Montagu Love

{{short description|English actor (1877–1943)}}

{{More citations needed |date=September 2019}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Use British English|date=August 2012}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Montagu Love

| image = Montagu Love.jpg

| caption =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1877|3|15|df=y}}

| birth_place = Portsmouth, Hampshire, England

| death_date = {{death date and age|1943|5|17|1877|3|15|df=y}}

| death_place = Beverly Hills, California, U.S.

| othername =

| occupation = Actor

| yearsactive = 1914–1943

| spouse = Marjorie Hollis Love

| homepage =

}}

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

Early years

File:Redver buller sauvant un officier à Hlobane.jpg'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 and Fanny Louisa Love, née Poad; 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.{{cite news |title=Montagu Love refused to be a minister |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35766986/montagu_love/ |access-date=9 September 2019 |work=The San Francisco Examiner |date=29 September 1921 |location=California, San Francisco |page=13|via = Newspapers.com}}

Love's acting debut came with an American company in a production in the Isle of Wight. His Broadway debut occurred in The Second in Command (1913).{{cite web |title=Montagu Love |url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/montagu-love-68133 |website=Internet Broadway Database |publisher=The Broadway League |access-date=9 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190909021931/https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/montagu-love-68133 |archive-date=9 September 2019}}

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 66 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. Besides acting, Montague had a keen interest in drawing and painting. He became very proficient in caricatures of cast mates and also military paintings, primarily those of British military uniforms.{{cite news |title=Obituary: Montagu Love |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35796132/montagu_love/ |access-date=9 September 2019 |work=Daily News |agency=Associated Press |date=19 May 1943 |location=New York City |page=B 34|via = Newspapers.com}}

Death

On 17 May 1943, Love died in Beverly Hills, California at age 66.File:Rasputin the Black Monk.jpg

File:'The Guardian'.jpg

File:Cardinal Mercier 1917.jpg

Filmography

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References

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