a tribute to george montgomery

For Valentine day, I’ll blog about one of Hedy’s love interests during the early 40s: George Montgomery.

He was one of the two very handsome Hollywood actors who came from Montana (the other was Gary Cooper!). He was engaged to Hedy Lamarr in 1942, yet for some reason they didn’t make it to the altar. Hedy, instead married to John Loder and George to Dinah Shore. However, they remained good friends and George admitted, “Hedy is the only girl I’ve ever asked to marry me.” He called Hedy, “Penny” because she often sat thinking when he came and said, “Penny for your thoughts”. She once gave him a St.Christopher medal which he still wore around his neck. George is, undoubtedly, a talentedly artist. Besides being in the movie business, he was a painter, sculptor who as Hedy said, “can make a living out of his hobbies.” At the end of this post, you’ll get to see many of George’s paintings and sculpturing works.

Hedy and George in 1942. Please check back at the gallery at hedy-lamarr.org for hi-res version of the picture.

George Montgomery was born in August. 29. 1916 to a family of 17 members. He left his education at the University of Montana to pursue his interest in a film career in Hollywood. His cowboy background led him to getting many film offers in various western movies. His first movie appearance was at the age of 18. At age 24, he signed a contract with 20th century fox and changed his name to George Montgomery. George had wonderful craftsmanship ever since he was a little child. He had made many many sculptures (some was sent to the White House), furniture for family and friends.

George had loved Hedy ever since he saw her in “Algiers” and their romance blossomed in 1942. The engagement was announced during the filming of “Tortilla Flat”. Their love story appeared on various film magazines of the time for one whole year. Nobody really knew what happened in between, but by the time Hedy started “Crossroads” she started hanging out with John Loder, an English actor she met at the Hollywood canteen. And George found his ideal soulmate in Dinah Shore, at the same place.  In the same year 1943, Hedy married John and George married Dinah. Hedy remembered George as one of the men “she should have married to.” Somehow I think they would have been a good match to each other, regarding how much Hedy loved arts, painting, and she herself was a vivid painter and art collector.

Check out some of George pictures:

Some artworks (out of many many):

For more artworks and pictures of George Montgomery, please feel free to contact me

Pictures and information taken mainly from “The years of George Montgomery” which George dedicated to: “who believed in me, had faith in me, loved me, envied me, jealous of me, and those who didn’t give a damn about me.”

Hedy Lamarr’s Moodiness – Part 1

Do you know that Hedy Lamarr had a fierily temperamental character that was completely opposite of her heavenly look? Somehow many men got intimidated of her because she was both extremely intelligent and too moody to handle. Let’s look at how many of the men in her life talked about this aspect of Hedy. The first part of today I’ll focus on actor John Fraser’s personal experience with Hedy when they filmed The Loves of Three Queens together in 1953.

In his autobiography Close up:an actor telling tales, John Fraser dedicated one chapter to talk about the filming of The Loves of Three Queens where he played Drago, a loyal friend of queen Geneviève (Hedy Lamarr) who died while fighting to protect her honor. At first it was the problem of Hedy’s disapproving of what she had to wear in the movie. She screamed in anger:

“How can they sick me in that Ball Gown! I need scarlet! Or lilac to go with my eyes…They want to ruin my career. I’ll look like Doris Day before she was a virgin! I’m going to walk off this picture. Walk it off. Just like that. Just leave. Get on a plane tomorrow. Frankie will fix everything. I’m not sticking around here to have my future flushed down the john…”

She seemed to be talking to herself at this point, then she even got very temperamental though John and many people had assured Hedy that she would look wonderful in anything, anything! Because she was the most beautiful woman.

She didn’t seem to listen. She just immersed herself in her own thoughts. This made John think she must be seriously mentally disturbed. In the end, he had to raise his voice a little,

“Hedy, don’t walk off the picture. They’ll listen alright when we start working. You see, everything will turn out fine.”

Everything did not turn out fine. Hedy didn’t speak anything. She was, again, deep in her own thoughts regardless of the presence of John Fraser. Then he said, “she bent her lovely gaze on me without speaking for quite two minutes. She then said in a gentle voice, extremely lucidly, “Who are you, you little flea, to tell me what to do?”. Then she just left.

The 40 year old but still ravishing Hedy Lamarr, as queen Geneviève de Brabant

John Fraser was too young and unprepared before a big star he didn’t know what to do. What came next was that the scenes with Hedy and him turned out to be so difficult and heavy because Hedy refused to talk to him for she thought he didn’t treat her with enough respect. Even her relationship with Edgar Ulmer, who was also from Austria thus naturally everyone expected a warm relationship between Hedy and him, was becoming more and more bitter. Edgar, who had directed Hedy in The Strange Woman had to walk off the filming because Hedy was “beyond unbearable”. Note that he was one director who never walked off while filming before.

The ending scene when queen Geneviève reconciled with her husband after 5 years apart

John Fraser was just glad when the filming was over and he would not want to work with a big star again soon. But in conclusion, he said in defense of Hedy:

“Hedy Lamarr was never a normal person. Not only she was considered the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, she was one  of the patent holders of the idea of “frequency hopping” communications. This revolutionary concepts is now used in everything from mobile phones to military satellites to jam-resistance radar. She was worshiped for both her beauty and scientific genius”

>> Next: Hedy Lamarr’s Moodiness – Part 2: Engaged to Jean Pierre Aumont.