1877-1943
British performer Montagu Love, born Harry Montague Love, was born on this day in Portsmouth, England. If you look up Love's name in an internet search, a number of works of art come up. At first, like 95% of such searches, it seems one should just assume the artist and the actor are not the same and the attempt to separate them out ensues. It is then that one realize they are, in fact, the same person. His art career, which what he started out doing, is just as important as his acting career in many ways. Love was for a time an illustrator and cartoonist with London's Illustrated Daily News, where is was quite prolific. His paintings, a couple of which became popular illustrations for postcards, were always signed "H. Montagu Love," and often focused on the Boer Wars. For whatever reason, he was also interested in acting and managed make a stage debut after the turn of the century on the Isle of Wight (the company that he acted with, though, was American in origin, not British). He thereafter worked on the London stage until 1913, when he left the country for Canada. He quickly made his way into the United States and joined a touring company; this lead to a Broadway debut by the end of the year. This, in turn, quickly lead to film work in the New York area in 1915; though his return trips to the Broadway stage were numerous through the mid-1930's. He is listed as having a lead role in a 1914 British & Colonial Kinematograph Company production The Suicide Club in 1914; but we know that he went to work for Wold Film with steady film work in 1915 starting with the feature Hearts in Exile. He appeared in five features that year alone. Love cut quite the figure, standing well over six feet and sporting a brooding face, he was perfect for heavies and villains; though he started off in authority roles: everything from judges to nobility/royalty (Love even played an artist in the Harley Knoles directed The Devil's Toy in 1916...though he does sell his soul to Satan!). In 1917, he took the lead in the Archainbaud directed horror The Brand of Satan, loosely based on the Jekyll and Hyde story in which the lead character has two personalities, one of which is a murderous underworld gang serial killer. It marked the beginnings of his type casting as a villain. While his stature made him a shoe in for the role of "The Black Monk" in Rasputin, the Black Monk (1917) directed by Arthur Ashley. In the late teens he had a run as a leading man for a time, appearing in several films with lesser known "vamp" actress June Elvidge. In late 1919, he even branched out into comedies; but by the early 1920's, he was appearing in the villainous roles that he would be remembered for. One of his first in this vein was the role of Professor Balzamo, a magician and hypnotist, in The Case of Becky (October 1921). Most films in which he acted during this time were of a melodramatic nature and featured some easily recognized names, such as: Lionel Barrymore, Marion Davies, Harrison Ford, Norma Talmadge, Wallace Reid and Bebe Daniels. In 1926 he appeared as Ghabah in The Son of the Sheik, famously Valentino's last film; the shock the public felt at Valentino's sudden death meant that all the principle players in the film became well known as a result. This took Love's public recognition to a new level. He followed the role directly with the role of Count Giano Donati in the John Barrymore Don Juan, a very early Warner Bros. partial sound film that had it's big premiere in New York City in August of 1926 (and general release the following February). And, his role as the evil Duke in the Ronald Colman/Vilma Bánky romantic adventure The Night of Love (1927) continues to win him special praise as a top-notch villain. In 1928 he was directed by three famous ex-pat directors: two Scandinavians and a German. He appeared in two Benjamin Christensen films (The Hawk's Nest and The Haunted House, a partial silent in which he plays the "Mad Doctor"), and one film by Victor Sjöström (The Wind) starring Lillian Gish. He then appeared in Paul Leni's mystery horror The Last Warning; also a partial silent, it reused sets from The Phantom of the Opera (1925). He acted in no less than nine films in 1929, with Bulldog Drummond marking his first full sound film. His role as Baron Falon in the partial silent The Mysterious Island is one the most often cited villain roles that Love played in the 1920's; with his last film of the decade was the full sound crime drama A Most Immoral Lady (1929) starring Leatrice Joy. He was still only half way through his film career when 1930 rolled around. He appeared in a number of films based on works of literature in the later portion of his career; and a few quite famous adventure films, including: The Prisoner of Zenda in 1937 The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938, The Man in the Iron Mask in 1939 and The Son of Monte Cristo in 1940. He worked right up until his sudden death in 1943 and several films in which he appeared were released after his death; the last regularly scheduled release was the Phil Rosen directed war drama Wings Over the Pacific released in late July of 1943. The biographical drama Devotion was delayed and was not released until April of 1946. Love passed away in Los Angeles on the 17th of May in 1943. He was 66 years of age. He is interred in the vault at the famous Los Angeles crematoria Chapel of the Pines.
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| Love's most famous illustration of Redvers Buller during the First Boer War, made into a postcard by the greeting card company Raphael Tuck & Sons. |
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