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LIZ MONTGOMERY'S PAST
by Jane Ardmore
TV Radio Mirror
September 1967
"I used to dance with Liz," Bud said. "I was at St. Mark's and then Harvard, and on holidays I'd be back home in New York at all those deb parties. I'd always be on the stag line. Liz was very, very pretty. Very popular. You couldn't dance with her one minute straight without some other guy cutting in. And she always seemed so above it all. Bored stiff, really. Or so she appeared. What I didn't realize was that the social whirl wasn't really her cup of tea. Let's face it. I was so insecure myself, I wasn't about to recognize anyone else's insecurities. Later, I realized Liz was a girl who loved horses and dogs, any animal; she loved being out in the country. The Montgomery family had a big place at Pawling, New York, and she loved being there with her brother and their cousins, the whole clan. She really dug the outdoor, country bit.
"The social game was new to her, her entree came through her step-mother, heiress Elizabeth Harkness, and of course everyone knew she was Robert Montgomery's daughter. But Liz was a bright light in her own right. She had this built-in radiance and she was so pretty.
"I guess I remember her first when this cousin of mine brought her to the prom at St. Mark's. (He still treasures her picture in his year book.) And let me say that my cousin wasn't any big romance of Elizabeth's. He was a 'fun' friend. That's what I was, too. That's how we were in those days. You were friends with dates, you took them to the dances and to the proms, cut in on the deb stag lines and sometimes became close friends. But most of the time you didn't even kiss your dates. You danced and had fun.
"I remember a dance at the River Club, down by the river on East End Avenue in New York City. The summer before, I'd met Elizabeth's dad and her brother Skip. My family had a place at the shore, and someone had brought the Montgomerys down. Skip, like his and Liz's dad, is a great guy, very easy-going; he always was. So at the River Club, back then, when I cut in on Elizabeth, I could say, 'Hey, you know, I met your dad and your brother this summer.' Oh? she said, like not impressed.
"She's really snooty, I thought, and adored her. But what to talk about? Lester Lanin's band would be playing or Meyer Davis' band, and I'd try a 'Great band, isn't it?' and Liz would give me that above-it-all look. To tell you the truth, she wasn't as much fun as she is now. She wasn't even as good-looking then as she is now. Her figure was always okay, but her face was sort of babyish and kind of pouty, especially when you mentioned her father.
"It wasn't from any lack of love for him, though. Through the years I've discovered that. She adores her dad. But who wants to talk about a famous father?
"I wasn't realy hung up on those dances, I didn't get carried away; and now I know that Elizabeth didn't either. The only reason I went was to dance with Elizabeth and a few other gals.
"Liz was very reserved. She felt a lot less secure that she let on. But she danced like a dream, she still does, and it figures; she's a coordinated athlete who looks and is totally feminine. She wore lovely discreet clothes, in excellent taste. You figured she'd marry young, marry someone with a great family name behind him and become one of the social set on the East Coast."
She did. At 21 she married Freddie Gallatin Cammann, one of Bud Baker's upper-class acquaintances at Harvard. And it was a great family. Freddie's grandfather, Albert Gallatin, had been fourth Secretary of the Treasurey. It was a Park Avenue marriage and it lasted one year.
To anyone who knows spunky Elizabeth, the idea of her being trapped in a position where her place is strictly in the home, is ridiculous. And the attitude in many of those social Eastern marriages at the time was that a bride's place is in the home.
At any rate, Bud sort of lost track of Liz when that marriage ended and she left New York. Occasionally, after she married again, he'd run into her at waving distance in some mob scene when she and second husband Gig Young were East. He'd followed her phenomenal success in Bewitched of course. But he never had a chance to talk with her again until last summer when he and his wife were up near Pawling, dropped by to say hello to Skip and his family, and ran into a surprise. There were Liz and husband Bill Asher on vacation.
"She's changed," Bud said now. "She's really radiant, fulfilled. And it isn't just a matter of having found herself professionally. That's great, but she takes it in stirde; she has what most show business people I've met never have--perspective. She knows glamour for what it's worth, knows how many women scramble for careers because they aren't happy enough in other areas of their life. Acting is normal and natural to Liz--both her father and mother had the talent--and it is something fun to do, not something to sacrifice your life for. No, what changed Liz is this guy Bill Asher. He's the right kind of man for her. A gutty guy, a real man-type guy who is strong. They are ideally suited to each other, totally in love. He doens't try to lock her up, he doesn't have to. They are both whole people with everything in the world in common, and it's great they got together.
"We talked about the old days, of course, Liz and I. And the people we knew. They're really not her favorite people, nor are they mine; buy they were part of our youth. Remember how Will Rogers said, 'I never met a man I didn't like?' Liz and I both feel sort of that way. These people are part of our memories.
"We danced. Her cousins all have places up the road and down the road, and on Saturday night everyone gathered at her mother's home and we put records on. I guess Liz and I danced for an hour--the watusi, the pony, the frug, the swim.
"Liz is so alive now. So completely honest. There's no faking--no above-it-all like she was as a kid at those parties. No faking the phony social stuff the way she had to with Freddie. No trying to adapt to Gig's very nice quiet reserve. She's Billy's girl, and absolutely honest. Nothing to fear. Every actress has to have a pretty strong ego, but you can't overpower a guy like Bill.
"The last time we were on the Coast, my wife and I had a chance to visit Liz and Bill at home, see their house and see Liz with her kids. She's great with them. Absolutely natural. Bill says she's so great with the kids, it's spooky. I know what he means. When you see her at home, you'd never think she was anything else but a housewife. You forget she's a star. She sort of grew up with an acceptance of the natural order of life. And now she's with it.
"Bill was telling me about a national Broadcasters' Association conclave held in Chicago. Liz was supposed to be the big gun at that, get up and entertain. Well, they got into Chicago on Thursday and on Thursday night phoned home to see how things were. They had a new housekeeper and she was fairly young, and she was nervous. She assured Elizabeth on the phone that the children were fine, but she didn't conceal the fact that she was nervous. Elizabeth just hung up the phone and said, 'Bill, I think we'd better go home.' They'd been ready for bed. They pulled on slacks and sweaters, grabbed a plane, flew back to L.A., stayed Friday and Friday night, flew back to Chicago Saturday, and Elizabeth was simply great at the show. Then they turned around and flew home again. She is a mother, a real one, she really loves those kids. You should see them, Willie and Robert, two little muscle men like thier dad. But can you imagine flying 2500 miles back and forth just because a housekeeper is nervous?
"And Liz and Bill are together on all this. There's a complete rapport, a complete respect. They're not competing with each other. None of the Hollywood social routine. No publicity junkets. They live at home, and it's kind of a fortress, a heavy stone and clapboard, permanent-looking house, big, warm, and rambling. It looks as if it had been there from the year one and is going to stay.
"We came away with a great feeling, my wife and I. Especially me, because you know how disappointing it sometimes is to meet someone you knew way back when. But I like Liz even better now. She's so real, so full of life and optimism. And her sense of humor! She didn't have that in the River Club days. Bad tomorrows don't exist for her, they're all going to be good. That's her great rudder in the turbulent waters of show business, this sense of balance. There is always going to be a dawn and green grass and sun, kids to play with and footballs to kick.
"Can you imagine a glamour girl playing football between takes? That's Liz. She can't waste a minute of living. She's having fun.
"And to think that I knew her when she was above it all!"