Earl Montgomery: From Vitagraph to Vera

Not only was there a Montgomery and Stone back in the day but there was also a Montgomery and Rock! And believe it or not, I can keep it all straight! We’ve already written about Joe Rock and Fred Stone and Dave Montgomery, so now we finally get around to Earl Montgomery (1894-1966), sometimes billed as “Hairbreadth Harry”.

Montgomery was a local from Santa Cruz who started out in the theatre and then found work as a stunt man with the American Film Company. This led to lots of work at Vitagraph where he was part of the Big V Riot Squad, supported Larry Semon as one of “Semon’s Sea Lions”, and then was teamed with Joe Rock in their own series, with Montgomery as the heavy of the team, and Rock, who was smaller, as the idiot. They appeared in dozens of shorts between 1917 and 1920, with alliterative titles like Beauty and Booty and Submarines and Simps (much like the format of the Semon comedies.)

The team split in 1920, but throughout the early ’20s Montgomery continued to work in front of cameras with folks like Chuck Reisner, Lige Conley, Baby Peggy, Babe London, Cliff Bowes, et al. His last performances of the period were in the Semon comedies The Dome Doctor and The Cloudhopper, both in 1925, and You’re Next (1927), starring Tons o’ Fun. He also acquired some new skills as assistant director of Semon’s Stop Look, and Listen (1926). This led to him directing a few comedies featuring Tons o’ Fun (produced by Rock), as well as some of the Mickey McGuire shorts starring Mickey Rooney. His last film as director was the Toots and Casparshort Fooling Casper (1928) with Thelma Hill and Bud Duncan.

From 1919 to 1926 Montgomery was married to silent star Vera Reynolds. His second wife was Helen May Bradley. In the sound era, he played a couple of bit parts in films, but for the most part, that period of his life is as mysterious as the early portion. Sadly, most of his films were lost as well!

For more on silent comedy film history please check out: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube — now also available on audiobook.