Movie Star Cover-up Question

[JaguarJack]

I read in Patricia Bosworth's Clift bio that studio management helped cover up an incident involving Clift trying to solicit sex from a minor in the late 1940s. I have only read that in Bosworth's book; but in her defense, ther eis not a lot of written material on Clift out there. I don't know if Bosworth's claim is true or just tabloid junk, but maybe some Clift fans out there can give a proper answer. There was another reference to Joan Crawford and a claim that studio execs stopped the distrbution of a pornographic film Crawford had done in the 1920s.

 

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JaguarJack

[tracey65k]

I'm no expert, but in answer to your question, everything I have read about Clift suggests he was either gay or bisexual. And don't know whether it was legit or not, I have seen a pic of Joan Crawford in a compromising position with another woman, so the porn rumor might have some basis in fact. Who knows?

Anyone else want to take a stab at it?

Tracey

[feaito]

I've seen some of the nude/porn pics attributed to Joan Crawford in some books and I must say that I doubt seriously that they are really photographs of her. If you ask me, I think those pics are not of her.

 

As for Montgomery Clift, one of the greatest actors ever, I've read that, sadly, he was, psychologically speaking, a very tortured man, and even more so after the terrible accident he suffered in 1957?

 

I have also read that he was gay but that he did not accept his sexual orientation, because he was so fond of women and loved them, and, thus, could not understand why he was sexually attracted toward men. I think that now he must be in peace and happy in another much better stage of evolution in the afterlife.

 

As a footnote, I have read about many actors' lives, but what I've read about Monty Clift's life has been specially sad, because it seems he was a wonderful human being and he just suffered too much.

[MattHelm]

I've read somewhere that Sinatra had a party where Monty showed up with a male friend and Frank threw them out once they started kissing. James Jones who wrote From Here To Eternity commented that Clift was gay too. There are a lot of accounts of his homosexuality even though they hid it well in those days, like Rock Hudson and Sal Mineo.

[ang]

I saw one of the "Crawford" pics in the insanely bad Hollywood Babylon (possibly the most inaccurate and awful H-wood book ever written). I don't think the woman in the picture looked like Joan at all.

 

They also had one in there that was supposed to be Jean Harlow, but years later experts said it positively was not Jean.

 

I guess it's just easy to attack the ones who aren't alive to defend themselves.

[JaguarJack]

I read about the Sinatra party incident, too. Accounts on Clift's sexual orientation have differed, but there are quite a few people (including his brother) who said he had male lovers. The solicitation event I am commenting on is one in which he asked a young underage boy. As for the Crawford photos, there were similar "shady" pictures of James Dean and Rudolph Valentino.