Biography

This robust, somber-looking actor carved out a niche on screen as tough or menacing characters. Lee Montague was born of Jewish ancestry as Leonard Goldberg in Bow, East London. He trained for acting at the Old Vic Theatre School and began on stage there in 1950 before headlining on Broadway just two years later as the troubled youth Gregory Hawke in Moss Hart 's play The Climate of Eden. Montague has been especially prolific on the classical stage as ensemble member of the Old Vic London (1950-52, 1962-63), the Bristol Old Vic (1952-53), the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon (1954-55), the Royal Shakespeare Company (1955-57) and the Royal Exchange, Manchester (1976-79).

On screen from 1952, Montague was no less prolific as a supporting player, frequently cast in meaty or pivotal roles as 'exotic' foreign types: Japanese officers (The Camp on Blood Island (1958), Yesterday's Enemy (1958), The Baron (1966)), Frenchmen (Moulin Rouge (1952), Secret Agent (1964), The Legacy (1978)), Chinese (Danger Man (1960), Espionage (1963)) and Russians (The Spy Killer (1969),Pope John Paul II (1984), Sakharov (1984)]). Add to that an assortment of Mexicans, Hungarians, Greeks, Arabs, and even an Inuit (The Savage Innocents (1960)). He has also played his fair share of historical personae on TV, as well as on the big screen, including the prophet Habbakuk (or Habbukuk) in Jesus of Nazareth (1977), Pietro di Bernardone (wealthy cloth merchant and father to Francis of Assissi in Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972)), Chinese statesman Sun Yat Sen, Bernhard Mahler (father of Gustav), Lucky Luciano (in Brass Target (1978)), Karl Marx, Lenin, Charles Darwin and British cabinet minister Leslie Hore-Belisha.

On account of his dark, baleful looks, Montague has excelled in villainous roles, often in classic 60s and 70s British crime dramas like Department S (1969) (as a drug lord) or The Sweeney (1975) (as a bank robber). He portrayed the psychic antagonist Dorzak in an episode of Space: 1999 (1975) and was at his most chillingly effective as Roche, the erudite, relentless assassin forever on the trail of hapless civil servant Henry Jay (Richard Griffiths) in the superb TV miniseries Bird of Prey 2 (1984). All in all, an impressive resume for an actor --not usually noted for comedy-- who once named Walter Matthau as his movie idol, saying, "I loved his brand of humour".

- IMDb mini biography by: I.S.Mowis