Summary

• Montgomery Clift had a successful Hollywood career despite turning down many iconic roles.
• Clift's autonomous career choices reflected his artistic integrity and impact on classic Hollywood.
• Clift's personal woes and repressed feelings likely influenced his decisions and mysterious screen persona.

The unmistakable presence of Montgomery Clift was groundbreaking for audiences in the 1940s and '50s. On the outside, Clift was your typical handsome leading man with a strong build. He checked off all the boxes, but the actor followed the beat of his own drum throughout his tragically short career. Remembered as a recluse, Clift, who died at 45 years old, was a haunted soul, which resonated on the screen.

Before Marlon Brando and James Dean were lauded for their cerebral style of method acting, Clift's screen persona was defined by internalized angst and suppressed sensitivity disguised under a halcyon portrait of an American man in a post-World War II climate. Clift's enigmatic likeness applied to his life off the screen as well, as the star notoriously turned down countless iconic roles in classic films. No one will ever truly know the rationale behind Clift's decision to decline starring roles in Sunset Boulevard and On the Waterfront, but his troubled personal life has to be considered.

Montgomery Clift's Short Hollywood Career Is Impressive

It's natural to harp on Montgomery Clift for the movies he declined throughout his career, but make no mistake, his filmography is nothing to scoff at. The four-time Oscar nominee consistently worked with the finest directors in the industry, including Howard Hawks, William Wyler, George Stevens, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, and Stanley Kramer. In only his second role, he starred opposite John Wayne in Hawks' Western, Red River, about a feud between a father and an adopted son along the Chisholm Trail cattle drive. Clift seamlessly shifted from leading man status to ensemble player. One of his most stirring performances came in Kramer's courtroom epic, Judgment at Nuremberg, where he played a naive victim of Nazi experimentation. In this brief supporting performance, Clift adds raw emotional heft to this portentous sociopolitical drama in the aftermath of World War II. Clift starred in a Best Picture winner, From Here to Eternity, the story of war and romance set on the cusp of the Pearl Harbor attack, also starring Burt Lancaster and Frank Sinatra.

For a relatively short career, Clift experienced a lifetime's worth of success and recognition, collaborating with seemingly every important figure in Hollywood during his run. Compared to most actors from classic Hollywood, Clift has few missteps in his filmography — nothing indicative of a paycheck job or a contractual obligation. This is partially due to Clift's emergence coinciding with the collapse of the classical studio system following the landmark Paramount Case in 1948, which implemented antitrust laws in film distribution and exhibition. Before becoming a star, Clift refused to sign a long-term studio contract, an unprecedented move at the time. When he eventually signed a deal with Paramount after amassing cachet in Hollywood, he negotiated for complete control of project selection. Clift's career autonomy is admirable, even from a contemporary perspective where we expect major stars to be career-empowered.

Montgomery Clift Turned Down 'Sunset Boulevard' and 'On the Waterfront'

If an actor had the CV of Montgomery Clift's list of turned-down roles, they'd be considered one of the most accomplished stars to ever live. Thanks to his creative independence, Clift worked at a less prolific rate than his contemporaries. His limited but rich filmography indicates that he cared deeply about the artistic component of filmmaking. Best of all, it seemed as though everyone wanted Clift in their movie, but nine times out of ten, he wasn't interested.

With Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder's tragicomic story of a disillusioned screenwriter's relationship with an aging silent movie star, Clift, as reported in the actor's biography, Monty, was self-conscious about partaking in love scenes with an "older woman," the woman being Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond. He turned it down, thinking the film would alienate his image among the public. William Holden eventually landed the part of Joe Gillis. At the peak of his powers following From Here to Eternity, Clift, now a box office draw and critical darling, was sent Budd Schulberg's script for On the Waterfront. Despite having worked with its director, Elia Kazan, as a member of the Actors Studio, he thought the script was "corny" and "overblown," leaving the role of Terry Malloy open for Marlon Brando.

Clift leaving classic films on the table only scratches the surface. Memorable as a lead in Westerns, he turned down a pair of classics from the 1950s, High Noon (Gary Cooper) and Rio Bravo (Dean Martin), both of which were directed by a future and previous collaborator, Fred Zinnemann and Howard Hawks, respectively. While under contract with Paramount, he would turn down films under their production, including Shane, which went to Alan Ladd. Other roles declined by Clift include the Judy Garland-James Mason remake of A Star Is Born, King Vidor's adaptation of War and Peace, and Paul Newman's breakout, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The roles Clift turned down were highly formative parts that shaped the iconography of Hollywood's greatest stars. When you think of William Holden, you think of Sunset Boulevard. When you think of Marlon Brando, you think of On the Waterfront.

Montgomery Clift’s Career Decisions Are Likely Connected to His Personal Life

Montgomery Clift's habitual tendency to decline enticing roles is not completely incidental. The actor's mysterious screen presence was fueled by an even more mysterious personal life, which historians have been trying to crack for decades since his sudden death in 1966. Clift is remembered equally for his troubled personal life and struggles with substance abuse as he is for his moviemaking. Already a reclusive figure living a frugal life in New York City and away from Hollywood, Clift's darkness translated beautifully on the screen, but behind the scenes, he was surrounded by agony. In 1956, he suffered a near-fatal car accident.

To ease his pains, he resorted to painkillers and alcohol for treatment, which gradually led to his professional and personal downfall. Clift's teacher at the Actors Studio, Robert Lewis, cited Clift's decline as the "longest suicide in Hollywood history." Historians and peers of Clift have speculated that much of his darkness came from his repressed homosexuality. Due to the social norms of the period, Clift was likely motivated to stay away from the spotlight.

While there is no hard proof to connect the two, Montgomery Clift's inclination to decline roles speaks to his psychology as a human. In hindsight, it seems ridiculous for a star of his caliber to turn down Sunset Boulevard or On the Waterfront, but when contextualizing Clift's personal woes and repressed feelings, the actor deserves sympathy. To the detriment of his well-being, there was only a thin line separating Clift's mysteriously soulful screen persona from his real life away from the camera.