Volume III: Biographies

MONTAGUE, Frederick *

Actor (date?)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Frederick Montague was an actor with Thanhouser at one time, according to trade accounts.

Biographical Notes: Frederick Montague was born in London, England in 1864 (one account says 1860), and was educated in Richmond, Virginia, after which he went back to England. His stage debut occurred at the Globe Theatre, London, in False Shame, after which he had a long and illustrious career in England and America with Augustin Daly, E.H. Sothern, and Cora Jane Potter. For two years he was leading man with Mme. Modjeska. He came to America in the early 1890s with one of Augustin Daly's companies.

His screen career included work with Thanhouser, Rex-Universal, Vitagraph, Lasky, and Horsley. Among the pictures in which he appeared were The Squaw Man, Where the Trail Divides, The Man on the Box, What's His Name, The Call of the North, The Haunted Symphony, The Ghost Girl, A Prince for a Day, Little Marian's Triumph, and many others through 1919. His work with Thanhouser is known through directory entries and by an item in a biographical sketch in The Moving Picture World, January 8, 1916: "His first film engagement was with Thanhouser. Later he joined the Vitagraph in the East and came to the Coast 18 months ago, remaining with the same company only a short time, for Lasky engaged him...." Frederick Montague then went to Horsley, where he was situated in early 1916 and was seen in The Bait. Around the same time he also worked as a director with the Liberty Film Company of San Mateo, California. Later, he was on the screen in Fox Film Company productions.

Later in his life he was married to Maurine ("Rita") Rasmussen, a beautiful girl from Northern California, who claimed to have graduated from Stanford, and who consistently understated her age (her life dates are believed to have been 1884-1962). She came to New York City to model for artist Harrison Fisher, and, during the 1910 era, was Fisher's most prominent subject. Later, she left Fisher to pursue the lights of Broadway, appeared at the Winter Garden, and then went into films, where she was seen in Lost in Mid-Ocean and Brewster's Millions. She married Frederick Montague, but the union was not a happy one, for he was much older than she and was in poor health for much of their time together. Her bittersweet story is related in the biography, Harrison Fisher, by Q. David Bowers, Ellen H. Budd, and George Budd. An obituary in Variety noted that she was born in Illinois on May 16, 1883, and died in Hollywood, California on May 5, 1962. Frederick Montague died in Los Angeles on July 2, 1919 (some accounts give July 3 as the date).

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