Montgomery Clift

Born in Omaha, Neb., on Oct. 17, 1920, Montgomery Clift was blessed with features that would catapult him to fame as one of Hollywood's hottest young stars of the 1940s and '50s.

Acting on the stage since he was a boy, Clift first appeared on-screen in The Search (1948) and promptly earned an Oscar nod, followed by two more nominations for A Place in the Sun (1951) and From Here to Eternity (1953). But his sky-rocketing career was compromised with a near-fatal car accident that left him partially disfigured and paralyzed, a tragedy that invited his personal demons to take over.

Clift earned one more Oscar nomination for his performance in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) before playing a famous psychiatrist in Freud (1962) and starring in his last film, The Defector, in 1966. He died of a heart attack that same year at the age of 45.

Filmography