Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011, The Misfits still shows up on TV listings today. The film cost around US $4 million, a lot at the time for a black and white production. In spite of its star power, the movie originally bombed at the box office and barely recouped its cost.
But the drama is probably best remembered for assembling a group of Hollywood’s biggest names: Marilyn Monroe as Roslyn Taber, the new divorcee, Thelma Ritter as her friend Isabelle Steers, Clark Gable as the aging cowboy Gay Langland, Eli Wallach as his partner and pilot and Montgomery Clift as rodeo rider Perce Howland.
John Houston directed this all-star cast and playwright Arthur Miller, Marilyn’s husband at the time, wrote the screenplay. The story takes place in Nevada and centers on rounding up wild horses once sold for children to ride and now destined to become dog food meat.
Marilyn Monroe
Much has been written about problems caused by Monroe during the shooting. She would show up late or not at all. She and Montgomery Clift both needed a doctor on call 24/7. Production shut down briefly while she went in for detox. 1961 was also the year she and Miller were divorced. Her last major appearance came in 1962, the famous scene of her singing Happy Birthday to President Kennedy. She was found dead later that year at age 36.
Clark Gable
Gable was 59 when he died in 1960, shortly after the picture was finished and before the release date. One of the stunts “The King” insisted on doing was getting dragged by a truck across a dry bed lake that became known as Misfits Flat. He is quoted as saying he was glad to be done because Monroe almost gave him a heart attack–prophetic words since that was the cause of his death. Critics consider The Misfits one of the finest performances of his career.
Montgomery Clift
Clift also reportedly had problems with drugs, alcohol and absences, due to a serious car accident in 1956 that required facial plastic surgery. He appeared in three more films before he died in New York in 1966 at age 45. Apparently, The Misfits was on TV that night and when asked if he wanted to watch it, he replied, “Absolutely not.” Those turned out to be one of the last things he said.
John Houston, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter
Houston, in his 50s when he directed The Misfits, liked to drink and gamble and would apparently fall asleep on occasion on the set. He continued adding to his directing credits until 1987, the year he died at age 81.
Wallach and Ritter, both natives of Brooklyn, were considered two of Hollywood’s leading character actors. Wallach continued his career into the 2000s and, currently in his 90s, has outlived the other stars. Ritter died in 1968 in her early 60s after suffering a heart attack. Although she was one of the most nominated actors for an Oscar, she never won the award.
Sources:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055184/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Misfits_%28film%29