Career
Appearing on Broadway at the age of 15, Clift achieved success and performed on stage for 10 years before moving to Hollywood. At 20, he played the son in the Broadway production of There Shall Be No Night, which won the 1941 Pulitzer Prize for drama, and starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.
Clift's first movie role was opposite John Wayne in the 1948 film Red River, which was shot in 1946 and released in 1948. Clift's second movie was The Search. Clift was unhappy with the quality of the script, and rewrote most of it himself. The movie was nominated for a screenwriting Academy Award, but the original writers were credited. Clift's performance saw him nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. His naturalistic performance led to director Fred Zinnemann's being asked, "Where did you find a soldier who can act so well?".
Clift's next movie was The Heiress. He signed on for the movie in order to avoid being typecast. Again unhappy with the script, Clift told friends that he wanted to change his co-star Olivia de Havilland's lines because "she isn't giving me enough to respond ." Clift also was unable to get along with most of the cast; he criticized de Havilland, saying that she let the director shape her entire performance.
The studio marketed Clift as a sex symbol prior to the movie's release in 1949. Clift had a large female following, and Olivia De Havilland was flooded with angry fan letters because her character rejects Clift's character in the final scene of the movie. Clift ended up unhappy with his performance, and left early during the movie's premiere.
Clift's next movie was The Big Lift. Although Clift gave another critically acclaimed performance, the movie was a box office failure. Clift was set to appear in Sunset Boulevard (1950), written specifically for him, but he dropped out at the last minute, as he felt that his character was too close to him in real life (like his character, he was good looking, and dating a much older, richer woman).
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—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
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—Anne Roiphe (20th century)