Montagu Love

Harry Montagu Love (15 March 1877 – 17 May 1943)[1] was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor.

Montagu Love
Born(1877-03-15)15 March 1877
Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom
Died17 May 1943(1943-05-17) (aged 66)
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Other namesHarry Montagu Love
OccupationActor
Years active1914–1943
Spouse(s)Marjorie Hollis Love (1929-1943) (his death)
Gertrude Stainer Love (1906-1928) (divorced)

Early years
Redvers Buller's VC action, painted by H. Montagu Love (1905) for the "How He Won the Victoria Cross" postcard series produced by Raphael Tuck & Sons

Born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, Love was the son of Harry Love (b. 1852) and Fanny Louisa Love, née Poad (b. 1856); his father was listed as accountant on the 1881 English Census.

Career

Educated in Great Britain, Love began his career as an artist, with his first important job as an illustrator for The Illustrated Daily News in London.[2]

Love's acting debut came with an American company in a production in the Isle of Wight.[2] He honed basic stage talents in London, and in 1913 sailed to Canada and crossed the border into the United States in November with a road-company production of Cyril Maude's Grumpy. His Broadway debut occurred in The Second in Command (1913).[1]

He was typically cast in heartless villain roles. In the 1920s, he played with Rudolph Valentino in The Son of the Sheik, opposite John Barrymore in Don Juan, and appeared with Lillian Gish in 1928's The Wind. He also portrayed 'Colonel Ibbetson' in Forever (1921), the silent film version of Peter Ibbetson. Love was one of the more successful villains in silent films.

One of Love's first sound films was the part-talkie The Mysterious Island co-starring Lionel Barrymore. In 1937, he played Henry VIII in the first talking film version of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, with Errol Flynn. Love played the bigoted Bishop of the Black Canons in The Adventures of Robin Hood, also starring Flynn. However, he also played gruff authoritarian figures, such as Monsieur Cavaignac, who, contrary to history, demands the resignation of those responsible for the Dreyfus cover-up, in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), as well as Don Alejandro de la Vega, whose son appears to be a fop but is actually Zorro, in the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro, starring Tyrone Power.

In 1941, he played a doctor in Shining Victory. In 1939's Gunga Din, Montagu Love reads the final stanza of Rudyard Kipling's original poem over the body of the slain Din.

Love's last film to be released, Devotion, was released three years after his death aged 63 in 1943. He was interred at Chapel of the Pines Crematory. His last acting performance was in Wings Over the Pacific (1943).

Personal life

Love was married to actress Marjorie Hollis.[3]

Death

On May 17, 1943, Love died in Beverly Hills, California at age 66.[1]

Rasputin, the Black Monk (1917)
The Guardian (1917)
Cardinal Mercier was the working title for The Cross Bearer (1918)

Filmography

References
  1. "Montagu Love". Internet Broadway Database. The Broadway League. Archived from the original on 9 September 2019. Retrieved 9 September 2019.
  2. "Montagu Love refused to be a minister". The San Francisco Examiner. California, San Francisco. 29 September 1921. p. 13. Retrieved 9 September 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Obituary: Montagu Love". Daily News. New York, New York City. Associated Press. 19 May 1943. p. B 34. Retrieved 9 September 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
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