Marlon Brando Talking About Montgomery Clift
From Marlon' memoir "Songs My Mother Taught Me"
Another friend from that era who died sadly and prematurely was Montgomery Clift. We were both from Omaha and broke into acting about the same time. We had the same agent, Edie Van Cleve, and, although he was four years older than me, we were sometimes described as rivals for the same parts. There may have been a rivalry between us—in those days I was a competitive young man determined to be the best and he was a very good actor.
We met while I was in Truckline Cafe. By then Monty had been in several plays, and I was curious about how good he was and went to see him in The Searching Wind. He was good, and after the play I introduced myself and we went out for dinner. Since we shared a lot of similar experiences, there was a lot to talk about and we became friends, though not close ones. There was a quality about Monty that was very endearing; besides a great deal of charm, he had a powerful emotional intensity, and, like me, he was troubled, something I empathized with.
But what troubled him wasn’t evident. Later on, I went out with a girl he had dated, and she said she thought he might be a bisexual or a homosexual, but I found it hard to believe. I never asked him and never suspected it, but if he was a homosexual, I imagine he was torn asunder by it. Whatever the reason, he was a tortured man, and to deaden his pain he began drinking chloral hydrate and then became an alcoholic
At the time I didn’t understand what was happening or why Monty wanted to destroy himself, but it was tragic to watch. By 1957, when I was in The Young Lions, nobody wanted to hire him, but I encouraged the producers to give him a job. It had been hard for him to find work after being injured in a bad car wreck not far from my house, and his upper lip was paralyzed. He’d had plastic surgery, but the doctors hadn’t been able to repair the damage completely. He could smile with his eyes, but his upper lip wouldn’t move, giving him a twisted, confused look. He had always taken great pride in his looks, and he was self-conscious about the injury.
When Monty showed up in Paris for The Young Lions, he was consuming more chloral hydrate and alcohol than ever. His face was gray and gaunt, and he had lost a lot of weight. I saw he was on the trajectory to personal destruction and talked to him frankly, opening myself completely to him; I told him about my mother’s drinking and my experiences with therapy and said, “Monty, there’s awful anguish ahead for you if you don’t get hold of yourself. You’ve got to get some help. You can’t take refuge in chemicals, because that’s a wall you can’t ever climb. You can’t get around it, you can’t drive through it. You’re just gonna die sitting up huddled in front of that wall.”
I gave him the name of a therapist I thought might be able to help him, encouraged him to join Alcoholics Anonymous and talked to him for hours trying to persuade him to stop taking dope and alcohol. But when we shot the picture, he often slurred his lines. I tried to shore him up and did the best I could to get him through the picture, but afterward his descent continued until he died in 1966 at the age of forty-six.
I do not know for a fact that Monty was a homosexual. Afterward, some people told me he was, but I have heard so many lies told about myself that I no longer believe what people say about others. I do know he carried around a heavy emotional burden and never learned how to bear it
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