections in a Golden Eye with her and Marlon.

A million dollars! For me.

That's the kind of woman she is... the kind of friend she is. She's the one who hasn't forgotten me...

Yes, I know the shit faces at Warners still have to approve it. Bastards called me a fuckin’ untouchable!

Great, you're just like everybody else.

You have no faith. You think I'm through, that I've had it.

Yes, it is true... Okay, I know you hate to see my hopes built up, see me 4 hurt...

Look, Michael, why don’t we talk later...

..Yeah, I promise I’ll call you in a couple of days...

(He hangs up, takes some pills swiftly, washes them down with the scotch.

Now, he staggers to the large bay window, throws back the curtains and opens the windows.

We can HEAR the SOUNDS OF THE STREET from far below.

He gets close to the edge and peers down at the street below him)

Somebody’s trying to kill me?

J’ai plus de souvenirs que si j’avais mille ans...

I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old...but I can’t remember who’s trying to kill me.

(LIGHT COMES UP and envelopes him as he turns and regards the audience, his metamorphosis of twenty years rolling off him like a gentle rain, erect now and in complete control, smiles slyly at the audience as he picks up a script and a book, moves down off the stage and gets close to them in the aisle. His face is youthful and beautiful)

I don’t know what there is to say about me.

Acting is interesting, but me? I’m just a simple man who loves...loved...his work.

Fact is, nobody’s ever been really interested in me as a person. A commodity, a bartering chip, that’s all I was to them. That’s all I am.

(Indicates script)

Look at the scripts they send me. Crap. All crap. 5

Moby Dick – They had to be kidding. What did they want me to play – Ahab or Ishmael? Maybe it was the fucking whale. As a matter of fact, I’d probably be pretty good as Moby –

(Bumps his pelvis, grins wickedly)

DICK! Ha ha!

Okay, you paid your few bucks to get in here and now, if you have any real interest in my story, you’re stuck with me for the next 90 minutes or so.

You don’t like what you’re seeing and hearing, fuck you, vote with your feet. Just go quietly, okay?

(Addresses member of audience, holds out his hand, shakes hands)

Hi, I’m Monty Clift. You don’t believe that? Okay, hey listen, I’m an actor. My job is to MAKE you believe it.

But just being natural like I am now isn’t enough.

You know who said that? My teacher, Lee Strasberg.

“Natural, you can find on a street corner.”

He wanted a heightened sense of reality. “Art,” he would say, “is more beautiful and terrible than life.”

Now, maybe I won’t make you believe I’m ACTUALLY Monty Clift, but I’d like to think that in the next ninety minutes I sure as hell am going to get close.

Well, that’s part of what theatre is all about, resurrection, transcendence and just plain pretense.

So you’re going to hear about my nauseating life, the good, the bad and the fucking awful.

(Monty is back on stage by now. He scoops up the family album, scans it for a moment, then looks up at the audience and smiles wryly. As he holds up the album, the audience can see some of the photos on 6

the large screen)

Well, I suppose I have to start out with some of the boring early shit. Try not to puke.

(Early photos of Monty and his sister, Roberta)

My sister and I were twins. I was always the gentleman. I let sister see the moon before I did.

It was the dawn of the twenties. F. Scott Fitzgerald called it “the greatest, gaudiest spree in history.”

(ON THE SCREEN we can see a montage of the ‘20’s, the razzle- dazzle,”The Flappers”, the “Gatsby” costumes, the strident MUSIC of The “Charleston” under)

Everybody in 1920 was making money, hoards of it. Paw was one of those gracious golden salesmen born of old fucking money.

When I came into the world Bill Clift was a vice president of the Omaha National bank.

(As Monty looks at photos, ON screen we see still shots of his parents)

Both he and Maw were short, small-boned people. He was gentle and even- tempered. Maw was beautiful and high-strung.

(Now shots of Monty, Brooks and Roberta, very young, standing in front of a Victorian house)

Roberta and I, and our brother, Brooks, were born in this big old house in one of Omaha’s most fashionable sections.

I can’t really tell you what was wrong with the Clift’s. We were a pretty emotionally “chilly” family.

It was a dreamlike stream of foggy childhood events, painful, frozen...elaborate trips, private tutors...

Actually, I hate talking about what happened back then. I still don’t understand much of it.

Traveling is a hobgoblin existence for kids. 7

Paw was never with us. He had to stay back and make the money so Maw could take us on fancy trips to keep up the illusion that we had some kind of prestigious heritage.

Truth is Paw kept a mistress. I remember having lunch with paw’s “friend” -- never forget her perfume -- like dead flowers.

She kept trying to be “nice” but wanting to dump us quick -- and Maw slept with this rich fucker friend of the family to provide income when the market crash wiped out all of Paw’s investments.

Paw was something of a hypocrite and Maw was a bit of a tramp.

Yeah, yeah, I know, she was my mother but she did a number on me that left me royally fucked to this day. But what the hell, I guess she meant well.

(He holds up the album, showing some brownish snapshots of Monty about 5 years old in front of a cottage overlooking the ocean in Bermuda. Again, the audience can see the photos on the screen)

We spent a lot of time in Somerset, Bermuda. This was “Seaview” right on the ocean.

We always had to keep to ourselves while traveling – like royalty – never mingle, never speak to ordinary souls.

Maw told us time and again how she sacrificed her whole life for us and the least we could do was behave.

(ON SCREEN pictures from Shakespeare and Dickens. Monty picks up a book of Shakespeare plays, thumbs through it as he talks)

In the evenings she read to us from Shakespeare or Dickens.

Maw said that after our cultural education was completed and our manners polished to a fine sheen, we could stay in America.

In 1928, like a little family group in a Henry James novel, we set sail for the Old World.

(ON SCREEN shots of Buster Keaton in his prime. Monty picks up a ship’s captain’s hat and puts it on) 8

We left Paw in Chicago and sailed on the Ile de France with fellow passengers like Buster Keaton.

Toward the end of the voyage some kid held my head underwater in the ship’s pool for so long that, in my struggle to get free, I busted a gland in my neck.

It got all infected and left an ugly four-inch scar you can still see here on my neck.

(Shows it to audience, pulling away his collar)

Still hurts to this day when it’s too cold or damp.

I cringe whenever I see it on film but millions of people revere it because it reminds them that my so-called glamour is real and not some concoction of a makeup department.

People are nuts when it comes to film actors. Treat us like Gods one minute and shit bags the next.

First time I got interested in acting I was about eight. No big deal, really.

We were in France and I got kind of interested pasting together crepe paper costumes, acting out stories, and going to plays with Maw.

My first theatrical break was a bit part in a local stock company production back in Sarasota. Guess that was about 1933.

No idea why I wanted to act, but somebody said it had to do with competing with my sister and brother.

I figure it was more like I was maw’s “echo”, the fucking prodigy whose achievements would redeem her suffering.

From there it was a number of loathsome brats and stupid juveniles in a string of lightweight plots, all of which made Maw delirious and had a cramping effect on me.

Then, after all those crappy roles, I got one that had a little substance to it and a lot of prestige – but there was more to it than I expected – only not on stage -- 9

(Sits in a chair, acts out the following, cringing with discomfort)

I was seventeen and a bit overwhelmed by this sudden escalation – it was a play called Your Obedient Husband with Fredric March and his wife, Florence Eldridge –

I’m alone in my dressing room, see, and this actress comes in without knocking – a bit player who’s been drinking a lot –

She starts kissing and fondling me – I don’t know what to do – she’s a lot older than me, reminds me of my mother – She wants me to “give her head --”

I don’t even know what that means but I want to throw up – and I nearly did – except she beats me in that department, runs out streaming vomit all over my fucking floor --

Later on, when I started thinking seriously about sex, it was kind of like watching people on an escalator – they kept getting on and off – I kind of wanted to get on – but didn’t really know how –

I think my first actual experience with sex, if you really want to know, was just after we settled down for a while in an apartment on 53rd st.

A boy about my age named Ned came for a sleepover and we were pretending to be in the great outdoors by spending the night in separate sleeping bags.

But during the night, he slipped into my bag and started touching me in very intimate ways I had never experienced before.

At first, I was aghast and tried to get out of the bag, but Ned persisted and I let him go on fondling me. It felt good but after a while I climbed out of the bag and retreated to my own bed for the night.

At the time I had no real understanding about homosexuality, but I know I felt terrible guilt and fear for a long time –

Then Michael came into my life – straight arrow Michael – someone I could look up to without that growing fear and conflict about my sexuality --

(He picks up a photo of Michael from the table) 10

And there were times after I met Michael that I could break away from the stranglehold Maw had on me.

She was determined that I continue my career so we had gone back to New York and I did some small roles in a musical called Jubilee and Fly Away Home with Thomas Mitchell.

My best friend back then was Michael. I won’t tell you his last name because I don’t fucking want to, Okay?

All you need to know right now is that he was a boyhood friend.

Michael was nineteen, two years older than me when we met at the Booth Theatre in 1938 during a run of a French comedy, Dame Nature.

Wow, here I was, seventeen, a prince still being chaperoned and starring in a Broadway play! I was terrified and Maw was ecstatic.

My character’s name was Andre Brisac.

It was the first time I really had to create a character and I was pretty insecure.

It was about a sixteen-year-old boy and a fifteen-year-old girl, both from nice families, who suddenly discover they have made a baby after doing “something” one night before they fell asleep – something the boy has forgotten –

(Laughs, moves to the edge of the stage and sits down, feet hanging over)

Crazy premise – really dumb – typically French -- but it was vital that the audience accept it – Had to work my ass off to make an absurd idea somehow credible –

We got tepid reviews but the translator said I was almost “untheatrical”...I kind of liked that...but I liked what my fellow cast member Michael said even better...

Michael said “I carried my feelings of frustration and innocence onto the stage and actually became Andre.”

He was the only person in the company that I let get near me. When I liked 11 somebody I really liked them, and I made damn sure they knew it.

Michael was just great to be around, warm, outgoing, and he had something I didn’t. A sense of humor.

I was always such a serious fuck. Still am.

(Lights up a joint)

Anyway, I loved the way Michael approached characters he was playing.

If it was a sailor, he’d go out and wander the docks all night, go to one of those seedy waterfront bars and buy rounds, the dirtier the patrons the better. He’d come to rehearsals unshaven and still into it.

Michael and I would break away at times, go fishing or sailing –

What a character he was. Yeah, he had this worldly roguish air and while he liked my acting I think he thought of me as very lonely and confused inside this sleek, well-groomed exterior, and only just qualified as being fit for initiation into the sleaze of Newark’s sex dives.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME BACK UP on Monty. LOUD BURLESQUE MUSIC slowly swells up.

We used to go to this burlesque house in Jersey together.

(The burlesque queen and her troupe’s tacky lobby poster is PROJECTED ONTO THE SCREEN. They are gyrating in all their tawdry splendor)

It was a garish, awful place, ripped seats mildewy and clammy --

What I saw the first time we went in was this stripper.

She was weaving sensuously along a ramp. She was lit by shabby overheads and by rows of colored lights at her feet.

She was tall and wickedly seductive, overweight, with pendulous breasts and heavy thighs, overly painted face and flaming orange hair, and she was stripping down to nothing. 12

The music, like the girl, was loud and raucous, strident and heavily bump- accented.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Rim shots, pounding bass that drowned out what was supposed to be music.

(Acts it all out)

I squinted my eyes as Michael and I made our way to a couple of seats, trying to not miss the gyrations of that white albino body bathed in light.

I heard Michael in the dark… “Jesus Monty, I can’t see...”

I said...I can see all I want to see. Look at the tits on her. I want to get close. See it all-

I started to sit down and fucking fell to the floor! There was no seat there!

Shit, there's no seat, I whispered frantically to Michael as I writhed on the sticky floor and struggled to get up –

I could just barely hear him over the loud music –

“Get up!” Michael spits out.

Help me, I whispered back, trying to struggle up onto the next seat --

By now we were breaking into hysterical laughter --

Cripes, I whispered hoarsely to Michael— she's naked as a jaybird! Michael had this philosophical response to that –

“I'm gonna go home and jerk off all night – “

I ignored him. My eyes were fixed on the stripper –- Look what she's doing!

The stripper was gyrating her pelvis toward a man in the audience close to her.

The man was holding out a dollar bill toward her, and the stripper caught the dollar bill with her pussy!

Everybody in the house applauded with delight. 13

Michael, Did you see that? Jesus, give me a dollar bill quick—

What? Shit, She won't do that for fifty cents.

Wait, I've got one. I've got one!

(Takes dollar bill from his wallet, waves it)

I held the dollar bill up triumphantly and waved it at the girl.

(Monty labors to do the “stripper dance” – slowly and quite sensuously)

She gyrated wildly and came closer and closer – and then snatched that buck right out of my fingers --

Okay, okay, so I wasn’t really filled with lust by that ghastly overweight and repugnant woman’s body.

It was just an act, but it was boyish fun and I remember it fondly now and wish that I could laugh like that again.

Just to have fun again. Seems like my best times in all the later years were when I was drunk or stoned or on the stage in a really good part --

(Monty picks up a battered script from the table and walks into a CIRCLE OF LIGHT CS. There is only a STAGE LIGHT enveloping him)

I was about eighteen. It was 1939 and I thought I was really hot shit.

I had a taste of stardom by now. My name had been up in lights for Dame Nature. The best agents in town were competing wildly for me.

Just to be glanced at by Maynard Morris was like being touched by the Pope. Yet there he was backstage on many nights waiting patiently for me.

I didn’t understand it at first but I was becoming quite a prize. I wound up with Morris, but I wouldn’t give him an exclusive. I was getting arrogant already.

I started hanging out at Sardi’s, table-hopping, making connections.

I kid you not, people like Orson Welles and Elia Kazan had visited me in my 14 dressing rooms, telling me I had a great future and all that b.s. But I loved it.

I had been cast in Life With Father directed by one of my heroes, Clarence Day Jr. and written by the great Russell Crouse.

It was my best role so far and I was going to knock them dead. What could go wrong?

I spent nights on the dark stage rehearsing my jokes over and over.

(Recites, as when he was young)

“Every time you get a new batch of clothes, Mother sends the old ones to the missionary barrel. I guess I’m just as good...”

(Beat, out of character)

God, I feel like a sick spider...

(Repeating the lines)

“Missionary barrel, missionary barrel...”

(To audience)

Then, the stage manager comes out from the wings and says “Time to go home, Monty.” I sigh wearily. I really was getting tired. I say, See you in the morning.

But he says, “Hold up, kid.” Then, he tells me very nicely that I am being replaced, that what they really wanted all along was red hair and freckles, an all-American boy.

I’m shocked, really pissed. I say, So how come they didn’t hire red hair and all-American freckles?

Well, he just shakes his head and tells me to pick up my check. I throw the script away and tell him to go fuck himself.

I scream at him, Freckles aren’t acting! Freckles are pigmentation!

(Throws script down)

Michael tried later to appease me, but I was such a pompous little know-it- 15 all shithead, so full of myself.

I remember saying something like I don’t give a fuck about creative decisions! I don’t want to be right for a part. I want to act. I don’t know what I can bring to my life, but I can bring the only reason for existence I have to the stage!

Can you believe that? Eighteen and so fucking pompous! But the truth is, maybe I never really changed. Maybe I’m still living in that same ego-driven denial.

(Remembering, slumps on beanbag chair, lights a joint. LIGHT and SOUND ADJUST. Projected ON THE SCREEN are shots from World War II, infantry on the battlefield, men dying)

And so anyway the war came and all my friends got shot and killed. I had this colitis, so I stayed home and got shot and killed on stage.

(ON SCREEN are big publicity shots of the sultry Tallulah Bankhead from “The Skin of Our Teeth” on Broadway)

But then I was forced to drop out of The Skin of our Teeth with Tallulah Bankhead, the pain in my gut was getting worse all the time.

Used to hang out with Tallulah a lot.

I had a little rapport with her. In fact, I was one of the few people in the play she would still talk to –

-- fact is I was kind of terrified of her lusty hormones.

I’d heard all these stories of how she turned her servants into alcoholics, swam naked in front of strange men, had “faggot” caddies around to service her, and I really hated the whole decadent scene.

She still considered me a nice, innocuous boy and I didn’t want to waste time charming her with my newly acquired “happy macho” image.

Well, the colitis finally ended me up in a clinic where I developed a growing fascination with drugs.

Hey, I had to start somewhere. Why not where it was safe? 16

(Lights a joint)

My dysentery and colitis could only be treated by diet, rest – and lots of drugs, powerful opiate painkillers like codeine.

I became academically interested in the nature of drugs in general.

(ON SCREEN are shots of the exterior and interior of Powders Drugstore circa the ‘40’s. THEN close up shots of Monty’s hands as he actually opens a large suitcase)

I used to go to Powders, big drugstore on Madison avenue and 83rd Street. I’d go behind the counter and engage in serious analytic discussions with the pharmacist about the nature and effects of all the medicines I was taking.

(Takes numerous bottles of powders, pills and liquids from the suitcase, checking the labels)

I even started stocking up on cough syrups and mood elevators like Ritalin, and offering them to friends who were down with something.

(ON SCREEN are shots of the marquee of a Broadway theatre with Montgomery Clift’s name in lights)

After I got out of the clinic, things began happening really fast. Before I even realized it, I had become something of a minor Broadway star.

Whoopie do! It was in the middle of the forties that I got my first big lead, top billing, top salary in Foxhole in the Parlor.

Earlier, I had a role in Lillian Hellman’s play, The Searching Wind. It was a small but pivotal part of a boy returning from the war with a wounded leg and a damaged spirit. Got great reviews.

Once again, in Foxhole, I was a morally wounded, disillusioned soldier returning from the war. Everybody thought I was deranged ranting about the cruelties of war but I made a stirring speech before congress that forced everybody, including the audience, to think twice.

(On screen typical shots of Hollywood)

Not long after that, Hollywood began waving its ugly finger at me. With my usual supreme arrogance I allowed the magnates of Vomit, California to 17 court me while making no commitments to any of them.

Of course I wasn’t too high-minded to turn down a six-month contract with MGM that obligated me only to meet some studio bigwigs and ‘consider’ a few film parts.

(On screen shots of the MGM lot, Louis B. Mayer)

Fact is, I didn’t give a shit about any of them. I exasperated the hell out of Louis B. Mayer who was a combination of Jed Harris lies and Georgie Jessel schmaltz.

But anyway, this big director, Howard Hawks, had seen me in a Broadway show, and offered me the role of John Wayne’s foster son in a western he was preparing called Red River.

(ON SCREEN we can now see still photos of Howard Hawks and some classic western scenes like cowboys herding cattle, etc., then a shot of John Wayne from the film)

Frankly, I was interested. I realized right away that pitting me as a kind of elegant collegiate cowboy against John Wayne’s bluff earthiness was outrageous and totally against conventional Hollywood casting.

I liked the challenge of something really different, but I was scared. Fucking petrified.

At first I said no, but Hawks persisted. He paid my way back to tinseltown to talk more about the script. Let’s face it, I was $1300 in debt from pills and booze and finally I felt I had nothing to lose.

So we got together and he told me more about the first cattle drive from Laredo, Texas to Kansas and the love-hate relationship between these two strong men.

The story and its ramifications appealed to me, as well as the $60,000 I was offered to do the film.

So I went with it and studied how to be a cowboy. Some wranglers took me under their wing and taught me everything they knew.

Still, in the first days of filming in Rain Valley near Tucson, Arizona I burned myself on the thigh with a blank cartridge practicing quick draws 18 from my holster.

Even humiliated myself by nearly falling off a horse in front of all those tough wranglers.

Of course Wayne laughed out loud when he first saw me, and Hawks tried to stage the fight between us.

Right then and there I got to calling Wayne, under my breath of course, the “big motherfucker,” and he referred to me as an “arrogant little bastard.” Needless to say we didn’t get along.

But I got through it and was satisfied with my performance which seemed to really make my film career take off.

(On screen shots of Louella Parsons)

The gossip queen Louella Parsons wrote after seeing a rough cut of Red River that “I have very recently had five individual movie magnates each assure me that he alone discovered Clift.”

So, the picture was finished but still unreleased, and I headed back to New York as fast as I could. My old life was waiting for me.

(PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN are photo stills of Libby Holman) Monty acts out the following, sitting on pillows and referring to different people)

There was this Libby Holman party, Beat Generation literati, actors, folk music, all that shit some of you might remember.

Michael and Annie were with me. Annie was a sweet young thing I once thought I was in love with. Maybe I was in my own way back then.

I’d met Annie during a run of Foxhole in the Parlor. She was my leading lady. She had a vulnerable quality, and she fell madly in love with me.

She told people we were engaged, then we started fighting because I didn’t want to get married.

For a while we stopped seeing each other, and she got desperate I guess and had brief affairs with Brando and my brother, Brooks, hoping to make me jealous. I just got furious. Really pissed at Brooks and told him so. 19

I liked Annie. She kind of brought out the male part of me. I didn’t want to marry her, but I didn’t want to lose her either.

We were in this apartment, sitting on pillows, drinking, smoking pot, laughing hysterically –

I was really smashed and I think I was crawling around on all fours, like a puppy dog – woof – woof --

Annie said --

“Hey, that woman is still staring at you, Monty.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, “it’s Libby Holman.”

(ON screen early still shots of Libby)

She was across the room playing her guitar and singing. She was wearing a black evening gown with some sort of fringe and dark glasses rimmed in cream-colored plastic.

Libby was like that. She focused on me. Annie saw what was happening. Boy, talk about being pissed.

I know that song, used to sing it with Libby...

(Moves to guitar, plunks chords, sings softly)

"When your heart was mine, true love, And your head lay on my breast,

You could make me believe by the falling of your arm that the sun rose up in the west..."

She was so good – but Annie was jealous of my knowing Libby’s song and my interest in her.

Annie was so delicate, so subtle – She said Libby reminded her of a cobra about to strike.

She used to be a torch singer, I said, as I sucked on a joint --

Annie went on with her assessment –

(Monty mimics Annie’s sweet young voice) 20

“Yeah, I know. Her picture was in all the papers. One scandal after another, a real ball breaker...

(His own voice)

Yeah, she was like that about men. She even tried to possess me. Always said she wanted to have at least one great love.

“I don’t think I want to hear about this,” said Annie. But I went on because you couldn’t stop talking about Libby Holman.

She told me she studied Jung and Oscar Wilde before she got the curse.

A cop stopped her once for speeding when she got her first car.

“I’m going to have to pinch you,” said the cop. “I’d much rather be tickled,” she replied with a wink.

She was arrested in Europe one time for sunbathing in the nude.

She had this best friend, a southern aristocrat, Louisa Carpenter, an heiress to the Du Pont millions.

The two of them used to dress in men’s suits and bowler hats and ate spareribs and cole slaw at the Clam House with Tallulah Bankhead and Bea Lillie.

In ’32 she married 20 year-old Zachary Smith Reynolds, the tobacco heir, and eight months after the wedding, they got into a terrible fight, he died of a gunshot wound and Libby was accused of his murder but her lawyer father got her off.

(Lurid headlines and photos about Libby’s murder trial appear on the screen)

They called her “The Black Widow.”

But I liked Libby. We were simpatico.

Annie couldn’t stand anymore. She was determined to distract me.

(Imitates Annie’s voice) 21

“Hey, isn’t that Marlon Brando?”

(Back to his own voice)

Yeah, I said, Jesus, look at him, black leather jacket, jeans, boots, must be up for some biker movie –

Michael said, “He’s coming over, Monty.”

Marlon sidled – is that a word – sidled? – slithered would probably be more appropriate --

(Mocking impression of a drunken Marlon)

Hey, she's my Jew, Monty.

(His own voice)

Fuck you, Marlon, I responded -- Then I giggled as I grabbed a plate of speared chicken livers.

Marlon, who was also three sheets to the wind, leaned over and whispered to Michael confidentially –

(Doing Marlon again)

Your friend’s got a mixmaster up his ass.

(His own voice)

Well, I just gave Marlon the finger –

(Doing it)

Cause this to enter your person.

Marlon loved it and this silly grin spread over his face –

(Imitates Marlon, scratches his crotch)

Fuckin’ crabs...

(Beat)

Hey, sport, wanna go for a ride on my Harley? 22

BLACKOUT

AND THE ROARING SURGE OF A MOTORCYCLE ENGINE in the dark.

LIGHTS COME UP AND WE SEE that Monty and Marlon are seated in a small bar.

Yeah, I remember that wild ride and the two of us ending up at this funky little bar on 47th st. Man, I was glad to end up anyplace alive.

Marlon kept eyeing me from over the foam on his beer. He had the biggest grin I’ve ever seen. His voice was a little strident and guttural.

(Monty acts out the first part of the scene with Marlon, doing his imitation of the actor)

(Imitating Marlon)

Like that ride?

(His own voice)

Your PR is crap. You’re a shitty biker.

(Imitating Marlon)

You got here, didn’t ya?

(His own voice)

Is it true you keep a raccoon in your apartment?

(Imitating Marlon)

Yeah, so what?

(His own voice)

You bullshit a lot.

(Imitating Marlon)

Name one thing I’ve said that’s bullshit. 23

(His own voice)

You were born in Calcutta. You were born in Omaha, just like me.

(Imitating Marlon)

Okay, ya got me. So how’s it feel, Montgomery? Bein’ a big fuckin’ deal, I mean. (His own voice)

Good. Good. It feels good.

(Imitating Marlon)

I like Jerry Robbins. Funny guy.

(His own voice)

(Imitating Marlon)

Your scene at the Studio. Good. But ya oughtta get rid of Mira. You don’t need a coach.

(His own voice)

I’m not into the “method” much.

(Imitating Marlon)

I could see that.

(His own voice)

I just don’t like tricks – like “sense memory” – narrows Stanislavsky down to a formula of how to produce tears and rage –

(Imitating Marlon) 24

So whatta you got up your ass besides that mixmaster?

(His own voice)

I just don’t like preconceived notions of motivation or experience. You work on things simply as they come up.

(Imitating Marlon)

Tha’s what I do, fuckface. I remember things an’ I puke them up from my entrails, from my guts –

(Monty laughs, his own voice, remembering)

Yeah, we used to spar with each other a lot. It was gentle. Looking for a common ground. But our explorations always came to a dead end. I thought he was too hot-headed, you know, impetuous. He thought I was too cool and predetermined.

It was fucking classic. You know, Dionysus versus Apollo. I always complained that he never thought things through. Yeah, it was temperament, competition, same old shit. But we still were deeply influenced by each other.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP AND ADJUST on Monty SR on a raised platform sitting shirtless in a claw-footed white bathtub. It is a small room dressed like a farmhouse bathroom. He grins wickedly from the bathtub at the audience. Behind him, PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN is the idyllic New England barn he is describing, nestled at the edge of a lake.

Not long after, I was living in a large New England barn that I converted into comfortable living quarters.

It was nestled in tall trees, an idyllic hideaway on the edge of a lake. God, it was beautiful. I really loved that place.

I was fucking Annie up in the bathroom in a tub just like this one. 25

At least I kept trying to fuck her. I had trouble getting a hard-on but the warm water and a joint had helped and we were really starting to get it on when a car drove up.

(SOUND of a car driving up and parking)

It was Sunny. That’s my Maw. She yelled up at the window just as Annie was about to have an orgasm.

(Monty yells, imitating his mother’s voice)

“Monty! Monty!”

I said, it’s my Maw!

Annie said,”No! Not now! Come back... quick...”

(He shrugs, rolls his eyes, sinks slowly down out of sight in the tub, a wide stoned grin spreading across his face. Monty’s VOICE imitating his mother calling)

Monty! Monty, where are you?

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP AND ADJUST on another raised platform SL with what appears to be a small garden. Monty, holding a half empty glass of booze and smoking a joint, stands looking down at his remembered mother.

PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN IS A STILL SHOT of Monty’s mother grinning cheerily like a Cheshire cat. Monty takes a swallow of booze, to audience.

Well here she is in the flesh. I’d like you to meet my Maw. Her nickname was “Sunny.”

Fitted her disposition just perfect. She had an aristocratic, beautiful face for a middle-aged woman.

First I remember seeing her as more than Maw was back in Nebraska. She was getting dressed to go on a “date” with “Uncle Earl”. I walked in the bedroom. 26

I was about 8 and she was only wearing panties! Wow! She was built. I tried to leave, all embarrassed but she smiled, sat me on the bed and let me watch everything.

“Might as well get some education sooner than later.”

All I got from that experience was nausea and the need to barf. I ran out. Good ole Maw. Like I said, she always meant well.

She had a secret pride about herself, and her every move, every gesture, her fluted accents were like ghost-sounds of southern nobility long lost among magnolias and Tara-columns.

All that still couldn’t keep her from being a cunt.

(Acidly bitter humor)

You can’t see her, but I can. She said she drove all the way here just to see me and to bring me some tulip bulbs.

She’s planting them in my garden. She wants me to have them in the ground before the snows and not water them too much.

(Imitates his mother)

“Just let the rain take care of them, Monty dear.”

I said, I’ll do that, Maw. I’ll just let the rain water the little fuckers.

Don’t know why she took exception to that.

Something about my background and I shouldn’t have to talk like that.

I tried to tell her I’d gotten sick of Hollywood, about my interview for a new play with the Lunts at the Theatre Guild, but she just shined me on like always.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

(His own voice)

You don’t understand what it means, Maw...to be in a play with Lunt and 27

Fontanne again...to have a great part, do some real acting...the beginning of all I’ve wanted, all I’ve tried to be...

“Whatever you try to be, your mother knows what you really are.”

(His own voice, bitterly)

After she left, I smashed all those fucking bulbs with my foot.

(Does it, smashes them with his foot)

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP AND ADJUST on Monty in his townhouse SL as he picks up a couple of his publicity photos.

At first I loved all the attention, the bobby-soxers screaming, the autographs, the photographers, then in the late forties things began to go wrong.

When I should have been the happiest was the time the strangeness started.

Friends thought it was just a natural and temporary over-reaction to the fans, the loss of privacy, the staggering overnight success.

(On the screen are photos of Monty’s parents)

I think I began to despise my parents because they were bigots who hated all the people in the world who were good and kind but different from them.

I’d always been intrigued by ethics and the need to fight social injustice, but when I drank friends said I became fanatical, hysterical. They’d say my parent’s attitudes were just part of their Wasp heritage, that it didn’t make them evil. But I knew better. I knew they were evil.

I’d have a few drinks and the shit would hit the fan. I’d call them names, have tantrums and swear.

For a long time, Maw and Paw refused to accept what was happening. Maw would make a little joke of it. She would say, “Monty, what new thing are you going to accuse me of today?”

Paw worried that my drunkenness was going to hurt my career, yet never 28 once did he acknowledge that he himself might be partly to blame for it.

But they were all wrong. My career just kept sizzling. I went to Berlin to do The Big Lift for George Seaton. Wasn’t much of an acting vehicle, just another propaganda piece, but I loved soldiers.

(Looking at the still shots)

Fact is, I couldn’t get away from being the “moody, sensitive” young asshole known for playing outsiders and “victim-heroes” like this one—

(Monty picks up a book. On screen a photo of Theodore Dreiser’s novel, “An American Tragedy”)

It was 1949 and, coincidentally, I had just finished reading Theodore Dreiser’s novel, An American Tragedy, a novel about a poor, social-climbing young man whose confused ideas about the importance of class and wealth lead him to the murder of his pregnant girl friend and the electric chair.

(PHOTO of the director, George Stevens on the screen)

This really fine director, George Stevens, sent me a copy of the script that was now called, A Place in the Sun.

I read it and told Stevens I liked the script and would do it.

Ultimately he was able to convince the studio that with me and Elizabeth Taylor, young people would love the film.

(On screen we can see still shots of the young Elizabeth Taylor)

Fact is, at the time, I didn’t know who the fuck Elizabeth Taylor was. But I found out soon enough.

They arranged for me to take her to the premiere of The Heiress, the film I had made with Olivia DeHavilland.

I didn’t want to go. I hated the role and what I’d done with it. I resisted until the last minute. 29

I didn’t have a tux. I didn’t have any money. I was broke again from the drugs and booze. What if I wanted to take her out for a burger after the movie?

Then I saw her standing in the doorway of her house and all my stubbornness vanished. That face with those huge electric eyes, perfectly formed body.

She was breathtaking. It was that very night, on some crazy impulse, I took to calling her “Bessie”. I just couldn’t call her by that movie star name.

(PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN are publicity photos from the film or one sheet lobby posters. Monty flops his own photo down on its face, picks up the Liz Taylor, fondly regarding it. PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN ARE MORE PHOTOS OF LIZ TAYLOR)

God, she’s fucking beautiful, and so vulnerable...If I ever loved a woman, I love Bessie...

(Chuckles)

She never liked me calling her “Bessie”...thought it sounded like a cow.

Yeah, there were all kinds of rumors about me and Bessie dating in real life, but that was about like pairing a peacock and a turkey.

One struts around just being beautiful, while the other struts around eventually just being dinner.

The honest truth is that Bessie and I love each other without any fucking getting in the way.

I was gay, actually bi-sexual, but I’d never touch Bessie. She was a goddess and you don’t fuck a goddess.

She knew I was gay but she wanted to marry me anyway. I said, forget it, so she went and married Nicky Hilton, who was also gay just to show me she could do it.

Fuckin’ Nickey Hilton, an unhappy rich kid who couldn’t enjoy himself – too much drugs, too much drink – hey, that sound familiar? 30

Yeah, actually I was a lot like George, the character I played in that film – A Place in the Sun...ambivalent about my own guilt –

Hell, I was born guilty and it’s never gone away – especially guilty about acting on my desires –

I think Bessie’s feelings for me can be summed up pretty much in her words to George in the film...

(Imitates Elizabeth in the film)

“You seem so strange, so deep, so far away, as though you were holding something back. Tell Mama...Tell mama all...”

Well, in time I pretty much did tell her all, some of it probably pretty hard even for her to take.

BLACKOUT

SPOT OF LIGHT and Monty in the townhouse SL as he snorts a line of coke from the surface of the table with a rolled up dollar bill.

Like I said earlier, I hated what I’d done in The Heiress – and I think I did the same kind of role, a social-climbing asshole, in A Place in the Sun, as a kind of chance to redeem myself.

I did a better job and I was happy working with Bessie Mae.

Not long after we wrapped A Place in the Sun I was back in New York.

I was famous and all the shit that comes with that was really starting to surround and strangle me.

I had become good friends with Libby Holman.

Remember, the torch singer that shot her husband?

She always claimed it was an accident, and I told her that I wasn’t responsible for what I did either.

(LIGHT FLOODS CS, lit like a garish nightclub. Monty moves into the light. The MUSIC is loud and brash. PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN are some images as Monty describes them) 31

She took me to this place. It was called the Bantam Club, an unrejuvenated ballroom left over from some earlier dreams, everything basic, cheap in the way cheap was understood.

The clothes were a little flashier than downtown, the heels a little higher, the hues a little more pronounced.

There were mural sized photos of male nudes, sultry macho Puerto Ricans in leather, denim and boots, standing in doorways with hooded eyes.

I’d never been to one of these places so I asked Libby what we were doing there.

She said we were “fag watching,” a favorite pastime of hers.

I have to admit I was both shocked and fascinated by the pitiful queens, painted and coiffed in elegant exaggeration, as they floated by.

I remember one of the creatures regarding Libby and archly commenting, “Well, if it isn’t New York’s leading fag hag. How are you, darling? Is that real mink?”

Libby shot back without blinking, “If it isn’t, I’ve been raped.”

The elegant queen laughed and disappeared in the smoke.

Libby just whispered to me, “Look at them, Monty...the sheer physical beauty...that's the admission ticket... handsome faces...bodies...living only to bathe in music and each other's desire...isn't it a gas?”

(PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN are two lurid and brassy characters frozen as they stare at Monty)

Wow, it was at this point that two denizens drifted through the heavy smoke, leather and denim and anthropomorphic figures, eyes staring right at me.

I suddenly felt very sick. Was this me? Did I belong to this world of loathsome, warped, beautiful creatures? I just couldn’t seem to come to terms with myself and what all this represented. Being here now overwhelmed me with fear and revulsion.

I ran off and left Libby standing there, the smoke and the feathers swirling around her. 32

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP on Monty SL in the townhouse sitting in his big chair, drinking scotch and holding a diamond tennis bracelet.

You see this bracelet? I tried to buy it for Annie at Bergdorf Goodman’s, it’s got twelve diamonds and a little clipped chain.

But she had a jealous fit right there in the store.

She thought I was having an affair with Libby Holman so she threw the bracelet at me and ran out.

I just couldn’t tell her the truth about me.

Anyway, I went into the department store’s men’s room to relieve myself and some guy came up to me and wanted my fucking autograph.

(Acts it out)

He didn’t even like me, said it was for his wife.

I’m standing there with my dick in my hand and he’s telling me John Wayne is his favorite and he didn’t think I could really punch the Duke out like I did in “Red River.”

So I said, Okay, okay, you want my autograph? I’ll give it to you.

And I turn and piss on his shoes.

Well, he didn’t react very well to that and he wants to mess up my face.

But here’s the best part.

(PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN is a STILL PHOTO OF DAVID, young, handsome, winning smile, dressed in overalls and wearing a carpenter’s belt)

This really good-looking young carpenter who happened to be working nearby on some store fixtures, comes into the rest room and goes at the guy with a claw hammer and knocks the fucker into one of the stalls.

You know what the carpenter does next? He fucking picks up the guy’s autograph book and signs it, “Hope everything comes out all right. 33

Montgomery Clift.”

Well, next thing you know I’m really grateful to the carpenter whose name is David, and I’m inviting him over to my apartment to knock out a wall.

He’s got this boyish grin, six feet of blonde charm and a claw hammer. How could I resist?

Anyway, to make a long story longer, he’s over at my place checking out the wall and I’m checking him out.

He lives in East Village and he’s Pennsylvania Dutch. I thought I was good with dialects, but I was way off. He said he was actually Illinois Romanian and his ancestors were gypsy horse thieves.

I said mine were southern aristocrats, a fact that should make anybody want to puke.

He asked me what it was like to be a movie star and I told him it was like being a trained seal.

That’s when I doubled over and felt sick.

(Doubles over, remembering)

He asked me what was wrong and I said I drink too much.

He wanted to know if there was anything he could do, and I said not unless he was a pharmacist.

(Monty pantomimes his neck being rubbed and liking it a lot)

I was on the floor by now and David got down next to me, started rubbing my neck and back. He was practically on top of me and massaging me in a really feel-good way.

But I got uncomfortable at that. I don’t know why. I wasn’t exactly a virgin but somehow this was different. My feelings for this beautiful carpenter I’d just met were far more genuine than the old one-night stands.

I think David felt it too, because he stopped rubbing me, looked deeply into my eyes, then got off of me.

We were just sitting there looking at each other, and I asked him when he 34 could start on the wall.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP AND ADJUST on Monty standing in the townhouse set barefooted, bare chested. Only his immaculate, dark brown slacks cover him. He stands in front of the window looking out, drinking scotch from a glass and smoking a joint, turns slowly and moves to the bed, remembering, to the audience)

Her name was Jewel.

She was black, she was young, pretty, wore a turban and a smile that was sweet and seductive.

She worked high-end hotels and I guess my meeting David made me feel I had to try once again to prove my manhood. I just couldn’t seem to escape the conflict about my sexuality.

But even this simple task seemed beyond me. I thought maybe the booze and drugs were catching up with me.

Jewel seemed to think it was her fault I couldn’t get it up.

She was struggling to get her shoes back on as she said maybe I needed somebody with more experience, that she was self-taught and didn’t always press the right buttons.

(Monty mimics her little girl voice)

“No, really,” she said, “I’ve been told before I’m a lousy lay.

A guy punched me out for not being enthusiastic enough. What the hell did he want? Pom Poms?”

(His own voice)

I told her she was fine, that it was just me.

I gave her a hundred bucks even though her fee was just twenty, told her to take the night off and keep her shoes on.

(Monty takes another slug of whiskey, acts it all out, calling on the 35

phone, then struggling to open the door, then collapsing to the floor)

That’s when I got really drunk and called David.

He came over, got me up off the floor onto the sofa.

(Monty moves to the sofa and lies down, acts it out)

David laid down with me and touched me here and there, warm human caresses that aroused me.

He was careful and beautifully experienced.

We laid there together, face to face, the small rapture increasing – I was ecstatic – this was no one-night stand – this was real love – something I had never experienced before --

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP AND ADJUST on Monty lying on the sofa in the Townhouse, gets slowly up and addresses the audience. In perfect control now. PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN ARE MONTY AND HIS SISTER, ROBERTA, dressed exactly alike at about 9 or 10.

I think I started out as a girl in Maw’s womb.

I get the feeling sometimes that I came out in the wrong body somehow, there was some horrible mistake, that I’m male physically...but that my soul, my personality...is like a woman...

(Tears well up in his eyes, picks up a framed photo of David, touches it lovingly)

I was just afraid earlier...and I’m afraid now...

That’s what I said to David after...well, after...we made love for the first time... and he asked “Afraid of what?”

And I said...Falling back...

And he seemed to understand...”Into the quicksand.” 36

And I added...Among the orchids and the fruit flies...

(Moves DS, talks to the audience confidentially)

My mother brought us up bowing from the waist like exiled royalty, all dressed up in our little look-alike suits.

But kings get crowned, queens too. But for me...no payoff...no crown...

Oh, David reminded me that I was a movie star and that’s kind of like a king...

But I asked...you know what Jean Paul Sartre said?

David, being a carpenter, didn’t know who the fuck that was...

I told him that he was a great writer who said...”What did fame bring me? It brought me hatred.”

David just stared at me for the longest time, then he said in that quiet, cool way of his...

”I come from a small town. Everybody knows everybody’s business.

They didn’t actually tell me to get out, nobody said that...”

He went on to tell me that he was the woodshop teacher in the high school. Rumors got around because he lived with this guy.

He got called in and he explained carefully to the principal, looked him in the eye, said he didn’t have to worry, that he was going off to New York and get lost in the grey mass of people.

David finished by saying, “...After that, I learned not to trust anybody...”

I added knowingly...Live with eyes in the back of your head, live defensively...

David smiled and said, “I went through this period...anonymous sex...back rooms, parks, didn’t know the person, didn’t care...no names, nothing, just sex...

I touched his face and smiled...I was in love...and it seemed to give me a new confidence... 37

(Touches the photo gently, remembering)

We don’t have to be ashamed, David. We don’t have to care what the world thinks...

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP in the Townhouse set with the SOUND OF MUSIC AND PEOPLE as if there is a party going on in the apartment. PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN is a large New York party scene. A group is gathered around James Jones, the writer, wearing all kinds of silver jewelry. Monty holds a glass of booze and a joint.

But David hated my parties with all the celebrities and bullshit.

There was one where he tried very hard to stay but ended up, as always, heading for the door.

I tried to stop him, told him that I was just talking to James Jones who wanted me to do a role...a good role in a movie version of his book...From Here to Eternity...

David didn’t give a shit...all he said was “Congratulations, what do you need me for?”

I added lamely that I’d have to play a boxer, a fighter, and that I didn’t know the first thing...

David said that I’d find a way...”I’m too simple for this, Monty...”

He gestured at Jones who was wearing all this hand-pounded silver jewelry...”Silver bells is waiting for you...”

Then, he was gone...

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP to SPOT Monty at CS. He spars like he’s in the ring or shadow boxing. After a moment, sweating and trying to catch his breath, he stops and picks up the telephone and dials operator. He’s having trouble because he’s pretty stoned on alcohol, pills and weed. A beat, then: 38

Operator. What about my call to New York? All right, just keep trying.

(He hangs up in frustration, grabs a bottle of scotch, takes a drink from it, them moves to where the bugle lies. He touches the bugle for a moment, places it down next to an open script. He picks up a pencil, begins making notes on the script, then reading words aloud in a husky, hesitant voice-- )

"... Just because you love something..."

He stops, changes his emphasis—

”Just because... you... love... something...” Shakes his head, frustrated.

... “Just... because you love something... something... SOMETHING!”

(He rubs his face, pounds the desk slowly. PHONE RINGS. He snatches it up quickly. He grabs some pills with his other hand, washing them down with scotch as he talks drunkenly on the phone)

Listen, Libby, it’s in the fucking script –

Prew's father beat him, didn't give a shit about him...

-- no, no, listen, he loved his old man anyway... that's why he joined the army... respectable, see, make his dad accept him...

(Monty is totally stoned, drops the phone, grabs the bottle, falls to the floor, rolling on the floor with the bottle, smashing into furniture, grabbing for the bugle. He puts it to his lips and blows a few gurgling notes. Then, he struggles to his feet, moves to the window, yanks it open and begins blowing the bugle out the window.

Monty stops playing the bugle, turns slowly toward the audience, fully in control now, grins mischievously)

Yeah, that’s just a bit of what I went through playing “Hewitt” in From Here to Eternity.

I had no idea then that my own life, my real life was about to make some turns that would come close to destroying me.

BLACKOUT 39

SHAFT OF LIGHT ON THE SCREEN where we can see some close- up still shots of the actor, Kevin McCarthy. Now, Monty’s VOICE in the darkness.

Some people say the film close-up is the soul of cinema, that it transfigures man. They say the spirit is visible on screen...

LIGHT COMES UP on Monty at the edge of the stage drinking scotch and lighting a regular cigarette that he regards with some disdain. He talks as if he has been drinking heavily. He gets progressively drunker throughout the following scene.

Ran out of grass. Hate these things. Regular cigarettes make me cough.

(Coughs, Gestures toward the screen)

Kevin McCarthy was one of my closest friends during my first years in Hollywood. We met at the Actor’s Studio.

He was handsome, chisel-jawed, played Biff in the film version of Death of a Salesman.

I really loved Kevin and his wife, Augusta. Called her “Gussie” for short. They were gregarious, carefree, a perfect foil for my moodiness and precision.

We were always on the same wavelength, never at a loss for anything to say, so comfortable with each other.

I look back on that time, the summer of ’42 in Wellfleet, as the most joyous of my life. We laughed constantly.

By the time we got back to New York, our relationship had deepened and stories began circulating that we were a ménage a trois.

(Takes a slug of scotch)

Fact is, we never went to bed together, even though we were very physical and very sexual that summer. 40

It was an innocent kind of sexuality if you know what I mean – roughhousing, hugging and kissing –

Doesn’t mean I didn’t really love Gussie and would have married her anytime if she hadn’t been married to Kevin.

But I would never have betrayed the friendship Kevin and I had. Stealing another man’s wife is a despicable act.

Hell, Kevin was a normal guy and could get fucking jealous on occasion.

(Laughs)

I do remember the time we were out dancing and I had Gussie in my arms and we were floating around.

I’d had a few drinks and my hand slipped down onto her butt.

About a minute or so later, Kevin walked over and addressed me rather coldly: “Get your hands off my wife’s ass.”

Truth is, I had fallen in love with Kevin.

He was the love of my life. I guess I was the kind of guy who if I wanted to make love to Kevin I would make love to Augusta in the hopes that the message would get through to Kevin.

Guess that’s the kind of hairpin I am.

(Downs another slug of scotch)

You know what they used to say about me...

“He’s one of Hollywood’s most unusual personalities...a strange young man whom no one really knows...not even his closest friends…”

And if my closest friends didn’t know, what they would learn was that being close to someone of “questionable sexuality” could damage them, too.

The pressure on them often became too much to bear. 41

(Photos of Henry Hathaway on the SCREEN)

As for Kevin, it happened in Henry Hathaway’s office at Twentieth Century Fox on 5th Ave. Hathaway was a tough, brilliant “man’s man” kind of director known for John Wayne and Steve McQueen westerns.

He told Kevin in no uncertain terms that he’d better stop “shackin’ up with me,” that everybody’s been talking about it.

“Do yourself a favor,” said Hathaway “and lose that guy.”

Well, of course Kevin was stunned and claimed he didn’t even know I was a homosexual.

Here he was with a life to think about and a career to think about.

Even Kevin’s claim not to know I was gay was met with reproach for not having his eyes open.

(Drinks again)

Well, regardless of whether the rumor of homosexuality was sufficient to spur my friends to avoid me, my alcoholism and drug use gave those around me numerous excuses to give me plenty of room.

Kevin and Gussie banned me from their home around this time because they felt I had bad balance and bad judgment when I drink. They thought I might hurt their kids.

Actually, I did drop one of them.

(Photos of Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne on the screen)

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne gave me my first break on Broadway back in 1940 in There shall be no night.. They had treated me like I was a son, but they completely broke with me after I got drunk in Paris where I was filming The Young Lions.

(Acts it out, takes another drink, getting drunker) 42

I accidentally collapsed against Alfred in an elevator.

I guess my slurred apologies only further disgusted the great Lunt who couldn’t tolerate actors who drink too much.

I had become a problem they couldn’t handle.

Well, I guess I began drinking pretty early in my career, but I never let people know about it until after the accident.

What accident? Hey, I’ll tell you about that later. But I would have been Jimmy Dean if I’d died then.

Hollywood is full of people who would trade their lives in a heartbeat just to be legends.

Would have traded mine in a heartbeat not to go through the next nine years.

(A beat, then:)

One of the first films I made where my drinking contributed to a little tension between the director and the star, which was me, was I Confess.

(Drinks more, begins to stagger)

Alfred Hitchcock was a pig.

Sorry, but it’s true. He was a fucking pig. He treated me... like shit through the whole shoot...Thought I was a “method” actor...and neurotic to boot... found subtle ways to express his hostility.

Anne Baxter was there... She knows...and she was sympathetic...

The fucker shut me out, never talked to me... had his AD handle everything.

They all spoke French or German to try and isolate me... But I’m fucking bi- lingual and understood... everything the cocksuckers said. 43

But at the wrap party... Hitch goaded me into drinking...until I...I...passed out...

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP ON Monty sitting on the edge of the stage. PROJECTED ON THE SCREEN is a STILL SHOT of the real Hedda Hopper wearing one of her flamboyant and ostentatious flowered hats.

I was still drunk when I met the very next day with the gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper, at the Brown Derby and she started blowing smoke up my ass about From here to Eternity.

She was a fleshy-faced woman with a sultry voice.

First thing she asks me is, “In one sentence, what is the story of your life?”

All I could think of was, I’ve been knifed.

She didn’t even blink at that.

She asked me what I was going to do now that I’d finished From Here to Eternity.

I told her I was going to lie on the beach and grovel in the sand.

I seem to remember her asking me what other professions I’d like to go into, and I answered...Bartending...Always do what you know...

I think the last thing I said to her I whispered in her ear on my way out...I think your hat has the clap...

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP on Monty sitting at a small table with two beer bottles as he stares up at the large SCREEN on which we can see various still and moving film of Fire Island.

Fire Island is the large center island off the south shore of Long Island, New York. Lots of gays hang out in clubs and bars in hamlets like Cherry Grove. 44

So here we are, the Carpenter and me, sitting in this beachfront bamboo and stick-built bungalow bar, getting very plastered as we always did.

That’s the owner over there. His name is Menace. I didn’t know quite then how well that name suited him. He’s a three-hundred pound Irishman with a jovial face and warm eyes.

Around us are other tables with young men laughing, drinking, enjoying themselves.

(Acts out talking to David)

I missed you, carpenter...

Yeah, I know you missed me, too.

Then why didn’t you return my calls?

So? So your dreams are building wooden ships. Okay, okay, Hollywood parties are not your thing. Life’s too big for you. I get it.

Right about this moment, as David and I are doing our usual dance, five young straight toughs, fresh on the island, enter the bar. They are half lit, carrying beer bottles, and looking for trouble.

Their leering faces take in the group around us. As they move into the shack, they are exuding machismo, laugh derisively and do a couple of limp wrist characterizations. One of the toughs speaks with a lisp.

(Monty lisps as he imitates the tough)

“Sssssay, aren’t we a lovely group?”

But Menace, the bartender intervenes, warning the tough guys.

(Monty imitates the bartender, deep voice, lumbering walk) 45

“Leave my boys alone. Get on the ferry and go back. You don’t belong here.”

The toughs guffaw with disdain, whoop and whistle wildly.

(Monty puts his fingers to his teeth and whistles loudly, then imitates a second tough)

“Listen to the fat queen. Goddam place is fag hollow.”

So then a third tough guy moves forward with a beer bottle sticking out of his crotch.

(Monty imitates the tough with a bottle he takes from the table)

“Hey, how’d you like to have this up your ass?”

Menace, the bartender, moves his big frame forward.

(Monty lumbers like the bartender, imitates him)

“You better get out of here, buster. These boys are in good shape. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Well, fuck, these guys are just getting started. They aren’t going to take any shit from us. So the first tough guy shatters his beer bottle then sticks the glassy ragged end in David’s face.

(Monty shatters the beer bottle, imitates the first tough)

“You like suckin’ cock? You like to suck this?”

Well, the other toughs rock with laughter. But David just confronts the guy with eyes cold, hard as hobnails and just a tiny sneering smile.

(Imitates David confronting the tough)

“Let’s see if you’ve got glass nuts to match.” 46

(Acting it out)

Monty’s foot comes up in a sudden violent thrust as he imitates what David did in the bar. He jams a hard kick into the man’s groin.

Well, I don’t suppose I have to give you all the gory details of just what happened next, but David’s kick into that guy’s nuts shattered the glass bottle and sent the man into a spasm of agony.

The other toughs reacted in fury while the pretty strong-looking gays in the bar moved to meet violence with violence, both groups battering at each other brutally.

I must confess that, being a peace-loving person myself, I did not join in the melee. Right at the beginning I was slammed backward, the breath knocked out of me, so I hung out in a dark corner and left the fighting to David and the others who were more than capable.

The carpenter took on a couple of guys, knocking one of them down with a vicious left, then the other with a follow-up blow.

Menace, the bartender was like a huge battering ram, smashing faces and bodies.

It all happened so fast that those toughs were wiped out before they knew what happened, their unconscious bodies crumpled up here and there.

I remember that David came up behind me, put his arm around my shoulder gently and comfortingly. I grinned at him and mumbled something like –

Another sunny, horrible day.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP on SL as Monty staggers out into the light, terrified as if someone is after him.

He’s trying to kill me! Stop him, somebody! Help me! Help me! No! No! Michael! David! Somebody help! 47

(Monty grabs the phone and starts to dial frantically, can’t seem to get the number, turns to see something in the dark approaching him, screams in abject fear)

BLACKOUT

In the darkness we can HEAR a PHONE RINGING. Then LIGHTS COME UP to reveal Monty sitting in a big chair SL. He talks to the audience as phone CONTINUES to ring.

It was around early 1954 and this young very talented photographer calls me – His name is Blaine Waller – I’d gotten him a job at the agency, MCA, and he’d been showing his gratitude ever since by reminding me of film screenings –

I was getting heavier into booze and pills and tended to forget a lot of things --

(Answers phone)

Hello? Yeah, hi, Blaine – What? A special assembly screening of “Guys and Dolls?” Oh yeah, I forgot about it -- Hey, that’s great. I’m dying to hear Marlon and Sinatra try and sing together, it oughta be a gas. Okay, pick me up about six.

Well, he picks me up at my duplex and I’m kind of smashed as usual. Not too smashed, just in a good mood.

We take a cab to Loews theatre on 86th Street. The place is jammed with studio people.

Some bigwig is guarding the box office waiting to pass us in. We’re given the VIP treatment, roped off seats, the whole bit.

(Monty acts out moving to seats in a theatre and sitting down as the LIGHTS DIM and a middle section of “Guys and Dolls” plays on the large screen) 48

But the picture turns out to be awful. I can’t help myself, I’d had some booze and I can’t stop my mouth sometimes.

I start making loud derogatory remarks: “Oh no, that’s terrible.” “Marlon is vomitable – oh, look at poor Frank!”

I get so noisy the studio people in the audience are shushing me.

Finally, in the middle of it, I say “this picture stinks, let’s get out of here.”

(Monty acts out leaving the seats and moving to a LIGHTED AREA SR where we can see a glass protected lobby poster of Guys and Dolls hanging. It has a large sticker on it that reads: SPECIAL SCREENING – By invitation only)

So we hustle down the stairs. By the time we reach the lobby I’m still railing against Hollywood corruption and lousy values.

Hey, I was fucking steamed up.

(Monty acts out smashing the glass-protected poster)

I smash my fist into one of those display cases where, you know, they kept some early pre-release glossy stills of Brando, Sinatra and Jean Simmons.

Glass shatters everywhere. Ushers come running up. They were really pissed at first, then they recognized me and were kind of stunned.

I go contrite, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what possessed me. I’ll pay for everything.”

Then, with my fist bleeding, I charge out of the theatre and start running up Third Avenue –

(Monty runs down off the stage into the house aisle, laughing and hooting madly)

--running like a jackrabbit and screaming with laughter – I think I must have run for blocks before Blaine told me to stop or he’d bust a gut -- 49

BLACKOUT

(In the dark we can HEAR the VOICE OF AN Academy Awards presenter for the 1953 awards on TV)

PRESENTER’S VOICE …And for the best supporting actor, the winner is Frank Sinatra in “From Here to Eternity!”

Now, we HEAR Frank Sinatra SINGING “I’ve got the world on a string, sittin’ on a rainbow…”

LIGHTS COME UP to reveal Monty pretty well stoned, in a lighted area, wearing a kitchen apron and breaking eggs into a bowl preparing them for an omelete. As usual he is a little smashed.

You did it, you did it, Frankie boy, now say one for old Montgomery!

(To the invisible Marlon, showing him)

Marlon, Did you see this lighter Frank gave me for Christmas?

Look, he inscribed it, “Merry, merry, buddy boy. I’m with you all the way.” He signed it, “Maggio.” That’s what he called me through the whole picture, “Buddy boy.”

(Imitating Marlon)

I seen it a hundred times, “buddy boy.” Where do you keep the fuckin’ oregano?

(Own voice, points)

There, over there in the cupboard. Right in front of your stupid face.

(Acts out breaking eggs somewhat drunkenly) 50

I break the eggs into a bowl and kind of miss because I’m distracted by Libby who has cornered David and I can see the carpenter is getting glassy- eyed.

What did she say to him? Oh yeah.

(Imitates Libby)

“You know, David, there are boys in New York whose lovers die of drugs, and give their dead lover’s clothes to their new lovers without a second thought. Doesn’t that sound ghoulish to you?”

(Back to his voice)

Jesus, Libby. Give him a break.

Then, I turn to Marlon.

I appreciate your coming over, Marlon. I just couldn’t go there all gussied up and sitting there for hours waiting. I couldn’t do it. Think I’ll win?

(Imitating Marlon)

How the fuck should I know? I didn’t see the picture. I hate Burt Lancaster.

(His own voice)

You saw it! You saw it! You told me you saw it. You’re just still pissed at me because I smashed that fuckin’ poster!

(Imitates Marlon)

It was all that shit you yelled at the screen! It was a rough cut an’ you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, let the studio people make their own decisions! You made ‘em think twice –

(His own voice)

Fuck you. Wasn’t me. 51

(Imitating Marlon)

Yeah, it was you! Now, they’ve held up the fuckin’ release date, probably won’t come out for a year!

(His own voice)

Hey, I was watching the picture...and all I saw was this...this big...fat ass!

(Imitates Marlon)

So I put on some weight – where’s the linguini? It was my first musical. What did ya think of my performance?

(His own voice)

I don’t know. I couldn’t see it. Your ass got in the way. Ha ha!

He didn’t even hear that. His head is in the cupboard.

I turn around now and rescue David from Libby.

Jesus H. Christ, carpenter, I say as I pull him into the kitchen, when are you going to knock down this wall like you promised?

It’s just then that the doorbell rings –

(SOUND of DOORBELL ringing. Monty acts out going to the door, opening it, reacting to the visitor with surprise and drunken dismay. ON SCREEN are pictures of Sunny, Monty’s mother)

Yeah, it’s Maw. Sunny sweeps in, her face radiant as usual.

I say, Hey Maw, what’re you doing here? I didn’t expect you. I’ll make a bigger omelete.

But she says she isn’t staying, that she just dropped by for a moment. That’s weird, isn’t it? Oscar night and she drops by. 52

Of course, being the stoned and weak little piss ant that I am, I insist, Listen, you have to stay, the Awards are on and I’m making an omelete for everybody.

(Monty turns to the group)

Hey, you all know my Maw –

Sunny nods around, regards Libby with disdain.

Then, she says, “Monty I really appreciate your invitation, but I have to get back –“

But don’t you want to see me win?

She sashays toward the mantel with that same shit-eating grin on her face. She says I can tell her all about it tomorrow.

Tomorrow! I can tell her about the awards tomorrow!

She just came by to pick up the clock she loaned me for my apartment.

I react with growing dismay and indignation. She drops by on Oscar night to take back her fucking clock! I go ballistic.

The clock? The antique clock? Maw, you gave me that!

But she is firm in her conviction that she loaned it to me, that it was a precious heirloom that belonged to my father, Woodbury Blair, and came from the family estate in Maryland –

Ye Gods, Maw, I scream, as a pile of resentments from years past seem to rise in my gorge, you gave me the fucking clock – Now, you walk in here and want to take it back -- !

By now everybody in the room is watching our little family squabble.

“Monty, please, let’s not argue in front of your guests.” 53

(Himself)

But I’m really pissed and stoned to boot. I’m on a roll.

Maw, I can’t believe this! I get bills from Paw saying I got to pay him for all the money he put out raising me, my education, food, every fucking thing, and now you come in and want to take my furniture back -- !

“Monty, you do have a way of distorting things when you drink.”

(Himself, as he throws the bowl of eggs he has been holding, smashing it against the wall)

I’ll pay him back every cent he laid out for me, I swear it, every penny -- !

I’m freaked out with Maw, but I don’t care. Somehow, with the help of the booze and grass and various other self-help items, I had managed to stand up to her.

But do you think it had any effect on her whatsoever?

Not Maw. Not Sunny.

Her face still like her name, unruffled, she moves to pick up the antique clock on the mantel.

It’s just at this moment that, on the TV set, the award for the best actor of 1953 is being announced.

Marlon shushes the room as everybody turns to the TV set. I slump down on the floor near the mantel, my bleary eyes riveted on the TV.

The presenter reads from the card in the envelope.

“William Holden for Stalag 17” 54

There is sudden silence in the room. Marlon snaps off the set. There is a moment, then I feel Maw’s hand stroking my hair soothingly.

I glance slowly up at her, tears welling up in my eyes, my trembling lips just managing to form the words.

I say, Maw...take the clock...I don’t deserve it...

But Maw places the antique clock back on the mantel, regarding me with uncharacteristic sadness.

She says she has something at home she’s going to give me. It’s a Union army bracelet that belonged to my grandfather, Colonel Robert Anderson...

(We can HEAR the muffled rising sounds of the Civil War, drums, cannon, and the distant strains of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”)

His brilliant and heroic defense of Charleston Fort, she reminds me for the umpteenth time, marked the beginning of the Civil War.

“He wasn’t a quitter, Monty,” she says softly, “and neither are you.”

It was one of those rare moments with Maw that I won’t forget.

That’s the kind of hairpin I am.

BLACKOUT

(LIGHTS COME UP and bathe Monty in kind of a pink glow as he stands CS. The SOUNDS and MUSIC of the Civil WAR CONTINUE, he acts out the following)

I had this dream.

I was dressed all in pink, high collar, lace cuffs, broad-brimmed hat, elegant and beautiful as the idealistic Yankee schoolteacher in “Raintree County”, Johnny Shawnessy. 55

(We see ON THE SCREEN what he holding in his hand, THE UNION AMRY BRACELET that his mother has given him)

I looked at that bracelet for a long time – then I was wandering across the lot, everything looking misty and obscure, as if I had been drawn back by that bracelet into the past of the actual setting of the film, the lot, the props, the sets rising up around me like another reality –

The old south mixed in contrast with the reality of the present.

Film labs, fire department, warehouses, suddenly became rolling lawns, murky swamps, burning Atlanta –

(We HEAR THE SOUNDS as Monty talks about them)

I was enveloped by the dream, the illusions taking hold – the sounds of the Civil War somewhere in my mind – the booming cannon, the wild neighing of horses in battle –

I could see a white-columned Mini-Tara looming ahead of me, nestled in trees hung with Spanish moss – and that voice in my mind –

(Imitates his mother’s voice, looks at the bracelet)

“You come from proud, sensitive, cultured people, Monty...you’re a thoroughbred like the Andersons and the Blairs...”

(His own voice again)

I walked up the steps of the huge antebellum house toward the front door.

(Imitates his mother’s voice)

“...They weren’t quitters and neither are you...whatever you try to be, your mother knows what you really are...”

(His own voice again) 56

My hand reached out and opened the door, fully expecting to see the great entranceway inside, the ballroom, the crystal chandeliers – but there was nothing but the façade of a mansion –

It was only a studio front to a building with nothing beyond the door but a raw wood framework holding it up, nothing beyond the door but rubble, broken and faded props.

I stood there, staring at it, all part of a phony illusion like the life I’d created for myself.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP ON Monty lying on the sofa. He stirs as if recovering from a night of binge drinking. He struggles to sit up, looks around him as if he is in a different place than his own townhouse. On THE SCREEN, as Monty mentions them, we see stills of Kevin McCarthy, Rock Hudson, Roddy McDowell, Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Wilding, SHOTS from the film Ivanhoe, and the Plaza Hotel.

Where the fuck am I? Oh, yeah, now I remember. That night, that terrible night.

It started out okay. Just a simple, staid dinner party at the Wildings. Kevin McCarthy was there, and Rock Hudson, and some others.

I had arrived pretty sober, drank only a few half-glasses of wine the whole evening.

But sometime later I went to the bathroom and took a couple of “downers.”

I’d been having a lot of trouble sleeping. Thought they might help me later.

Bessie had met Michael Wilding in London when she was filming Ivanhoe. He was old enough to be her father, but she kept saying she had fallen madly in love with him.

She was staying at the Plaza. She phoned me and begged me to reconsider marrying her before Wilding arrived in New York. 57

I tried to be sweet with her, but I was pretty definite that I couldn’t do it.

Not long after Bessie found out she’d have to do re-takes of Ivanhoe in Hollywood. When she told the Plaza she had to leave they sent her a bill for $2500.

She’d thought her whole stay was complimentary, but the management said no way.

So she threw pretty much one of her old tantrums and called me, complaining about what they had done to her.

I rushed over with Roddy McDowell and the three of us got plastered on martinis.

We rampaged around the hotel room hanging pictures upside down, unscrewing all the bathroom fixtures, strewing toilet paper all over.

After that, we started dueling with this huge bunch of chrysanthemums. We left yellow petals all over the carpet.

I grabbed myself some Plaza Hotel embossed towels that I set out in my apartment every time Bessie came over.

The whole thing was blown up in the papers.

Wilding flew back to New York and we kept up this competition with Elizabeth. I was loving and protective, but the fact is, nobody knows Bessie Mae like I do.

But she married Wilding and I began hating living by myself.

We seemed exceptionally close that night before it happened.

I remember we were lying on the floor of the living room on a big furry rug, my head cradled in her lap.

Don’t know where Michael was, probably in the kitchen eating. 58

Bessie Mae, in her usual right-to-the-point way said, “...talk to me, Monty...I’m miserable, you’re miserable...Want to pool depressions?”

God love her, she’s a humorist, I said dumbly.

She said something like, “Don’t make fun of me. You don’t think I know I’m a treasured, valuable joke...”

Well, I came back with something really profound like, That’s shit, Bessie.

Then, I turned to look at her and tried to improve on that, You got the toughest of breaks, an overload of perfection...

Your face is so visible in this world people don’t want to hear about reason and talent and effort.

I sensed that I might be helping and went on, I can’t be too soft on you...you mean too much to me. You’ve got the world on a string, but it keeps breaking.

Her face really darkened and she started talking about the fact that her marriage was over and she felt so bad about what this was doing to her kids.

I just shook my head and tried a little bit of a different tack.

We’re all cursed, I offered cynically, But it’s a new day tomorrow. Plenty of time to fuck up our lives even more.

Her face turned even more glum as she contemplated that. “God, that’s so true. I’m not finished with marriage...I know it...”

I felt helpless because I couldn’t seem to find any words to make a difference and I felt tired, so very tired...

The last thing I recall her saying was, “Thank you, thank you, for all the fun...and help. I can’t remember a damn thing you said, but I’ve never loved you more.”

(A beat, Monty turns to the audience) 59

Sorry for wandering off, but that night kind of split my life in half, the half before it happened and the half that came after.

It was a little after midnight and Kevin said he was leaving, had to catch a plane in the morning. I came out to see him off and we talked for a minute, about some great times and Hollywood in general.

For an instant, there was a surge of the old friendship between Kevin and me.

Shortly after, I was saying goodbye to the Wildings and hurrying after Kevin who was in the parking area and just about to take off.

I told him I didn’t know how the hell to get home from here. Benedict Canyon roads are dark and narrow, and I wasn’t sure I could find my way down the curvy road.

Kevin volunteered to lead the way downhill until we reached Sunset Blvd where I could go on by myself.

He asked me if I was all right to drive and I assured him I was.

(ON SCREEN we see two cars at night moving away from a mansion and heading down a curved driveway to the narrow Benedict Canyon- style road. We CONTINUE to follow on screen the route of the two cars and the weaving back and forth)

So, we started down the hill and I kept my eyes riveted on his taillights as he braked for sharp curves and they went on and off.

I can’t remember much except that Kevin’s car seemed to be weaving back and forth in a strange way, and his taillights kept blurring, and I had to stretch my eyes to keep them open.

All I know after that is what I heard from Kevin later when I had recovered somewhat.

He said “We started down the hill and all of a sudden Monty was coming up very fast behind me. 60

We were approaching the first turn in the road and it was very sharp.”

He didn’t know why I was coming up behind him so fast. At the time he thought it was a prank, since he knew I loved to pull things like that.

My lights were getting brighter and he thought I was going to hit him, and I was going to go right through the house that was on the hill just beyond the turn and off the cliff!

He turned quickly. He said he thought to himself that I’d have to put on my brakes or I’d go right into the fence in front of the house.

Guess I did hit my brakes. At least that was what Kevin assumed.

“Wow!” he says he thought, “that was close.” He wished I’d stop playing around.

At the next turn he figured that I’d had it and wasn’t going to get involved in the game anymore.

He said, he was probably down the road about a hundred yards ahead of me when he saw my lights swaying erratically from side to side, like a dangling lantern, in his rear-view mirror.

(ON SCREEN we can see the action as it enfolds. Lights grow darker, FLICKERING, and Monty lies on the sofa in a crumpled position like he was in the car. We can HEAR THE SOUND OF A CAR ENGINE)

Suddenly, my car just wasn’t there anymore. He couldn’t see it at all in his mirror. He still thought I was playing a game.

He waited and waited for me up on the road, thought maybe I got stuck with a wheel in soft ground.

He could still hear the roar of my motor.

Finally, Kevin jumped out of his car, ran back up there, and saw that I had smashed into a cliff and the motor was still running. He says he couldn’t imagine how it happened. 61

Obviously I had taken the turn too wide, or didn’t see it, and scraped the cliff on one side of the road.

My car must have veered, gone over onto the other side, crashed into a telephone pole, rebounded, then smashed into the cliff again.

He was sure that’s why he kept seeing my lights swaying back and forth like that in the rear-view mirror.

The motor was making a horrendous noise and Kevin was afraid my car would catch fire, so he reached in and turned off the ignition.

(The engine sound stops)

He couldn’t see any sign of me and he says he thought, “Holy shit! He’s been thrown out of the car!”

It was dark as hell. Kevin couldn’t see anything.

Quickly, he turned his car around and shone his lights into my car and saw that I had been in the car all the time...under the dashboard.

(A stream of light ON MONTY AS HE LIES CRUMPLED ON THE SOFA)

That’s why the motor was running. My ass was squashed on the accelerator. Gas was leaking. The car could have gone up in flames.

Kevin thought I was dead. He thought I was gone. He said later, “You’ve never seen such a mess. Blood was all over the place.”

He didn’t try to move me. Everything might have been broken, my neck, my back. From what he could see in the light from my car, it looked like my whole head had been pulled apart.

He says he was frantic...it was horrifying. He remembers thinking, ”It’s all over...Raintree’s over!” 62

Kevin says he was confused at this point. He didn’t want to leave me, because if a car came down the road fast it might hit me, and if I was alive I’d be hit again.

He says he went across to one of those unfinished houses, wondering if somebody might be there...a caretaker, a phone or something. But there was no one –

So he quickly drove back up the road to the Wilding house and when Mike came to the door, Kevin was shaking –

“Monty’s had a terrible accident. He hit a telephone pole.”

“Oh, shut up, Kevin!” Wilding laughed.

He really believed Kevin has come back to play some sick joke.

Then Mike could see, after a few seconds, that Kevin was not play-acting. He was shaking so badly that his words weren’t coming out properly.

Elizabeth came to the door. She didn’t understand what Kevin was saying at first, but then she distinctly heard:

“Monty’s dead. I think he’s dead.”

Elizabeth rushed out the door. Wilding told the others what had happened and left them to call the police.

Elizabeth, Michael and Rock Hudson followed Kevin’s car down to the accident site and flooded their headlights on my wrecked car.

Bessie leaped from her car and made her way to me, from what I heard after. Kevin and Rock helped her into the rear of the car.

She found me and cradled my head in her lap just as we had been inside the house.

But now blood was running all over her dress and she was sobbing. 63

Then, the vultures were arriving, the photographers who saw a bonanza here with the movie stars and me smashed up in my car.

But Bessie screamed at them,

“If you dare take one photograph of him like this, I’ll never let one of you near me again.”

I never heard that, but they told me later what she said and that the cameras all came down.

What I do remember is when I seemed to come to and I was in shock, somebody was giving me something for pain.

Bessie was there and she wiped the blood off my mangled face that was now a mass of fat, swelling pulp.

But I was surprisingly clear-headed. A tooth was hanging by a tiny bit of flesh and I asked Bessie to pull it out, which she did, trying not to get sick.

I managed to mumble to her, Save it for me. I may need it later.

Then, I remember I kind of got panicked and started thinking about the film, I’ve got to be at the studio...

But I heard Bessie say, “Don’t worry about the studio, we’ll shoot something else.”

All I remember next was white light, the hospital, pain like nothing I’d ever suffered before. I was wrapped in bandages and I was going in and out of consciousness.

I couldn’t see much of anything, but later a doctor told me my face was swollen and I had numerous cuts, especially under my eyes; my lips had been lacerated badly, and a hole was gouged right through the middle of my upper lip –

-- two front teeth had been knocked down my throat; my jaw was broken in four separate places, my nose broken in two, and one whole upper cheekbone had cracks running into the sinus area. 64

SLOW BLACKOUT

LIGHT COMES slowly up ON MONTY as he sits slowly up on the edge of the sofa holding his face in his hands.

Now, there seemed to be an eternal period of light and darkness where my thoughts intermingled with words from people who came to see me and I only heard bits and pieces of what they said.

My face...Jesus, what have I done to my face?

A voice, I seemed to recognize it. Was it Libby Holman? I wasn’t sure.

(Imitates Libby Holman)

“I see pain in your eyes, Monty, dearest...the kind they can’t deaden...”

(His own voice)

Libby? Is that you? I struggled to respond but I couldn’t. What is she saying? I can’t make it out?

(Imitates Libby)

“I’ll be here, Monty, always be here...”

Then, through patterns of light and color I thought I saw my Paw standing looking down at me, his face reflecting his own inner torment and, even now, he couldn’t seem to hold back the bitter grievances –

(Imitates Bill Clift)

“I’m human too, Monty. A father. A person. I have needs too...”

(His own voice)

Dad...can’t talk...my jaw...it’s wired shut...I just wanted your approval... 65

(Imitates Bill Clift)

“Maybe you don’t care what people say, but I do...You reject everything, convention, pride...I have respect among my friends and you rip it apart with your disdain...”

(His own voice)

I tried to be worthy, Paw...but something in me...well, I wanted to tell you that I loved you...but I just couldn’t...

Then, his face kind of merged into someone else. It was David, the carpenter...I know it was David. I wanted to reach out, to touch him, but I couldn’t.

(Imitates David)

“Get well, Monty...I’ll be waiting for you...”

(His own voice)

Don’t go...please don’t go...not yet, David...

(Monty struggles up on the sofa as if he is getting out of a hospital bed, hands bruised, reaching out, trembling, gasping. He acts out in the following way)

I had to get up, something driving me to get up –

I twisted up into a sitting position – managed to strip the tape and the IV needle from my arm –

I could hear a faint whispering just outside my room and I had to hear what they were saying – I had to – and I had to see my face – reflected in the glass partition –

As I got closer I could hear a voice – an MGM executive – don’t know which one it was – didn’t care – just heard him talking to a doctor, I think... 66

“Look, we don’t want to appear callous, but our difficulty is time. I mean, literally millions of dollars are hanging in the balance...”

(Monty stares at what appears to be himself in a glass reflection and he gasps in horror and touches at his face)

Oh, my God...! God...!

BLACKOUT

(LIGHTS COME UP SLOWLY on Monty sitting CS with his face in shadow. SLOWLY, HE SEEMS TO BE AWARE OF SOMEONE)

It was really the first time I looked...really looked...at my face.

It’s not that bad...I can still work...

Yes, David, I know...I was fucking it up before the accident...I know they have insurance on the picture and they wouldn’t lose anything if I bailed out...but I can’t do that...

I committed to Raintree...and they said they could shoot one side of my face...

(After a beat)

Wish I could make you understand how I feel about acting. Not filming, not making money, not being recognized...just the simple task of acting...

Yes, you do have to understand. It’s like bringing another person to life over and over again. I’ve gone from one person to being a crowd.

I know people get lost in crowds, but not me. When I act, it’s the only time I ever matter.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME BACK UP with Monty at the bar pouring himself a stiff drink. He is on the PHONE WITH MICHAEL. He still manages to keep one side of his face in shadow. 67

It’s so good to talk to you, Michael. What? David? The carpenter? Oh, when he gets restless, he goes out and attacks things with his chainsaw. Me? Just having a little drink. Salud.

(Laughs, drinks)

Hey, Michael, remember that burlesque house in Jersey? We were what, seventeen? God, remember the way the girls used to grab those dollar bills with their cunts? Do they still have shows like that?

(Holds phone and talks to audience)

He’s telling me they have better ones. He wants me to go and maybe get laid –

(Back into the phone)

Miguel, are you still on some kind of salvation kick?

I’ve heard all of your middleclass bullshit, Michael –

(To the audience)

Now, he’s changing the subject, telling me he went to the Fox office here in New York to talk about Samuels’ new picture –

So? Did you get the job?

He what? Warned you to stay away from me? You’re kidding. Stories about us? You and me and Annie, a threesome? A ‘menage a trois.? That’s a laugh.

Uh huh, and what did you say to Samuels?

You said it was a lie? But you took the part. 68

Yeah, yeah, I know you haven’t worked in months. Did you tell him you’d stay away from me? No? Well, did you tell him you wouldn’t?

So then you took a dollar bill with your cunt.

You’re what? You and Annie? You’re getting married? Well, congratulations, and lots of luck with that.

(Monty hangs up the phone. THE SOUND OF CHURCH BELLS and on the screen we can see the church wedding with all the outdoor trimmings, the people, the bride and groom, the rice throwing)

I was across the street slumped inside a somewhat battered Pontiac. It was an automobile that had seen many seasons without the benefit of a bath.

I was pretty much the same, unbathed, disheveled and shaken.

Both my hands were on the steering wheel for support. I watched the entire proceedings across the street, unnoticed.

It was a single occasion, so wanted, so desired, but totally unavailable to me.

I started the car’s ignition. I didn’t want to see any more.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP on Monty seated at an exquisite white lacquered baby grand piano SL. He is drinking scotch, swallowing pills, smoking a joint and is half lit as he grins wryly at the audience. Monty is pecking out chords and singing a bit of “Body and Soul...” A small open suitcase sits on the piano bench next to Monty.

At thirty-four I felt like an old man. You know, there was part of me, I mean, I kind of believed in the eighteenth-century romantic’s view of life –

There were exquisite artists, Keats and Shelley who died young –the artist life, well it tends to corrupt –I mean the intensity and true life of creation and feeling, well it simply can’t survive middle age. 69

I was beginning to wonder if I would ever have a lasting relationship with anyone. I still dreamed of getting married. I was sick of the pickups, the one night stands.

I hadn’t talked to Kevin or David for quite a while.

So I drink, take pills for the pain in my face, smoke a joint now and then, spend a lot of time at Treetops, Libby Holman’s estate.

She had a piano like this one in her really huge bedroom. She used to sing “Body and Soul” a lot.

Last time I saw her pale lavender silk was draped over her emaciated body. We were a pair. Yeah, she’d sip white wine and puff an endless stream of cigarettes.

She’d gotten worse ever since her son, Topper, had died in a mountain- climbing accident.

And me? I should talk. Couldn’t wait for Bird to show up with his suitcase full of goodies. Yeah, his real name was Bird, but I called him “Doc” for obvious reasons.

(Goes through the open suitcase, bringing out bottles and boxes of various pills)

Really fascinating...I just like to look at all the containers...you know, the way they’re lined up in here...

(To the invisible Bird)

Who does the labeling, Doc?

Yeah, I know some of them don’t hang in mixtures...and you’ve got to be selective...

Hey, don’t tell me about mixtures...I could prescribe for everyone in Bellevue and never make a mistake... 70

Then, I heard from Libby who was playing melody and chords, singing at intervals, her stare fixed on a picture of her dead son, Topper...

“Get some heart-shaped orange ones, Monty...” she said, “A high to go with my low.”

I passed that on to Bird... double the orange, Doc.

Yeah, yeah, I know, not too much alcohol with these four –

I snapped the suitcase closed after I had taken what we wanted and Bird made his usual silent exit.

Then, I heard Libby murmuring something that sounded like “I just wanted to be remembered for something...anything...other than a ‘Black Widow’...”

So I reassured her that I was getting something for her that would put it all away...

I glanced at the by now possessed Libby, her left hand twisting the lavender silk covering her small breasts from right to left in anguished moves.

(Monty acts it all out)

Then, before I could get to her with the pills, she reached into her purse and pulled out a small hand gun with a mother-of-pearl handle.

Stoned as I already was I recognized danger when I saw it, and I told her to put the gun down.

She pointed to the pictures on the wall of the men in her life who were now dead, her husbands, Topper.

She said something about “This place is a mausoleum...”

“Those are the crypts,” she went on grimly, “But I don’t see your face up there, Monty...” 71

(Moves to the sofa)

I warily approached her with a lame, Give me the gun, Libby.

Then, she went ballistic, “What do you have to see, Monty? What the fuck do you have to know before you get the hell out?”

(SOUNDS OF GUNSHOTS)

All of a sudden, she begins to shoot out the faces of each picture, screaming each murder by name.

(Monty ducks as if to avoid the shots)

When she got to her dead son, Topper, she shot the picture repeatedly until it was literally blasted from its position and blown off the wall.

That’s when I lunged at her, grabbed her wrist and the gun went off again.

(SOUND of a single GUNSHOT)

I thought maybe she got me but I didn’t feel anything so I twisted her wrist back and forth, managed to wrench the gun from her clenched hand.

(Grabbing the invisible Libby)

Then, I wrapped my arms around her middle pinning both her arms to her sides and forcing her backward toward the bed.

The struggle was fierce because Libby was unrelenting. One momentous final shift of weight collapsed us on the satin covered bed.

(Collapses on the sofa as if on top of her)

I was on top of her, pinning her down with as much force as I could muster. She was screaming and sobbing through it all. I just tried to calm her.

No more, Libby, no more – 72

But Libby, her fists clenched tossed her head from side to side, her eyes closed.

“Oh God, Monty,” she cried, “just let me die...”

Me, always the practical one could only mumble something about her wrinkling the satin sheets.

But strangely enough that seemed to get her attention, suddenly calming her, and she began to laugh and laugh – and I fell off of her onto the floor –

(Monty falls off the sofa onto the floor, laughs hysterically with the memory)

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS SLOWLY COME UP with Monty sitting at a table SR. His face is dark, glancing up and around him at the people he remembers.

Well, not long after that, I remember Maw inviting David and I to dinner at Paw’s apartment.

Talk about discomfort. But I had taken enough pills to deaden the blows.

Well, Maw certainly meant well. The table was set with an elaborate arrangement of beautiful silver, crystal and an assortment of food Maw had prepared.

She was serving with that same implacable expression, while Paw sat in grim silence.

David was cool, although I knew he’d rather be anyplace else.

Maw said to David that she was glad he could come because they don’t get to see him very often.

He was very polite and called her “Mrs. Clift.”

Of course, she invited him to call her “Maw” like I did. 73

That didn’t sit too well with Paw and he said, “Oh for God’s sake, Sunny.”

Maw was unfazed and she danced into the minefield without missing a beat.

(Mimicking his mother)

“No point going on pretending, William. I always knew Monty was addicted to little boys.”

(His own voice)

Well, of course that was just too much for Bill Clift to stand.

(Imitating his father)

“I will never in my life understand how a son of mine can stoop so low.”

(His own voice)

Nothing ever rattled Sunny.

(Imitating his mother)

“More salad, David?”

(His own voice)

Naturally, all this was making David want to puke or leave. He chose the latter and said he thought he’d better be going.

But no way was I going to let him break up our nasty little moment. I told him to shut up and stay where he was.

But my effort threw my new jaw out of whack and I grabbed it as the pain shot through my head.

Of course, Maw saw that I was in pain so she asked me if I was in pain. 74

I managed to reassure her that it was just my new teeth. I said that I gave the old ones to Elizabeth Taylor and asked her to keep them for me in case I might need them again.

Maw failed to see the humor in all that and Paw just sat there with that same sullen expression.

She asked me –

(Imitating his mother)

“Are you starting another picture soon, dear?”

(His own voice)

Well, I just couldn’t resist. I was high enough and Paw was just pissed enough. I figured this just might push him over the top.

And I loved pushing Paw over the top.

So I said, As a matter of fact, I’m going to play a Jew, Noah Ackerman, in the movie, The Young Lions.

Then, I stared at Paw and really laid it on because I could see he was already reacting to what I’d said.

They picked me, I said with an assumed prideful arrogance, because I look so Jewish. Everybody thinks I’m Jewish.

I just couldn’t help it and I laughed gleefully as my father’s face darkened like a great storm. David just sank into his food.

Paw mounted to his feet in a cold fury, glaring down at me with mortal wrath.

Oh, I remember his next explosion, word for word –

(Imitating his father) 75

“Don’t see me...don’t come near me again. I want to die without you...not my funeral, in my casket...never look down on me again...”

Then, he smashed the glass in his hand on the table and stormed out of the room.

BLACKOUT

LIGHT COMES UP on Monty SL in a tiny Parisian-style dressing room. He is hovering over a small, dressing table where the usual makeup supplies and appliances can be seen ON THE SCREEN. WE CAN ALSO SEE Monty AS HE is crushing tablets into powder. He is dressed in army fatigues. There is a magazine photo of Franz Kafka taped to his dressing room mirror. We can also SEE THE PHOTO ON THE BIG SCREEN behind Monty. He has a large thermos bottle into which he is depositing the residue of the powder as he describes it. We CAN SEE THE PROCESS ON THE SCREEN.

I was as fucking high as I could get when I hit the Young Lions Paris dressing room. First thing I had to do was make up my supply, see?

It was a painfully intricate process of crushing these white tablets into a fine powder, the residue being scraped together in little mounds, then deposited into a thermos bottle that is then shaken to mix the ingredients.

(Indicates the photo of Kafka. Shakes the thermos)

You know who this is? No? Well, this bony-faced, hollow-eyed apparition is Franz Kafka, my favorite writer.

He was often fucking grotesque, but always challenging and disturbing. He once wrote, “God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.”

(Laughs drunkenly)

Looks a little like me, doesn’t he? The skeletal quality, the prominent ears.

(Monty touches his face, daubs a little makeup to emphasize the similarities, the skeletal quality, the prominent ears distended with putty behind them, the slightly altered shape of his nose. 76

Monty now lights a cigarette and places it in his mouth by folding his hand over it and placing it on his lower lip.

He then folds the thermos in the crook of his arm and turns toward the darkness beyond him.

He moves shakily into another POOL OF LIGHT where there is a single Director’s chair with the word SPIDER printed on the back.

Monty folds his body into the chair, takes a slug from the thermos, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand)

I’m on the set now, the set of The Young Lions. Marlon Brando is right over there. Look at the motherfucker. He’s got his hair blonde and crew cut, and he’s dressed in a fucking Nazi officer’s uniform. I think his role in the film is “Christian Deistl.”

Right now, he’s talking with Edward Dmytryk. He’s our mediocre fucking director.

You know what Dmytryk said about a friend of mine one time? I kid you not.

The fucker said, “Oh Jesus, look at the disgusting fag.”

Then I saw him at a cast party making love to that same fag actor.

Shit, I just left the room.

Okay, okay, but I was bi-sexual. I got two girls pregnant. I was never exclusively one thing or the other. I swung back and forth. You know, AC- DC.

Hey, I was raised in Europe. I never felt ashamed there. It was accepted.

But I never liked effeminacy. Never could figure out how some heterosexual men are so effete and some gay men so masculine. 77

Bessie got a kick out of the fact that I could show up one night at her house with a mincing chorus boy and the next with a very proper young lady.

It was like I was saying, “Look, Maw, -- I can – and I must – do both”

(Monty giggles, the whole thing a joke. He crouches in the chair, almost rolled into a ball, uses his hands almost like monkey paws, moving them awkwardly and uncertainly, with much touching of the face, lips and cheeks)

Jesus, I get a kick out of listening to Marlon.

(Imitates Marlon talking to the director)

“Look, Eddie, instead of just falling down the hill and dying face down in a puddle of water...why can’t I land...on a roll of barbed wire...and have one of the strands encircle...and cut into my forehead...like Christ’s crown of thorns?”

Dmytryk scowls but actually seems to seriously entertain the concept.

(Monty staggers a couple of feet, the LIGHT following him)

Me, I’m having none of that shit. I stagger up to them, my thermos clutched under one arm.

If he does that, I say to Dmytryk, I’m going home.

The director whines, “Now look, Monty, it has possibilities.”

But I shoot back, There’s only room for one Christ on this picture – and I’m it.

Marlon and I confront each other for a beat, then I break into a devilish grin.

It finally infects Marlon and we both break up, laughing madly.

Moments later, Marlon is doing the shot on the side of the hill.

(SOUNDS of gunfire. Monty looks up as if he is following the scene being shot))

As he comes down gunfire rings out and he stiffens, slams against the trunk of a tree. Then, he rolls down the hillside, finally landing face down in a puddle of muddy water.

He lays there for a long moment, then Dmytryk yells “Cut!”

Now, Brando lifts his head up out of the water and lets out a shrieking yell as if in severe pain.

The crew, everyone on the set react, men running to his side.

Apparently, the impact of hitting the tree has completely dislocated Marlon’s shoulder, and his arm has been welded into a straight-up position, making him look kind of like an eastern fakir.

Marlon screams again, “My Shoulder!”

The First AD hunkers down next to him and inspects the arm, holding it tightly.

He informs all of us that Marlon’s arm is dislocated and that he is going to have to wrench it back into the socket.

Marlon’s face says it all. He isn’t at all happy with the prospect, but if it is going to happen, he needs something for the coming pain.

(Monty imitates Marlon)

“Does anybody have a drink?”

Well, I move up close to Marlon and offer him my thermos.

I do, I say. Marlon winces, glancing at the thermos.

(Imitates Marlon) 79

“Shit, you’ve been telling everybody that’s fruit juice.”

It is, I confirm, mixed with bourbon and Demerol.

I just grin like a son-of-a-bitch as Marlon reacts, grabs the thermos and takes a long swig.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COME UP on Monty seated in the big chair, a newspaper in his hand, crumpled slightly. He glances up as if someone has come in the door, drinks a slug of scotch.

Well, the picture came out the following year and I kept getting worse by the minute.

Marlon came to visit me in my brownstone. His looks were kind of deceiving, the witless absence of eyebrows for a new role seemed to intensify the glare affixed on me.

Marlon seemed to be trying to infuse some perspective and reason into my already sedated brain, but my natural alarm system was in disrepair, my manner a study in controlled chaos.

I referred him to the newspaper I clutched in my hand.

Did you read Crowther?

(Quotes)

“Mr. Clift is strangely hollow and lackluster as the sensitive Jew.”

(Imitates Marlon)

Yeah, well...he can write that...what does it mean?

(His own voice) 80

Jesus, your analysis leaves me slightly wanting...you made “Christian” a fucking Nazi pacifist martyr, but he calls me “hollow.

(Monty pours himself another drink, imitates Marlon)

You compete when you’re sober enough to know what it means.

(His own voice)

I reacted to that, but I was just too stoned to talk. He went on uncharacteristically honest and generous.

(Imitates Marlon)

“When you were nominated for Place in the Sun, I hoped you wouldn’t be as good as they said you were. But you were even better. You should have won the award.”

(His own voice)

Well, that just surprised the shit out of me, and I told him the truth for a change.

Yeah? Well, I felt the same about you in “Streetcar”...but you weren’t lousy and I wasn’t surprised...I drank to that...

(Imitates Marlon)

“I wanted to be better than you...it never worked out that way. You understand, Monty? I needed your ass up there to shoot at...a reason to keep the slob’s gums bleeding. But now...can’t compete with a shadow...”

I knew what he was getting at, but I reassured him weakly.

I’m not in any trouble.

(Imitating Marlon)

“You’re right...you’re dying. Take some help, we’ll go to AA...” 81

(His own voice)

AA? Come on. I like what I’m doing.

(Imitates Marlon)

“You’re scared...to get clear. So help me God, I’ll go with you, help you dry out...”

(His own voice)

Hey, Marlon, I like you caring...really...but I’m a hundred percent...okay?

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS COMES UP on Monty sprawled on the sofa. He stretches and contracts his body, searching for non-existent comfort. He is pretty stoned as usual. He holds a small pad of paper and a pencil. Finally, he covers his face altogether with two cashmered arms.

They want me to sign this damn letter.

(Another spot of light on a chair as if someone is seated there. Monty refers to it)

Dr. William Silverberg sat in a chair nearby. He was my shrink. He was a small Jewish man with grey hair and steely eyes. Jews make the best shrinks, don’t you think? Don’t know why. Maybe it’s the chicken soup.

Okay, not funny, bordering on anti-semitic, right? But that’s the kind of hairpin I am.

He stared at me for a moment.

Then he asked me, ”What letter?”

I told you, the one about the sobriety and incoherence. 82

(Monty begins drawing on the pad of paper, a cartoonist’s speech balloon. We can see it large on the screen US. Inside the balloon is the single word, “Help”)

They’re making me responsible for any delays or expense. They say I’ve got to make this picture because if I don’t it will be attributed to my physical inability to concentrate for ten or twelve weeks – Motherfuckers don’t trust me –

(He grins wickedly at Silverberg, then he crumples up the cartoon drawing, throws it across the room. Then, his face grows reflective)

God, I miss her...

“Miss who?” asked Dr. Silverberg.

Bessie Mae...Elizabeth Taylor...she is...the woman...within me...

(Monty gets up on the sofa, stares off stage)

I love women...but I go to bed with men...

(Suddenly, aching)

Sometimes...sometimes...I don’t know which is real...the parts I play...or the life I’m living...

(Monty touches his scarred face gently)

My face...what will they think of my face...?

The giggly girls, they’ll look up at me on the big screen and they’ll whisper to a friend sitting next to them.

“Is that him?”

(LIGHT FADES OUT ON THE chair where the invisible Dr. Silverberg was sitting. The TELEPHONE RINGS. Monty downs a slug of scotch, answers it.) 83

The orphan speaking.

The voice on the other end of the phone was a filtered man’s voice, husky, filled with bitter invective.

(Imitates the voice)

“Pervert. That’s what you are. I seen you hangin’ around down on Christopher Street with all the queer boys – “

(Monty slowly puts the receiver down on the table and picks up the bugle lying there.)

The voice continued on the phone –

(Imitates the voice)

“You ought to be horsewhipped, every one of you, corrupting our kids and tearing down everything this country stands for – “

(Monty speaks calmly into the receiver)

At the tone, the time will be 3:45...

(Monty takes the bugle, places the bell right against the receiver, takes a deep breath, blasts a strident high-pitched note for about fifteen seconds right into the phone.)

The motherfucker sure didn’t like that. I could hear his voice screaming at me about his ear.

But I ripped the phone out of the wall which silenced him and I think I said something into the dead phone like, Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

The carpenter came in about this time and asked me if I had gotten another one of those calls. 84

You know what’s out there, David? America’s finest. Keepers of the public morality. They’re watching us. Keeping tabs on where we put our dicks. Very important in the next election.

(Monty dumps the phone into a very large trash bag along with other indiscriminate items, then starts rifling through the bag.)

David watched me go through the trash bag with that same worried expression on his face.

Do you know what he said? Do you know what Dr. Silverberg said? “Every day you take your trash out, but you don’t look at it.” That’s what the fucker said.

David was angry now. He said, “That shrink gives you therapeutic bullshit and a medicine cabinet full of gunpowder!”

I couldn’t even hear David at this point. I was too busy going though the trash.

I’m going to look this time, look at my trash –

David went on bitterly, “Just because some bigoted, narrow-minded redneck calls – “

I heard that through the rustling of my trash and I said, Not him. Not them.

David was on a roll, “We’ve gone over it a thousand times. You have to find a way to deal with it, come to terms with it – “

Come to terms with what? Well-formed pecs? Losing your heart and reputation? The pecs are sagging and so is the reputation.

(Monty begins pulling out trash from the bag, tossing it all over the place)

I’m looking at my trash, Dr. Silverberg! Here we go! Here it is right here, all crumpled up and dripping scum! My self-respect! 85

And look at this! Lies, deception, fraud, it’s all here! Slimy and smelling to high heaven!

David wasn’t sure what to say at this point. Something about “searching for love.”

I just rolled right over him.

I want to stop being ashamed of my life and me and who and what I am.

Accept it? I can’t! Don’t you understand? I’ll never have children. I’ll never know what it’s like to have...a daughter...tell her stories...take her for walks...do her hair...

(Monty crumples down to the floor, sobbing)

BLACKOUT

LIGHT COMES UP on Monty talking in a phone booth. He is wardrobed as “Pence Howland “and is on the set of “The Misfits.” He is in and out of the booth, dragging receiver and cord from interior to exterior, playing one of the best scenes in the script, talking now as if the conversation from the previous scene is actually being continued. On THE SCREEN we can see shots from the actual film, the beat-up pick-up truck, the horses.

...Hello, Maw...it’s me...yeah...I’m okay...I just felt like calling...I have to leave for Las Vegas...It’s a new picture...I told you, didn’t I?

Yeah, that’s the one. I play this cowpoke who’s kind of used himself up...but still has a couple of bones to break...

...Oh, no, no, no, my face is fine, all healed up, just as good as new. You would too recognize me. Oh, okay operator.

Maw, say hello to Freda for me, will you and Victoria...

(To the audience) 86

You get it? I was playing a scene right out of The Misfits. You know, with Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. I was “Pence Howland.” And I actually call “Maw” in the script.

It was weird because the words were right out of my life.

(Into the phone)

...Well, okay I’m saying it now...listen, maybe I’ll call you at Christmastime. Okay. Hello. Hello. I love you too, Maw...

(Imitates the Director, John Huston)

(His own voice, to the audience)

It was the last shot of the day and I was really tired but something else was happening...something terrible...

I went into Marilyn’s dressing room. I loved her. We had become kind of soul-mates on the picture. I knew she was taking a lot of shit, but so was I.

Then, I saw her, the grey and puffy remnant of Marilyn, cotton-blonde hair all askew, mouth slacked open, the voluptuous flagging body hanging lopped over a fallen chair.

She was gone, and soon the film was over and I was back in New York with David and I was telling him what happened.

(To David)

We had this thing between us, David...so rare...a look in her eyes...she made scenes just take off...and then when I saw her...lying there...like a piece of meat...that talent, that expressiveness, wasted...

I saw myself, David...for the first time I saw myself...what I’ve become...the tragedy of what I’ve allowed...I have to accept my life...

(Beat, to the audience, lights a joint) 87

Well, I tried hard to straighten out my life. I really did. But there were things that kept happening and I just couldn’t seem to cope.

David almost died in a fire. I found him in the building, and made my way through the smoke and flames and I found him. I dragged him out of the building and got him to the hospital.

He was lying in a bed and he looked up at me through a swath of bandages. He had been told that I got him out.

(To David)

You got shit for brains, you know?

All he could do was nod and mumble something about the fact that I had almost convinced him that his life was trash too.

Then, his words got clearer and he said, “...what you hate about it...is just what I hate...the surface flutter...the superficial...the corrupt values...but it’s there in the straight world, Monty...

I’m going to do my own thing...to hell with society...if they don’t like it...like you said once...I don’t have to be ashamed...not for all the good things...not for loving...and being loved...”

That’s when I asked him about “us”. Guess I wasn’t quite prepared for what he said next.

“We’re just not good for each other, Monty...tormented lovers never bring anybody up. They always bring you down. You always descend to their level...”

I looked at David’s burned face long and hard, the words sinking in. Then, because I was a little high on grass, I managed to wrench out that old dry humor.

(To David)

You never knocked down that fucking wall. 88

BLACKOUT

LIGHT COMES UP on Monty in the simulation of Dr. Silverberg’s office. Monty lies on the couch. He is quite stoned as usual and rattles on.

...See, there is a category of dream, Dr. Silverberg...called the vagina dentata...with the vagina as the thief...and hence the word, ‘snatch’...’cunt’...or ‘pussycat on a hot tin roof’...like a cat trying to shit on a hot tin roof...

(He laughs, then, sadly)

Why do I always have to joke? What? “Humorous denial?” Yeah, yeah, you mean I’d rather laugh than cry, right?

Yeah, yeah, that’s what Charlie Chaplin said, “Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease from pain...”

Like Greta Garbo and Monty Clift...He never won an Academy Award...

BLACKOUT

LIGHT COMES UP with Monty standing CS, his back to the audience. He turns slowly and speaks to them.

Well, I ran into Maw a short time ago and she told me that Paw’s heart was failing. In her usual “Sunny” way, she kept it simple and to the point.

“He’s going to die, Monty. The doctors say he’s going to die.”

I was shaken, disbelieving. I had seen him not too long ago and he seemed in really good health.

Maw, I complained, you didn’t call me or anything. I want to see him.

(Imitating his mother) 89

“That wouldn’t be the best thing for him, dear.”

(His own voice)

For God’s sake, Maw, you said he’s dying.

Well, she held her ground in that inimitable style of hers. She said that was the reason. She thought he should be allowed to go in peace. Nothing to disturb him.

But he was my father. I had to see him, tell him, well, I wasn’t sure what I’d tell him. I just wanted to see him before I couldn’t see him anymore.

I promised Maw that I wouldn’t bother him.

But she was adamant.

“You know how he feels about you, dear. I can’t allow it. Not now.”

(His own voice, near tears now)

Don’t do this for spite –

But she cut me off. “It’s because I love both of you, Monty. Not for any other reason.”

I just stood there and stared at her for what seemed the longest time. I knew that Maw was implacable. I knew then I would never see Paw again, and I knew a little more about Maw than ever before.

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS SLOWLY COME UP on Monty sitting in a spot lit chair. He is in a courtroom and on the stand, hair cropped short, diffident, awkward, shy. 90

He is “Rudolph Petersen” in Judgment at Nuremberg, the man from whom one of the essential functions of mankind has been cruelly taken.

He seems to be attempting to demonstrate that he is mentally competent by composing a sentence from three words. We can see him CLOSE UP on the screen.

...hare...hunter...field...

He falters, his hand flies to his face in a familiar gesture, his eyes wander, and he shifts in his seat.

He struggles to deal with the question; he frowns, scratches his eyebrow, drops, then raises his voice.

...they had already made up...when I walked into the court, they has already made up their minds...THEY HAD MADE UP THEIR MINDS! They put me...in a hospital...like a criminal...I could not say anything, I could not do anything...I had to lay there...

...my mother...what you say about her...she was a woman, a servant woman who worked hard, she was a hard working woman...and it not fair...NOT FAIR...what you say!

(He takes his mother’s picture from his pocket and holds it out toward the unseen judge’s bench. ON SCREEN WE CAN SEE IT IS A PICTURE OF SUNNY)

...I want you to tell me – was she feebleminded, my mother? Was she?

(Monty/Peterson cries out in anguish)

...I know I am not! Since that day...I’ve been...half I’ve ever been...

(Long beat, sobs)

SLOW BLACKOUT

DARKNESS, BACKLIGHT AND TWO SILHOUETTES. It is like two 91

men fighting viciously. One seems to get the best of the other as they smash to the floor. LIGHT SLOWLY COMES UP TO REVEAL MONTY standing alone by the big open bay window, STREET NOISES from below. He stares downward, then slowly turns to the audience.

Yes, somebody has definitely been trying to kill me. You don’t have to be Phillip Marlowe or Sam Spade to figure out who the killer is.

It’s me. It’s always been me.

Actually, somebody said “I was trying to be the longest suicide in the world.”

(A beat, then the phone RINGS. Monty's trembling hand reaches on the second ring, hesitates, then picks it up. Into the phone)

It's... a rainy lonely day...

Bessie...is it really you...?

Warners has gone for it...? You mean... I can do the picture?

(Holds reciever, directly to the audience)

She told them Reflections was her deal --

(Giggles, disbelieving)

And if they wanted their film, I had better be in it!

You didn’t say that!

You did? It starts in September?

Oh God, Bessie, I just can't wait to be working together again!

God, I love you, Bessie Mae. I love your ass.

(To the audience)

She told me to take care of myself, that she’d see me in September. Then, 92 she told me she loved me.

Yes, yes, love you, bye.

Monty holds the phone in his hand for a long moment, savoring the news, rolling it around in his head, tasting it, new energy flowing up into his body.

He is torn between tears and laughter, both racking his body as he gets up and spins around, almost falls down.

No, no...MontyCan't let you down...

...no... no more naughty Monty... no booze ... no pills... no more torment ...

David can you hear me?... Carpenter... no more torment...

(Monty now slowly straightens up and smiles at the audience)

I can’t guarantee any of that but I’ll keep trying. Like it says in the Bible, “A man divided is unstable in all ways...”

That’s the kind of hairpin I am.

BLACKOUT

THE END