Raised in an unconvential family, giving him nearly unlimited access to exceptional opportunities, Montgomery Clift reached a pinnacle of dramatic achievement. Due to unknown reasons, or perhaps due to a chronic back injury he sustained in a car accident, Clift became involved in heavy narcotic usage such that his credibility as an insurable actor was compromised. LaGuardia states that the film "Freud" was filmed in a state of chaos, with severe frustration and criticism from director John Huston, due to Clift s inability to function. Ironically, the night one of his finest films was shown on TV, Clift lay in his bed in the dark, unable or unwilling to join his houseman in watching it. The next morning he was found dead, apparently from a heart attack.

Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, who together accomplished and popularized the "extreme close-up" in films with their on-screen radiance in "A Place in the Sun," were close friends until his death. When Clift was considered "uninsurable" due to rumors of his narcotic addiction, Taylor put up an exorbitant bond to cover his appearance in "Raintree County."