Reggie Montgomery

Montgomery was born in 1947 in Tallahassee, Florida, and had two siblings. His parents wanted him to become an English teacher. In high school, he studied acting and played touch football. He went to Florida A&M University and studied drama, graduating in 1968.{{cite news |last1=McKinley |first1=Jesse |author1-link=Jesse McKinley |title=Reggie Montgomery, 54, Actor and Director |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/08/arts/reggie-montgomery-54-actor-and-director.html |access-date=9 August 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=8 February 2002 |language=en}}

Montgomery was born in Tallahassee, FL. He had two siblings. He said of the experience: "Especially being of color, I am always figuring out a way to survive in the world and in the theater...I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida in the 50s where people were still being lynched".{{Cite web |title=Reggie Montgomery Has His Day |url=https://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/448 |access-date=2023-11-26 |website=www.totaltheater.com |language=en}} As a child, Montgomery had a speech impediment, which required surgery. In part to help with his speech impediment, when he was 6 years old he was enrolled in a theater program at Florida A&M University, run by Sheppard Randolph Edmunds, founder of the first Black theater educational program at Dillard University in 1936,{{Cite web |last=May |first=Richon |date=May 2022 |title=Its Time for Representation, Diversity, Equity, and Justice at Theater UNO |url=https://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4230&context=td |website=ScholarWorks}} and sometimes known as "the dean of Black academic theater".{{Cite web |last=Duhon |first=Valeria Martinez and Calder |date=2022-02-23 |title=Dillard University: "From Confidence Courage." |url=https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0f5c233164e64ff9a79689f366d08455 |access-date=2023-11-26 |website=ArcGIS StoryMaps |language=en}} Montgomery stayed in the program for 8 years.

After graduating from Florida A&M University in 1968, Montgomery studied at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, the first year of the school's existence. The dean of the school, Mel Miller, saw Montgomery in a local stage production, and invited Montgomery to apply. Of 1,000 applicants, Montgomery was one of 30 accepted.{{Cite news |date=Nov 1969 |title=Color Comes to the Circus: Arena's first black clown finds Big Top life 'a groove' |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZFDqAUi7h-QC&pg=PA155 |work=Ebony |pages=155–162}}

He studied under Otto Griebling and Emmett Kelley, learning "acrobatic exercises--tumbles, flops and rolls...[and] also studied elements of visual comedy, along with practice work in pantomime." He expressed not liking circus when he had seen it 10 years prior, but "decided to give it a try" after being invited to apply. Drawn to performance, his parents expressed a preference for him to be an English teacher (he did, in fact, work as a substitute English teacher at Florida's Sarasota Junior High while attending Clown College "to earn 'bread-and-butter' money").

He later earned a master's degree in fine arts from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX.

In 1969, he attended the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, founded the year before. He was the only Black man in his classes, and Ringling's first Black clown.{{cite web |title=Color Comes To the Circus |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZFDqAUi7h-QC&pg=PA155 |publisher=Ebony |pages=155–162 |language=en |date=November 1969}} During the six weeks of clown college he also worked as a substitute English teacher. He did not want to appear in white face, and with the agreement of circus managers he applied a more scaled down clown make up.

He stayed with Ringling for a year,{{cite news |last1=Marshall |first1=Alys |date=10 February 2002 |title=Reggie Montgomery |url=https://variety.com/2002/scene/people-news/reggie-montgomery-1117860453/ |access-date=9 August 2023 |work=Variety}} saying that

{{Blockquote

|We've got people from more than 18 foreign countries. But nobody allows himself to get uptight about Communism or international boundaries or race. Everybody just helps everybody else. And like things really jell.

}}In 1969, after graduating from clown college, he toured as a clown with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, refusing to do white-face, saying to Ebony magazine in 1969: "My own paint job’s good enough."

In the 1970s, Montgomery established the Minority Repertory Theater in Dallas, TX together with actress Irma P. Hall,{{cite web |last1=Johnson |first1=Eddie Bernice |author1-link=Eddie Bernice Johnson |date=14 April 2008 |title=HONORING IRMA P. HALL |url=https://www.congress.gov/110/crec/2008/04/14/CREC-2008-04-14-pt1-PgE601-3.pdf |publisher=Congress.gov}}{{cite web |title=Irma P. Hall |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/79514%7C203512/Irma-P.-Hall/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210209153817/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/79514%7C203512/Irma-P.-Hall/#biography |archive-date=9 February 2021 |publisher=Turner Classic Movies |url-status=live |language=en}} where he worked with Paul Baker at the Dallas Theater Center. While in Dallas, he portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.{{Cite web |last=Jones |first=Kenneth |date=2002-01-25 |title=Actor-director Reggie Montgomery, a Vet of Public Theater, Dead at 54 |url=https://playbill.com/article/actor-director-reggie-montgomery-a-vet-of-public-theater-dead-at-54-com-103607 |website=Playbill}} He later moved to Los Angeles, CA to further pursue acting. In 1982, he moved to New York.

In 1986, he was part of George C. Wolfe's play The Colored Museum, where he played several characters. His theater work included Suzan-Lori Parks's The America Play and In the Blood and plays by Zora Neale Hurston. He worked as a director and acting coach. Montgomery's film and TV roles included Matlock (TV series), Law & Order, Malcolm X and Joe the King.

In theater, Montgomery staged Spunk (1990) and Broadway's {{Cite web |title=Reggie Montgomery – Broadway Cast & Staff {{!}} IBDB |url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/reggie-montgomery-76218 |access-date=2024-12-18 |website=www.ibdb.com}}production of Mule Bone (1991), as well as Digging Eleven, I Ain’t Yo Uncle: The New Jack Revisionist Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Colored Museum and …Love, Langston at Hartford Stage, where he also served for 2 years as an associate artistic director. Montgomery previously appeared in George C. Wolfe's original productions of Back Alley Tales,{{Cite journal |last1=Billias |first1=George Athan |last2=Clark. |first2=William Bell |date=December 1970 |title=Naval Documents of the American Revolution. Volume IV, American Theatre: Feb. 19, 1776-Apr. 17, 1776; European Theatre: Feb. I, 1776-May 25, 1776; American Theatre: Apr. 18, 1776-May 8, 1776 |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/1848145 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=75 |issue=7 |pages=2125 |doi=10.2307/1848145 |jstor=1848145 |issn=0002-8762}} Spunk (he played a pimp) and The Colored Museum ("a series of satirical sketches about black American history" playing various characters, including "Walter-Lee-Beau-Willy, a purposely stereotypical black man" and "Miss Roj...a transvestite in white go-go boots and orange patio pants").{{Cite news |last=Richards |first=David |date=1986-12-07 |title='Colored': Crazy & |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1986/12/07/colored-crazy-38/0a03240b-4e67-4ad4-8d85-ec08a466fc33/ |newspaper=The Washington Post}} For his performances in Wolfe's plays, he won the Audelco Best Actor Award, at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Upon meeting Montgomery, Wolfe writes in a tribute article memorializing the artist, “Reggie Montgomery was mad with talent and intensity and vulnerability and integrity. As he talked, his eyes flashed with rage or joy or whatever he was feeling in that moment. There was, quite simply, no space, no distance, no on-and-off switch to Reggie and his artistry.”{{Cite journal |last1=Billias |first1=George Athan |last2=Clark. |first2=William Bell |date=December 1970 |title=Naval Documents of the American Revolution. Volume IV, American Theatre: Feb. 19, 1776-Apr. 17, 1776; European Theatre: Feb. I, 1776-May 25, 1776; American Theatre: Apr. 18, 1776-May 8, 1776 |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/1848145 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=75 |issue=7 |pages=2125 |doi=10.2307/1848145 |jstor=1848145 |issn=0002-8762}} In 2001, he portrayed James Baldwin in Wesley Brown's A Prophet Among Them (his final acting credit). He also performed on Broadway, acting in The Green Bird.

From 1995 to 1999, Montgomery was an associate professor of theater arts at Trinity College in Hartford, CT.While at Trinity, Montgomery wrote and directed many productions including, The Suburban Violence Project, Reggie Montgomery Directs, which he wrote and directed, as well as Up Front and Personal, a collection of stories written by his Trinity Students during Montgomery’s multicultural workshop.{{Cite journal |last=Trinity College (Hartford |first=Connecticut, USA) |title=The Trinity Tripod 1998-11-23: Tripod |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.30172317 |series=Trinity College Archival Publications and Manuscripts. Trinity College |volume=97 |issue=10}}{{Cite journal |last=Trinity College (Hartford |first=Connecticut, USA) |title=The Trinity Tripod 1997-03-04: Tripod |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.30055167 |series=Trinity College Archival Publications and Manuscripts. Trinity College |volume=95 |issue=16}}

In 2000, Montgomery directed Suzzanne Douglas in Lady Day at the Emerson Bar and Grill, at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ. He previously worked with Douglas in an Actors Studio production of The Obeah Man, a musical adaptation of Molière's The Doctor in Spite of Himself.

Montgomery also taught acting at the Alvin Ailey School of Dance and at the American Musical and Dramatic Arts Academy in New York.

Montgomery was a close friend of fellow actor Tommy Hollis.

Montgomery was found dead in his New York City apartment on January 13, 2002. He died of natural causes after "a long illness". He was survived by a brother and a sister. He was buried in Tallahassee, Florida.

Wolfe said:

{{Blockquote

|I don't necessarily know the true meaning of the word "artist," but I do know when I'm in the presence of one. And from that very first meeting I knew Reggie was a great artist: A heroic spirit, a subversive jester and a fierce warrior.

}}

Media file of Reggie Montgomery performing in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhFlG3GzqH4 The Colored Museum]. This is one of Montgomery's most notable works, awarding him an Audelco. {{Cite web |last=Marshall |first=Alys |date=2002-02-10 |title=Reggie Montgomery |url=https://variety.com/2002/scene/people-news/reggie-montgomery-1117860453/ |access-date=2024-12-18 |website=Variety |language=en-US}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last1=Hepner |first1=Donald C. |last2=Roseman |first2=Curtis C. |title=Reggie!: Ringling's First Black Clown |date=2016 |publisher=CreateSpace |isbn=978-1-5346-6266-7 |language=en}}

• {{IMDb name|0599898}}
• {{IBDB name|76218}}
• [https://www.abouttheartists.com/artists/274470-reggie-montgomery Reggie Montgomery] at AboutTheArtists.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montgomery, Reggie}}

Category:1947 births

Category:American clowns

Category:Male actors from Tallahassee, Florida

Category:African-American male actors

Category:American male film actors

Category:American male stage actors

Category:African-American cultural history

Category:Black circus performers

Category:2002 deaths

Category:Florida A&M University alumni

Category:Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus people

Category:Trinity University (Texas) alumni