Geoffrey Clifton is a character based on British aristocrat Robert Clayton East-Clayton.Born on 7 April 1908 at his ancestral home, Hall Place, in Hurley, Berkshire, he became 9th Baronet of Marden and 5th Baronet of Hall Place, Maidenhead upon his father's death in January 1932. A month later, he married Dorothy Durrant, daughter of the vicar of Leverstock Green, Hertfordshire, at a London registry office. The union blessed by her father, the newlyweds traveled to Egypt for an expedition to the Gilf Kebir, where East-Clayton hoped to locate the fabled Three Valleys of Zarzura.In The English Patient, Clifton is an operative for British Intelligence posing as a tourist who, with his wife, Katharine, joins L