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The Passion of Montgomery Clift

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The Passion of Montgomery Clift The Passion of Montgomery Clift Amy Lawrence university of california press berkeley los angeles london The Passion of Montgomery Clift The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Humanities Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution to this book provided by Dartmouth College. The Passion of Montgomery Clift Amy Lawrence university of california press berkeley los angeles london University of California Press, one of the most distin- guished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2010 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lawrence, Amy. The passion of Montgomery Clift / Amy Lawrence. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-520-26046-7 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-520-26047-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Clift, Montgomery—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States— Public opinion. 3. Motion pictures—Social aspects. 4. Popular culture—United States. I. Title. pn2287.c545l39 2010 791.4302'8092—dc22 2009019423 Manufactured in the United States of America 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 10987654321 This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer waste, recycled, de-inked fiber. FSC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy. contents list of illustrations vii acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 • The Face of a Saint 11 2 • The Bobby-Soxers’ Idol 50 3 • Actor as Saint 83 4 • Facing Persecution 141 5 • Mortification of the Flesh 177 6 • AGayMartyr 218 7 • Nothing Sacred 254 notes 287 index 323 This page intentionally left blank illustrations Color plates follow page 150. 1. Montgomery Clift, 1948 Life photo shoot x 2. Young Clift as a “Star of Tomorrow,” 1948 10 3. Clift and Wendell Corey, The Search, 1948 17 4. Matt and the men, Red River, 1948 41 5. “Clift Sees Self,” Life, December 6, 1948 48 6. Olivia de Havilland and Clift, The Heiress, 1949 51 7. Clift and Cornell Borchers, The Big Lift, 1950 64 8. Clift, Borchers, and O. E. Hasse, The Big Lift 67 9. Clift and Borchers in rubble, The Big Lift 69 10. Elizabeth Taylor and Clift, A Place in the Sun, 1951 75 11. Clift thinks about murder, A Place in the Sun 79 12. Alfred Hitchcock and Clift read script of I Confess, 1953 82 13. Guileless and guilty, I Confess 85 14. Breakfast, I Confess 98 15. Clift and Anne Baxter on the set, I Confess 102 16. Hasse and Clift, The Big Lift (Two Corridors East) 118 17. Hitchcock and Clift on location, I Confess 122 18. Logan on trial, I Confess 123 vii 19. Clift and Dolly Haas, I Confess 127 20. La loi du silence poster 132 21. Danish program, Jeg tilstaar! 133 22. Publicity still, From Here to Eternity, 1953 140 23. Clift, Frank Sinatra, and Burt Lancaster, From Here to Eternity 160 24. Ernest Borgnine and Clift, From Here to Eternity 167 25. Clift on location, The Misfits, 1960 176 26. Clift confronts Elizabeth Taylor, Raintree County, 1957 185 27. Costume test, The Young Lions, 1958 188 28. Clift and Lee Remick, Wild River, 1960 191 29. Clift and coworkers, Lonelyhearts, 1959 199 30. Dolores Hart, Clift, and Robert Ryan, Lonelyhearts 201 31. Clift on location for The Misfits: hotel room with cowboys 204 32. Clift riding in rodeo, The Misfits 206 33. Clift on trial, Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961 212 34. Spencer Tracy and Clift on set, Judgment at Nuremberg 215 35. Clift and Taylor, Suddenly, Last Summer, 1959 219 36. I Confess: Logan descending; Suddenly, Last Summer: Sebastian ascending 222 37. Taylor and Clift in separate dressing rooms, Suddenly, Last Summer 229 38. Clift in mirror, The Defector, 1966 255 39. Clift circa 1955 258 40. Recording for The Glass Menagerie, 1964 265 41. Clift in bed in the street, The Defector 276 viii illustrations acknowledgments I would like to thank everyone who helped in the preparation and com- pletion of this book. Those who read multiple versions and gave me much- needed encouragement and criticism include Terry Lawrence, Al LaValley, Mary Desjardins, Steve Cohan, Michael DeAngelis, Mother Dolores Hart, my editor at the University of California Press, Mary Francis, and the anony- mous readers whose contribution is especially appreciated. I would also like to thank the librarians and archivists who provided their invaluable assis- tance, especially Barbara Hall at the Margaret Herrick Library at the Acad- emy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the staª at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the staª at the USC Warner Bros. Archive. I would also like to thank my colleagues at Dartmouth College for their moral support and the adminis- tration for its financial support. This book is dedicated to my mother, Nancy J. Lawrence, and to Carrie Kirshman (who should have been in the first one). ix figure 1. Montgomery Clift in a 1948 Life photo shoot. Bob Landry, Time & Life Pictures, Getty Images. Introduction Although fans are often said to “worship” or “idolize” stars, Mont- gomery Clift sparks reactions so extreme that his fans describe him in terms approaching religious ecstasy. Trying to articulate decades later how deeply moved they were when they first encountered the actor in films such as Red River (1948), The Heiress (1949), A Place in the Sun (1951), and From Here to Eternity (1953), Clift’s fans struggle to express the indescribable. Ac- cording to one, Clift had a “face of almost impenetrable beauty.”1 For an- other, “His beauty was so sensual and at the same time so vulnerable it was almost blinding.”2 Clift biographer Patricia Bosworth states, “He was so gorgeous you could hardly look at him.”3 Rapt in their memory of a vi- sion, fans-turned-authors recall their response to the actor’s image as if it were a physical force. According to Elizabeth Taylor, the first time she saw Clift, her heart stopped.4 But beauty alone cannot account for how deeply moved fans were—and are—when contemplating images of Clift. For them, Clift’s physical beauty expresses something deeper than mere aesthetic grace. Karl Malden said simply, “He had the face of a saint.”5 Since his screen debut in 1948, Clift has appealed to a wide range of au- diences. Among the disparate groups who have made up Clift’s fan base during the past six decades are heterosexual men in the postwar years who admired the stoic soldier of From Here to Eternity or the cowboy who stands up to John Wayne in Red River; teenage female fans who sighed for the vul- nerable, doomed romantic in A Place in the Sun or The Heiress in the early 1950s; gay men who have redefined Clift’s image since the 1970s, identify- 1 ing the erotic potential of the idealistic young heroes of The Search (1948) and I Confess (1953), or enjoying the double entendres in Suddenly, Last Sum- mer (1959). Among these various audiences, two competing myths about Mont- gomery Clift dominate. In the first, he is a rebel icon. A young idealist indiªerent to fame and hostile to the ways of Hollywood, a zealot in his unwavering dedication to acting, Clift emerges full-blown as the best ac- tor of his generation only to be cut down by a near-fatal car accident that leaves him a shattered wreck hopelessly addicted to alcohol and painkillers. The second myth presents Clift as the epitome of a gay man persecuted by a homophobic society. Repeatedly cast in his later years as a target of so- cial and professional persecution (in The Young Lions [1958], Judgment at Nuremberg [1961], Freud [1962], pop songs, and multiple biographies), Clift the tragic victim is reconfigured as a specifically gay martyr, his career a com- mentary on a closeted era. Each story is part of a larger narrative we might call “paradise lost,” a neat division of “before” and “after,” with Eden located in the years be- tween 1948 and 1954. The accident in 1956 marks the moment of irreversible loss.6 Both narratives grant Clift an active role in fashioning the first part of his career—spearheading a new style of acting, resisting the status quo, fighting to maintain his independence and the right to a private life—while confirming F. Scott Fitzgerald’s declaration that there are no second acts in American lives. Despite diªerent audiences’ varying investments in formulating Clift’s legacy, there is a striking consistency when it comes to the elements cited as essential to Clift’s appeal: his beauty (particularly his face), his devotion to acting, and the way he suªered both physically (especially as the result of the accident) and mentally (the pressure he is assumed to have been un- der because he was gay). Clift’s suªering can be fictional (part of his per- formances) or biographical (what we think we know about the actor’s life). Either way, it is central to the various narratives that purport to explain the actor’s eªect on his fans. Exceptional beauty, prolonged suªering, and enviable success followed by tragic loss are not unique to Clift’s star persona.
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