on the evening of may 12, 1956, while filming "raintree county", clift was involved in a serious car crash when he apparently fell asleep while driving and smashed his car into a telephone pole, minutes after leaving a dinner party at the beverly hills home of his close friend and co-star, elizabeth taylor and her husband, michael wilding. alerted by friend kevin mccarthy, who witnessed the collision, taylor raced to clift's side, pulling a tooth out of his tongue as he had begun to choke on it. he suffered a broken jaw and nose, a fractured sinus, and several facial lacerations which required plastic surgery. in a filmed interview years later in 1963, he described his injuries in detail, including how his broken nose could be snapped back into place.