There is no way to overstate the mess Montgomery Clift was in when he was offered a supporting role in Stanley Kramer’s Judgement at Nuremberg at the beginning of the 1960s.

Sensitive and highly strung by nature, his beautiful face made women swoon. Seen close up in A Place in the Sun (1951), it’s very possible you’ve never seen a man look more divine on the screen.

That all changed in 1956, when a catastrophic car accident on the way home from Elizabeth Taylor’s house almost killed him. Surgeons battled to save his life and his face. They patched him up, but the accident seemed to open up a Pandora’s box, a whirl of chaos – drink, drugs, frustration, reckless behaviour, constant pain and ailments – that led to his early death at the age of 45 in 1956.

At some point he became impossible to insure, so none of the studios would touch him. The multi Academy Award-nominated actor who had given so much, and made so much money for the studios was heartbroken.

But before that, he turned in one more breathtaking performance in Judgement at Nuremberg. He’s on screen for 12 minutes of the film’s overall running time of over three hours. But he’s unforgettable as the developmentally challenged German baker who was sterilised under the Nazi regime. The beautiful face is now a battleground, but you can’t take your eyes off him.

Filming with him, according to multiple sources, was no walk in the park. But his torture, writ large on the screen, was palpable. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor at the 1962 Academy Awards