George Montgomery was boxing champion at the University of Montana where he majored in architecture and interior design Dropping out a year later he decided to take up boxing more seriously and moved to California where he was coached by exheavyweight world champion James J Jeffries While in Hollywood he came to the attention of the studios not least because he was an expert rider and was hired as a stuntman in 1935 After doing this for four years George was offered a contract at 20th Century Fox in 1939 but found himself largely confined to leads in Bwesterns He did not secure a part in anything even remotely like a prestige picture until his costarring role in Roxie Hart 1942 opposite Ginger Rogers Next in Orchestra Wives 1942 he played the perfunctory love interest for Ann Rutherford though both inevitably ended up playing second trombone to Glenn Miller and His Orchestra In 1947 George got his first serious break being cast as Raymond Chandlers private eye Philip Marlowe in The Brasher Doubloon 1947 Reviewers however compared his performance unfavourably with that of Humphrey Bogart and found the film pallid overall So it was back to the saddle for George Unable to shake his image as a cowboy actor he starred in scores of films with titles like Belle Starrs Daughter 1948 Dakota Lil 1950 Jack McCall Desperado 1953 and Masterson of Kansas 1954 at Columbia and for producer Edward Small at United Artists When not cleaning up the Wild West with his sixshooter he branched out into adventure films set in exotic locales notably as Harry Quartermain in Watusi 1959 During the 60s he also wrote directed and starred in several longforgotten lowbudget wartime potboilers made in the Philippines At the height of his popularity George attracted as much publicity for his acting as for his liaisons with glamorous stars like Ginger Rogers Hedy Lamarr to whom he was briefly engaged and singer Dinah Shore whom he married in 1943 After his retirement from the film business he devoted himself to his love of painting furnituremaking and sculpting bronze busts including one of his close friend Ronald Reagan
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