A Ritual For Celebrating Monty Clift's Birthday

Montgomery Clift was born on October 17, 1920, along with his sister Ethel; this should be a bisexual national holiday. There should be a ritual for celebrating said holiday. It should go something like this. (It totally does not matter if you are a guy or a woman.)

Breakfast: Smoke half a pack of unfiltered Camels from a Tiffany cigarette holder, then work on your abs. 

Watch From Here to Eternity. Get angry at Burt Lancaster for getting top billing. 

Recite "A man don't go his own way, he's nothing" along with Prewitt. 

Cry when Maggio dies, then drink a tumbler of Scotch, neat. 

After the movie, go four rounds in the boxing ring with your trainer. Take a long shower. Admire yourself in the mirror; you are the damned prettiest thing that ever lived. 

Lunch: 12 ounces of raw steak. 

Throw a party in your apartment. Make out with the nearest girl who looks vaguely like Elizabeth Taylor. Call her Bessie Mae, assure her that if you were going to marry anything it would be her, then wrestle her to the ground and bite her shoulder. 

Single-handedly finish off that fifth of Scotch and get out your Sinatra records. 

Dinner: Snort lines of finely-crushed Seconal off the shaved chest of a blond hustler who vaguely resembles a young Marlon Brando, all the while thinking that Brando is a hammy over-actor and he's starting to get love handles. 

Make out with said blond hustler. Abandon him to discuss the work of Anton Chekhov with your friends; help them finish off a bottle of champagne, the actual French stuff. If you lapse into speaking French, no one will mind.  

Pass out face-down on the carpet; your assistant will carry you to bed.

Listen, I'm being facetious. This is what I think Old Hollywood people did in the 1950s. I'm not advocating that you abuse alcohol or other drugs. 

10 Things You Might Not Know About Montgomery Clift

Ten things you might not know about Montgomery Clift, the devastatingly handsome and intense actor who starred in classics like From Here to Eternity and A Place in the Sun:

1. His two favorite words were "fuck" and "shit."

2. It drove his mother crazy when he wore t-shirts or khakis. She wanted him dressed like a gentleman at all times.



3. Born in Omaha but raised largely in Europe, he spoke French and German fluently, and spoke with an English accent as a young man.

4. He wanted to play Hamlet and could recite most of Shakespeare's play from memory - but he never actually starred in a production of it.

5. To prepare for Lonelyhearts, he read every novel Nathanael West had written.

6. He excelled at skiing and tennis.

7. His favorite singer was Ella Fitzgerald.



8. The playwright he most admired was Anton Chekhov.

9. He slept naked and had a tendency to sleepwalk, leading to some awkward nights in hotels.

10. Even though he thought James Dean was "weird" and consciously imitating Monty himself, he was terribly upset when told that Dean had died.

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Patricia Bosworth's book is an intense and, at times, disturbing biography. It's quite appropriate that Clift played Freud, since his life was a psychoanalyst's dream come true. He was unusually close with his twin sister Ethel and brother Brooks. He had wild mood swings, exacerbated by alcohol and drug abuse and by health problems, including a thyroid disorder. He could be sweet, tender and childlike one minute and then vicious (especially with words) the next. He was as insecure as he was gorgeous.



In real life, I probably wouldn't have liked him very much. But I'll never have to worry about that, because he died when my parents were 13 and 14. In my imagination, I'd like to do things with him that were almost certainly illegal in the 1950s.

That's the wonderful thing about movies - they capture beautiful people when they are young, beautiful and intensely talented. There will never be a time when people will say "Montgomery Clift was not a good actor." In fact, he was one of the best ever.