AN ACTOR'S UPS AND DOWNS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 27 February 1939, Page 10

AN ACTOR'S UPS AND DOWNS

Reversing llie old saw that it lakes; three generations to go from shirt- . sleeves to shirtsleeves, Robert Mont - : gomery in his own short life has been rich and poor and rich again, for he. was the son of the Henry Montgomerys., of Beacon. New York, whose ample ' means were derived from manufactur- i ing Private tutors preceded his journey ; through Europe before he was to have j entered an eastern college, but his I father’s death was inopportune both for j the happiness and the security of the Montgomery family. Robert and his brother had to find a job of any sort to keep on eating, and the first such job was as a mechanic’s helper in a railroad yard. Following that the futurt star went to Los Angeles as a seaman on an oil tanker, and Hollywood didn’t turn a hair, but back in New York the

seaman changed into an actor o! the J spear-holding sort till he got a job in a stock company where George Cukor directed the cast Montgomery learned the ai ls of the , stage well enough to invade the Broadway shows as a leading man He refused the offers of film con- 1 tracts for some five years, but he gave in at last, and "So This is College'’ marked his.film debut A year from' then he was made a star in “Man in j Possession.” and there followed a series I of striking successes which came to a climax with "Night Must Fall.” In j “The First Hundred Years.” yet to be; shown in New Zealand, he returns to! the type of comedy role which first established him