Monty was born just after his twin sister Roberta and eighteen months after his brother Brooks. Their father William made a lot of money in banking but was quite poor during the depression. Their mother Ethel "Sunny" was born out of wedlock and spent much of her life and the family fortune finding her illustrious southern lineage and raising her children as aristocrats. At thirteen Monty appeared on Broadway ("Fly Away Home"), remaining in New York theatre for over ten years before coming to Hollywood. By that time he was an accomplished actor, notable for the intensity with which he researched and entered into his roles. He was also by that time exclusively homosexual, though he maintained a number of close friendships with theatre women (heavily promoted by studio publicists). His film debut was "The Red River (1948)" with John Wayne quickly followed by his early personal success "Search (1948)" (Oscar nominations for this, "Place in the Sun, A (1951)", "From Here to Eternity (1953)" and "Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)"). By 1950 he was troubled with allergies and colitis (the army had rejected him in WWII for chronic diarrhea) and, along with pill problems he was alcoholic. He spent a great deal of time and money on psychiatry. In 1956 during filming of "Raintree County (1957)" he ran his car into a tree after leaving a party at Elizabeth Taylor 's; it was she who saved him from choking by pulling out two teeth lodged in his throat. His smashed face was rebuilt, he reconciled with his estranged father, but he continued bedeviled by dependency on drugs and guilt over homosexuality. Monty managed to slowly develop a more sensible lifestyle back in his New York brownstone, and he was set to play in Taylor's "Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)", when his companion Lorenzo James found him lying nude on top of his bed, dead from what the autopsy called "occlusive coronary artery disease".
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