Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift were hailed as one of the most beautiful onscreen couples ever.  They remained firm friends throughout their lives but never took their friendship to the next level.  Clift was a gay man and was very open about it at a time when many were too afraid to come forward.  Rock Hudson, another of Liz’s leading men and also quite beautiful, was gay too but unlike Clift kept it secret right up until his illness, Aids, made it impossible to hide any longer.  The movies Liz and Monty made together were mostly about fragile relationships.
A Place In The Sun first teamed them as mismatched lovers. She from a very wealthy family and he from a poor one.

The thing is he is distantly related to her family and because of this is offered a job in one of her father’s factories. Trouble is that while working in the factory he meets another girl, ( played by Shelly Winters ) poorer and plainer, and knocks her up just before he meets Liz.
What to do? He manages to dispose of his pregnant girl from the wrong side of the tracks one night whilst rowing on a pristine lake so that he can concentrate on Liz.
Of course he is doomed and in the end must face the penalty for murder. She, however, truly loves him and vows to love him forever. Not unlike the real Liz and Monty offscreen.
As a matter of fact it was Liz who was the first on scene after Monty’s terrible car crash and it was she who saved him by reaching her hand into his mouth and pulling out two teeth so that he wouldn’t choke.

After his accident Monty was different. One side of his face was badly scarred and he suffered from terrible depression which led him to alchoholism which further damaged his looks. Liz did not desert him and fought for him to be cast alongside her in two other films. In ‘Suddenly Last Summer,’ he was the doctor and she the one with depression. In fact in the film she is due to have a lobotomy and he is the one due to perform it.  The Psychiatrist he plays believes that his patient is sane and just needs to reveal the truth which will save her sanity.  The film also starred Katherine Hepburn and it’s story dealt with a mother’s cover up of  her gay son’s lifestyle. In their final film together  ‘Raintree County,’ Liz, is again the one suffering from bi polar whilst her husband , played by Monty, works his way up in parliament. Set during the Civil war a young teacher dumps his small town girlfriend for a very beautiful and fragile newcomer. Liz, naturally, is the one to drag his character away from all sense of duty and moral obligation.

The small town girl, Eva Marie Saint, though wins out in this one as as Liz’s character loses the plot completely and eventually kills herself.

The dramatic film fodder shared by Liz and Monty is the stuff of legend. Wonder what would have happened if the had married for real? Two beautiful hearts joined in a lovers knot. Sadly though Monty was a little too sensitive for the world of Hollywood and died way before his time.  Liz married a record seven times but I don’t think she connected with any of them the way she did with Monty.