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Montgomery Clift
A Biography
By Patricia Bosworth OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1978 Patricia Bosworth
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4501-9
CHAPTER 1
Edward Montgomery clift was born October 17, 1920 in Omaha, Nebraska, several hours after his twin sister Roberta. "I was always the gentleman," Monty would joke years later. "I let Sister see the moon before I did."
The twins were delivered at home by an obstetrician. Their mother, Sunny, a tiny strong-willed woman of regal bearing and luminous eyes, had suffered through the delivery without anesthetic. The babies in her arms, she vowed "never again." There was already an eighteen-month-old brother, Brooks, in the nursery. Sunny had had an operation to conceive him, but she had not expected twins and privately had no idea how to handle them.
At the time of Monty's birth the Clifts were living in a comfortable three-story house full of red plush and stained-glass windows. Father Bill Clift had just become first vice-president of Omaha National Bank, so he could afford both a maid and a nurse for his burgeoning family.
Previously he had sold stocks and bonds for the National City Investment Company, traveling all over Nebraska and Kansas and working a fourteen-hour day. He and Sunny had lived in cheap boarding houses, and when times were lean Sunny had knitted sweaters and sold them to friends. Now their fortunes had turned, and Bill, who had always wanted a family, was excited about the prospect of settling down in a big house.
In a sense he hoped to recreate the atmosphere of his boyhood home in Chattanooga. As the youngest of six brothers and sisters, he had grown up in a close- knit Southern family; Bill Clift loved reminiscing about the Clifts. According to him, there had been Clifts in America since 1695, when the first Clifts came over from Essex, England, and settled in Maryland. Seven generations of Clifts had participated with distinction in every war fought by the United States, with the exception of the Spanish-American War; a fact Bill Clift was fond of repeating.
By the 1850s most of the Clifts were living in Tennessee. Industrious patriotic folk—preachers, lawyers, and soldiers—they wanted to take advantage of this wild Southern state where there was so much opportunity. They made small fortunes in banking and road building, and they invested their money in the cotton wealth of Memphis.
In time the Clifts married into the Preston and Kefauver families. These branches still reside in Nashville.
Monty's great-grandfather, Colonel William Clift, was a squat, rugged pioneer. He owned 45,000 acres in Soddy County, Tennessee, land rich in iron ore and timber, and by the age of thirty he was a millionaire. A deeply religious Baptist, he did not believe in slavery and freed many slaves just before the firing on Fort Sumter, giving them farms on his vast property.
The rest of his family was incensed; they were anti-abolitionists and supported Jefferson Davis. As soon as the Civil War began, the Clifts divided even more when Colonel William joined the Union forces and his youngest son, Moses, became an officer in the Confederate cavalry.
For the next four years they fought on opposite sides. At one point during a skirmish, father and son captured each other, then fell into each other's arms laughing. Whenever they happened to arrive home together between battles, they would sit down at the table with their various relatives and toast each other in "a cordial and loving manner." "Family loyalty was a hallmark of the Clifts," Monty's father once recalled. He was referring to his father, Colonel Moses.
Shortly after Reconstruction began, Colonel Moses moved from Nashville to Chattanooga where he built a large home on McCallie Avenue and proceeded to raise his six children (two sons and a daughter by his first wife, two sons and a daughter by his second wife, Florence Parrot, a vivacious young woman from Catersville, Georgia).
The Colonel thought himself a devoted parent, although family life was formal and impudence was not tolerated. He devoted most of his time to his law practice, often working until dawn preparing briefs. He soon got the reputation for being one of the best lawyers in the state, though colleagues often described him as having a "butter heart" when confronted by people in need. When it came to arguing a case, however, no one was more passionate or articulate. He ultimately became president of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, a position he held proudly until his death.
As the youngest son, Bill Clift tried very hard to please his father by getting good grades and reciting the Old Testament from memory. He was a good-natured, placid little boy who for a while thought of becoming a preacher. When his father advised "practice the golden rule," he listened solemnly and never forgot it. He also believed, as did the Colonel, in "Our Lord and Savior who feels compassion to all humanity."
But the humanitarian sentiments of the Clift family were strictly Southern; blacks were the exception to the rule. Rumors abounded that some Clift relatives—a distant cousin in Nashville—had been involved in a lynching. Whether or not that is true, as far as the Colonel was concerned blacks were second-class citizens. "We must maintain white supremacy, but we must be just," he said. Bill Clift could never accept the idea of whites and blacks sitting comfortably together in the same room; towards the end of his life, when Monty brought his black male secretary home for Thanksgiving dinner, Bill was unable to contain his extreme agitation.
As a boy he had never had to cope with such social shocks. Life on McCallie Avenue was languid and shuttered, though the Clifts themselves were a noisy and quarrelsome bunch when left alone. The Colonel defined the lines of social distinction for his children to follow, and before Bill took out a girl, her social standing and family wealth were checked out by both his parents.
As a young man Bill dreamed of becoming a banker like his uncles, whose heroes were Jupiter Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt. When he told his parents of his ambition, they discouraged him by saying there were fortunes to be made in road building and in transportation; they pressed him to study engineering. Incapable of arguing with his parents and unsure of his own judgment, Bill went to Cornell in 1908 and followed their wishes.
Just before he left for Ithaca he had a photograph taken. It reveals nothing more than a round-faced young man with a serene expression, enlivened only by occasional dimples.
There are very few photographs of Monty's mother, Ethel "Sunny" Fogg, as a young woman. She was too restless to pose. Only one portrait can be found, taken when she was around eighteen. The camera recorded an aristocratic face, a slopingly beautiful face, marked by an almost unbearable sadness. The nose is patrician straight, and the huge, deep-set, staring eyes, accentuated by thick expressive dark brows, glitter as strangely and hypnotically as Monty's.
Sunny was born on September 29, 1888, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The birth certificate does not give her a surname but records "Sophie and Frank Adams" as her mother and father. The attending physician, Dr. Edward E. Montgomery, took care of Sunny until she was a year old. He then arranged to have her adopted by the Charles Foggs of Germantown, who were paid a sum to take care of the infant, whose parents and origins they never knew.
Charles Fogg worked only periodically, as foreman of a steel mill in Germantown; he was an alcoholic. Most of the time he stayed at home and made life miserable for Sunny. She did not know why the neighborhood children refused to play with her; until she started school she lived a totally isolated existence. When she was eight, Mrs. Fogg told her she was an orphan and that her parents had abandoned her. From then on, whenever Sunny talked back to her, she would say she hoped she wouldn't grow up to be a bad woman like her mother.
Sunny's only escape from Fogg's taunts came when she attended church. The sermon and the rich vibrating organ music gave her some comfort. Dr. Montgomery was always present at the services, and afterwards they often chatted together. One afternoon when she was around ten, he invited her back to his home for tea and during their conversation he asked her how she was being treated by the Foggs.
Not well, she admitted, but then perhaps she deserved no better. She was not a very good girl, she said, and she had been warned that if she didn't behave she would grow up to be a bad woman like her mother. With that Dr. Montgomery took her into his arms and told her that her mother was not a bad woman, she was an aristocrat, and that she, Ethel Sunny, should be proud of her heritage; she was a thoroughbred and had fine American blood running through her veins.
Sunny was astonished. She begged the doctor to tell her who her real parents were, but he said he could not, he had been sworn to secrecy. However, he assured her that someday her natural mother would claim her as her own.
From then on Sunny lived in the hope that her parents would acknowledge her existence: in anticipation of that event she studied very hard to become a top student. Although she still felt miserably alone and abandoned, she no longer cared when her classmates snubbed her; she was a "thoroughbred" and as such she possessed a secret pride about herself.
Throughout her adolescence, Sunny pursued her goal of self-improvement, earning straight "A's" in school and taking singing and music lessons paid for by Dr. Montgomery, who also encouraged her to speak French and to recite Shakespeare. Every effort was made to turn her into a beautifully cultivated young lady so that when her family came for her they would not be ashamed. She longed to know who her distinguished forebears were and vowed she would not rest until she did.
Sunny pressed Dr. Montgomery to tell her what he knew, and finally when she was eighteen and about to go to Cornell on scholarship, the doctor revealed the mysterious circumstances of her birth.
Her mother, Sunny discovered, was Maria Anderson of Virginia. Maria, sweet voiced and serene, was the daughter of Colonel Robert Anderson, the Union commander of Fort Sumter, whose brilliant and heroic defense of that Charleston fort in 1861 (he refused to surrender to Jefferson Davis and evacuated only after four months of intensive fighting) marked the beginning of the Civil War.
Late in life Anderson married Elizabeth Clough, whose father was a Clark of the northwest frontier Clarks. Elizabeth was an imperious snappish woman given to violent fits of rage, but her husband adored her. She and Anderson had three daughters, Sophie, Erba, and Maria. Anderson doted on his youngest daughter, Maria, nicknaming her "Bobbie," after himself.
After his death in 1880, his wife, Eliza, hysterical with grief, refused to allow her daughters out of their home in Washington, D.C.
She needed them now for constant companionship because she was afraid of being lonely. Besides, she told them cruelly, "You're all going to be old maids anyway." Despite the restrictions, Erba, the oldest, ran off and married almost immediately. The younger sisters, Maria and Sophie, stayed by their mother's side and appeared totally dominated by her.
In 1886 Maria began going out again to dances and receptions. She was then thirty years old. Somewhere, someplace she met Woodbury Blair, the dashing bachelor son of Montgomery Blair, attorney for Dred Scott and also postmaster general in Lincoln's cabinet. Maria and "Woody" fell in love.
The Blairs were as distinguished and wealthy as the Andersons, having been among the first settlers in Maryland, where they drank, dueled, raced, and were addicted to cock fighting. Their family estate, called Silversprings, was one of the great estates of Maryland. In architecture and landscape it resembled Versailles.
Despite her mother's disapproval, Maria saw Woody frequently throughout 1886 and continued to do so until Mrs. Anderson began throwing tantrums. She was furious at Woody's father because she believed he could have persuaded President Lincoln to send troops to reinforce her husband at Fort Sumter and had made no effort to do so.
Woody countered that his father was the only member of Lincoln's cabinet who had supported Anderson in Charleston. Mrs. Anderson called him a liar. Woody countered that she was not only out of her mind, she was as "mean tempered as Mary Lincoln." With that Mrs. Anderson banished Woody from the house and forbade her daughter ever to see him again.
Nevertheless they continued to meet secretly. Maria's sister Sophie was the only one who knew of the affair. Eventually the couple eloped somewhere in Maryland, but because of her mother's state of mind, Maria continued to live at home. She and Eliza fought constantly over Woody Blair—finally she admitted that he was her husband. Eliza promptly got the marriage annulled. She then locked Maria in her room, where she was kept a virtual prisoner.
The only time she left that room was during her pregnancy. She was pregnant with a child by Woody Blair, and she insisted on having the baby, although Eliza wanted her to have an abortion.
In the summer of 1888 Maria traveled to Philadelphia with her sister Sophie and her mother, Eliza, taking up residence at a small house at 1618 A Street. Dr. Edward Montgomery, who had served with Colonel Anderson during the Civil War, delivered the baby who was named Ethel. Later Montgomery began calling the child Sunny because of her lilting golden voice.
Immediately after the birth, the Anderson women returned to Washington, D.C., Maria whispering that she would send for her daughter as soon as she could, Eliza ordering Montgomery to put the child up for adoption. Montgomery waited almost a year before doing so, taking care of the baby himself. It was only when he was assured by Mrs. Anderson that both Woody Blair and Maria agreed to such an arrangement that he found a foster home at the Foggs'. At that point he was sworn to secrecy as to the identity of Sunny's natural parents.
Even so, as she grew up, Dr. Montgomery wrote letter after registered letter to Maria Anderson keeping her informed as to her daughter's development. He repeatedly asked for permission to tell Sunny about her real mother and father when she came of age. All his letters were returned unopened. Because he felt so guilty about his own involvement in the matter he took it upon himself to speak frankly to Sunny.
Dr. Montgomery's revelations were profoundly shocking to the eighteen-year-old Sunny Fogg, but she did not reveal her feelings; already she was intensely self-contained. Inside she experienced frustration and misery to the fullest; she felt that what had been done to her was immoral, vicious. She had not chosen to be born into this world, but her parents, whether they liked it or not, had a responsibility to her and this included giving her her birthright.
Along with Dr. Montgomery she began writing a fresh series of letters to Maria and Sophie Anderson in Washington, D.C., telling them of her deep need to be acknowledged. She appealed to their sense of honor, their conscience—she never received an answer.
Studying her genealogy became Sunny's lifelong preoccupation, and her energy poured into it, overwhelming, secretly hysterical, engulfing, great. The study was almost a necessity; in that way she was earning the right to share her families' lives—at least vicariously.
Soon she could recite—to herself—the minutiae about her relatives and ancestors—from Larz Anderson, the diplomat under President Wilson, to the fact that Montgomery Blair had been John Brown's attorney after Harpers Ferry.
At the library she pored over photographs of the Andersons and the Blairs, and she was pleased to note that she bore a striking resemblance to both sides. The Blairs were dark, slender, fine boned, and so was she. From the Andersons she inherited large glittering wild eyes, accentuated by thick expressive brows.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Montgomery Clift by Patricia Bosworth. Copyright © 1978 Patricia Bosworth. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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