WHAT'S NEW
BIOGRAPHY
PHOTO GALLERIES
SCREEN CREDITS
STAGE CREDITS
ON THE RECORD
MEMORABILIA
SIX YEAR GIG
ASHMONT
A WORTHWHILE VENTURE
LIZ'S DAD
WANTED ITEMS
LINKS
GUESTBOOK
MAILING LIST
CONTACT THE WEBMASTER
ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY WILL HAVE TO
PROVE IT TO BOB
TV Guide
July 24, 1953
Like any good father who has taken an interest in his offspring's career, Montgomery is providing as many breaks as he can. He signed her this year as a member of the stock company on his summer TV series. But despite this obvious boost, both father and daughter insist that Liz is to shape her own career.
"I have a standing offer with Liz," her father said. "Any time she wants to discuss her career with me, I'm available. But the decisions are hers."
Because of his lengthy show business experience, however, Montgomery thinks he knows what is best for his daughter professionally.
Liz sat for some publicity pictures, for example, prior to doing her first TV show. When she and Montgomery looked them over, he spotted one which he deemed unflattering. He immediately insisted that Liz rip up the copy and have the negative in the network publicity files destroyed.
The younger Montgomery freely admits that she derived her acting ambitions from her father. Now an attractive 20-year-old, she was growing up during her father's hey-day in Hollywood. "I grew up with Dad's acting, which probably raised my hopes of becoming an actress," she said. "But I think I'd have wanted that even if Dad had never acted."
LIZ COMPETES FOR ROLES
Liz recalls an incident, which she cites to prove that this father-daughter relationship isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Anxious to get a role in Eye Witness, she requested a screen test, which her father granted her. "The only trouble with that," Liz said sadly, "was that another actress, Ann Sheldon (sic), got the part."
Liz finally won a part in one of her father's productions several years later, but this time it was TV. She played the role of her father's daughter in Top Secret, in 1951. He has his own memories of that experience.
"The last line in the show was the best one in the script," he recalls. "It was originally to have been mine. But Liz wanted it, so I had to give in. What else could I do?"
Liz hopes some day to emulate her father's Hollywood success but wants to establish her reputation first in TV and on Broadway. She was graduated in March from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts' two-year course. To gain further experience, she served as an apprentice last summer at the John Drew Memorial Theater, in Easthampton, L.I.
PLAYS INGENUE PARTS
She is playing ingenue roles in Montgomery's TV stock company this summer, and because of her youthful experience, is already fearful that she may be typed. "Even though I'm 20 now," she says ruefully, "everybody thinks I'm about 15. If this keeps up, I'll probaby be playing ingenues until I'm 40."
Again following in her father's footsteps, Liz would prefer to play comedy roles. She would also like to try her hand at musical comedy but confesses, "I can't sing." She has had ballet training, in case a Broadway musical ever materializes.
With the exception of that one role in her father's show, she has done no TV, mostly because the Academy frowns on its students doing outside work. Liz is thankful to the Academy for teaching her to read lines well, something which her father has been impressing on her for years.
"Dad taught me to read everything since I was a little girl," she said.
Although he still intends to let her live her own professional life, Montgomery will be on hand all summer to produce the TV series in which Elizabeth plays.
But he insists he won't favor her over others in the cast, including John Newland, Margaret Hayes and Vaughn Taylor. She'll have to prove herself.