Harry Montague Love (15 March 1877 – 17 May 1943), known professionally as Montagu Love, was a British screen and stage actor and illustrator.
Early years
Harry Montague Love was born on 15 March 1877 in Southsea, Portsmouth, to Harry Love, an accountant, and Fanny Louisa Love (née Poad).
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.
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).
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 and death
On 3 April 1929, Love married Marjorie Love (née Hollis), a stage actress, in Los Angeles.
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.
Death
On 17 May 1943, Love died aged 66 at his home in Beverly Hills, California.
Filmography
Silent films
Broken Ties (1918) as John Fleming
The Cross Bearer (1918) as Cardinal Mercier
Vengeance (1918) as Lorin Cuddlestone/John Cuddlestone
Stolen Orders' (1918) as John Le Page
The Cabaret (1918) as Jaffrey Darrel
To Him That Hath (1918) as David Aldrich
The Grouch (1918) as Donald Graham
The Hand Invisible (1919) as Rodney Graham
The Quickening Flame (1919) as John Steele
Three Green Eyes (1919) as Allen Granat
Through the Toils (1919) as Noel Graham/Lewis Moffat
A Broadway Saint (1919) as Dick Vernon
The Steel King (1919) as John Blake
Man's Plaything (1920) as Pelton Vab Teel
The Rough Neck (1919) as John Masters
The World and His Wife (1920) as Don Julian
The Riddle: Woman (1920) as Larz Olrik
The Wrong Woman (1920) as William Marshall
The Place of Honeymoons (1920) as Edward Courtlandt
Shams of Society (1921) as Herbert Porter
The Case of Becky (1921) as Prof. Balzamo
Forever (1921) as Colonel Ibbetson
Love's Redemption (1921) as Frederick Kent
The Beauty Shop (1922) as Maldonado
What's Wrong with the Women? (1922) as Arthur Belden
The Secrets of Paris (1922) as The Schoolmaster
The Darling of the Rich (1922) as Peyton Martin
The Leopardess (1923) as Scott Quaigg
Little Old New York (1923) as Minor Role
The Eternal City (1923) as Charles Minghelli
Restless Wives (1924) as Hugo Cady
Roulette (1924) as Dan Carrington
Week End Husbands (1924) as Thomas Mowry
A Son of the Sahara (1924) as Sultan Cassim Ammeh/Colonel Barbier
Love of Women (1924) as Bronson Gibbs
Who's Cheating? (1924) as Harrison Fields
Sinners in Heaven (1924) as Native Chief
The Ancient Highway (1925) as Ivan Hurd
The Desert's Price (1925) as Jim Martin
The Mad Marriage (1925) as Unknown role
Hands Up! (1926) as Capt. Edward Logan
Brooding Eyes (1926) as Pat Callaghan
Out of the Storm (1926) as Timothy Keith