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by Norma Gould
TeleVision Life
January 1954
It was hard to keep in mind that Dad to this 20-year-old, who already had several ingenue parts to her credit on the Robert Montgomery summer NBC shows, was the terribly attractive, ever-young Robert Montgomery himself. And could he really be, as his pretty, grown daughter was assuring me, the best possible father in the world? My natural reaction was, Sure, what else can she say? Let's talk a bit and then we'll see. So we talked a bit...in a little office at NBC which she brightened considerably with her blond hair, her bright, red well-shaped mouth, her glowing skin above the crisp, white off-the-shoulder blouse.
The six-foot-one leading man has a petite, five-foot-four daughter, as feminine and cute in her plaid cotton skirt as any father could wish. If she is not quite so beautiful as he is handsome, that seems a small point. More important, she is no anemic shadow of a famous father; she is more the personification of the Montgomery spirit. She is patrician and a little distant. You get the feeling that this girl was born to wealth, as indeed she was, and as her father, the son of a well-to-do rubber company executive, was, also. And then she laughs, and the laugh saves her. It is her father's laugh, hearty and resonant, very unexpected in this trim young girl, but warm and truly disarming.
Reminiscing about her childhood, the first thing that came to her mind was the many horseback riding trips she had taken with her father. "At three I rode with Dad all the time. We stayed in England for a while and we rode quite a lot there. I loved riding and still do. For years we swam and played tennis together, too. Dad used to say, 'I wouldn't have a child who didn't swim and ride!''
"He didn't try to dominate me. He never ordered me to do things. He would say, 'Don't you think this is the way to do it?' Still, he tried to teach me things that would help me. he taught me to stand up straight--and here I sit, slouched! And to concentrate, and think, and that's been terribly valuable in studying scrips and deciding how I want to do them.
"I didn't see as much of him as I would have liked, of course. I had a nurse for years--a wonderful woman--and my grandmother came to stay with me and my younger brother when Mother and Dad were away. I had a wonderful childhood. At school, of course, I had to be careful what I said. One of the kids might say her parents took her out to dinner the night before and I'd join in with, 'Daddy took me to Romanoff's' and they'd look at me and suddenly I'd be all alone.
"You have two strikes against you when you're a movie star's child. There are some people who are waiting for you to do something wrong. If a director tells you to do something you really don't agree with, you're not in a position to object. The extras would just love it if Montgomery's daughter argued with the director. No one's showed any animosity to me. Everybody's been just so wonderful and kind."
Elizabeth Montgomery was born in Los Angeles in the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on April 15, 1933, when her father, according to available figures, was 29, five years after his marriage to the former Elizabeth Allen. Elizabeth's young brother was born three years later. She went to the Westlake School for Girls in Bel Air and lived there in a beautiful, white, 16-room house. She and her brother were crazy about pets. They had three dogs, a cat, two ducks, rabbits, birds and monkeys to keep them company. "I adore animals. I'm always picking up strays," she says, though there isn't much she can do with them anymore. When her parents were divorced in 1950, her mother sold the house and came East with her daughter. They live now in a five-room apartment in Manhattan House, one of the swankest of New York's apartment buildings, in the east '60's, and though Elizabeth is dying for a dog, they feel it would be impracticable to keep one there.
Robert Montgomery and his present wife, Elizabeth Grant Harkness, whom Montgomery married shortly after his divorce, live on a farm in upper New York State where presumably there is plenty of room for pets.
"Dad has never done anything to disillusion me," his daughter insisted. "The divorce? I should prefer to say nothing about it.
"Of course there are times when I disagree with Dad. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one in the family who would ever argue with him. I agree with him completely on his politics, but that's one area where I insist on independent thought.
"I was very worried about him a while ago. I thought his investigation into New Jersey politics might put him in danger and I wished he would stop them. I guess I've always worried about him! When I saw his movies when I was a child, I used to worry about him something happening to him in the film. When he was killed I had a fit. I got so nervous I could die!
"Dad never encouraged me to be an actress. He painted the blackest possible picture of show business. He said it was the most heartbreaking field you can go into. The competition is fantastic. He did say, though, that it could be terrifically satisfying. I was a terrible ham at the age of five. Dad found me in the nursery singing the wishing well song from Snow White in the waste paper basked. I'd locked my brother in the closet to play the echo." The hearty laugh rang out.
Elizabeth spent her senior year at Spence School in New York and was graduated from there. She had two years at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and did some summer stock on Long Island. She made her television debut with her father at the age of 18. She played his daughter--"Real old-fashioned type-casting!" she said in an aside. This past summer she has been a regular member of the troupe called the Robert Montgomery Players which gave a series of one-hour productions in the Robert Montgomery Presents spot. Starting with a brief, walk-on part, she recieved larger roles each week until she had the ingenue lead in a story called "Summer Love," in which she played opposite John Newland.
Elizabeth refers to Newland fondly as Johnny and says he is a wonderful performer to work with. When asked if they had ever dated, she said, "Well, we-ve had drinks together after rehearsals at the Barberry Room. We're just good friends."
Her ideal man has a personality, character, ease, and is well-dressed. She also prefers older men.
Elizabeth dated her first boy at 14. She says of those days when they were all still living in the beautiful white house in Bel Air, "Dad sort of scrutinized each young man when he came to call for me. It was really sort of sad, they were all terrified of him. Sometimes he was a little cold, when he really disliked the boy, but most times he tried to make them feel at home."
Now, at 20, Elizabeth is completely on her own. Sometimes her mother gets to meet the boy, sometimes she doesn't. In any case, she doesn't wait up for Elizabeth to come home from a date. "I was brought up to be trusted," Elizabeth declared. As for marriage, it's apparently pretty far from her mind at the moment. "I'd like to get started on my career first. I really don't think it's fair to the man if he doesn't know what he's getting--an actress or a housewife."
Elizabeth said she thought her father was pretty pleased with her now. He watched every performance of the Robert Montgomery Players during the summer (his introductions and closings of the program were on film). As for her mother, "Well, I guess she's pelased," she said lightly. "You know how it is, she's never actually sat me down and said, 'Elizabeth, I want to tell you how pleased I am with what you're doing.'"
Elizabeth in turn, is pretty pleased with her father. She was going to have dinner with him and his present wife after our talk and she was in a mood of excited anticipation. After all, wasn't he the most wonderful father in the world?