Montgomery, George

▪ 2001

George Montgomery Letz 

      American actor (b. Aug. 29, 1916, Brady, Mont.—d. Dec. 12, 2000, Rancho Mirage, Calif.), brought his rugged handsomeness to some 87 films and a number of television series during a six-decade career. Best known for his roles in westerns, he also appeared in romantic comedies and musicals. Montgomery grew up on a farm, and the skills he gained there, such as handling horses, later proved useful to his performing career. After a year at the University of Montana, where he studied interior design, he moved to Hollywood and soon became a stuntman and played small parts in westerns, The Singing Vagabond (1935) and Springtime in the Rockies (1937) among them. The 15-chapter serial The Lone Ranger (1938) gave him his first major role, and he went on to be featured in such films as The Cisco Kid and the Lady (1940), Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942), Roxie Hart (1942), and Coney Island (1943). After having romanced several prominent actresses, Montgomery married singer Dinah Shore in 1943. Following World War II service in the army air corps, which he entered in 1943, Montgomery returned to movies in Three Little Girls in Blue (1946), and in 1947 he played detective Philip Marlowe in The Brasher Doubloon (released in the U.K. as The High Window). Montgomery thereafter appeared mostly in low-budget westerns and war movies, and he starred for two years (1958–59) in the TV series Cimarron City. He also directed a few action films. Montgomery found himself in the headlines in 1963 when, after he and Shore had divorced, he was shot by a housemaid who objected to his socializing with glamour girls. Since the 1940s Montgomery had done carpentry and set and prop construction, and he later became a painter and sculptor; those interests generally occupied him in his later years.

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