On May 12, 1956, Elizabeth Taylor pulled a tooth out of Montgomery Clift’s throat because he was choking on it.
Clift had just wrapped his car around a telephone pole after leaving a dinner party in Beverly Hills. As Montgomery lay there bleeding, his jaw shattered, and his tongue rolling around in his mouth like a big wet red seal, Mrs. Taylor realised she loved him. It had never occurred to her before, but as she stared down at his broken face, The face that was epitome of a generation of “Moody, sensitive, young men” as the New York Times would later put it, she realised how much she cared for Monty.
Montgomery Clift wouldn’t die that day, No, that day would occur years later on July 22nd, 1966, in his New York City town house after his live in nurse Lorenzo James would ask him if he would like to stay up and watch “The Misfits” with him. To which Monty would reply “Absolutely not.” Those would be his last words.
But that was later and this was now, and Mrs. Taylor really did love Monty. Her famous lavender eyes welled up as she watched him get taken into the ambulance, the world pushed in on her face as she watched the man she loved, broken, his career ruined, the accident that would cause, as Robert Lewis put it, “The longest suicide in Hollywood history.” She knew it long before Monty did, as she watched the cherry red lights take her love away.
Mrs. Taylor saw Monty’s future stretch out in front of her, years of substance abuse to deal with the physical pain and the sexual liaisons with both men and woman which would leave him impotent. In 1961, Marilyn Monroe would describe Clift as “the only person I know who is in even worse shape than I am.” Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson, would die of a probable suicide by overdose a year later.
Mrs Taylor watched as they take her love away. Her and Monty were called “The most beautiful Hollywood movie couple of all time” and god how they shone, the way stars used to. Mega-Watt smiles that hide deep the pain of fragility. Clift, unlike the many fallen angels of his generation, Dean and Marilyn, wouldn’t make it on to T-shirts and coffee mugs to be sold on hollywood and highland. Monty would die in peace, and Mrs Taylor knew that, as the ambulance rounded the corner out of sight.
The rumour is Mrs Taylor kept his tooth.
This is such a good piece of writing! You’re amazing at it! X
WOW..The love for a person who is that way. She didn't care what his pass was, all she knew was the now. Her feelings about him. That's deep and written very well.
Actually it's hard to come by someone like that. Stand for someone no matter what the person did in the pass or during the time they were together.
This story was written very good, it hit me hard. I felt it in my heart. It was like you took me there and all of what you wrote was going on around me. I was seeing everything. WOW...I really really like it.