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were teaching them things like how to use makeup, what color glasses to use, how to face a camera … how to do sound bites … how to hold your body, camera angles … everything that a sophisticated actor would learn, they taught to Eisenhower.
    As recorded in James Pylant’s expertly researched Bewitching article Robert Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery, Jr. on May 21, 1904 in Duchess County, New York.
    Beacon is commonly given as his birthplace, though he was actually born in Fishkill Landing. (Beacon was formed from the adjoining towns of Fishkill Landing and Matteawan in 1913.) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) promoted Robert Montgomery’s movie persona as a sophisticated, well-bred socialite by embellishing the elite family background of its handsome star. And while the actor was born in a large house on the banks of the Hudson River , and his father served as an executive of a rubber company, the 1920 Federal Census leaves a somewhat different impression. Fifty-two-year-old Henry Montgomery, the vice president of a rubber factory, and Mary W., age forty-seven, with sons Henry, Jr., age sixteen, and Donald, age fourteen (all New Yorkers by birth), boarded in a Beacon hotel kept by William Gordon. Henry, Sr., was a first generation American, his father being Irish and his mother was Scottish. Mary W.’s father was a Pennsylvanian, while her mother was from the West Indies. Twenty years earlier, the 1900 Federal Census shows the newly wedded Montgomerys (“years married: 0”) boarded in William Gordon’s hotel, then in Fishkill. Private secretary Henry Montgomery (Sr.), age 32 (born in May of 1868) and ‘Mai W.,’ age 24 (born in March of 1876) were among the hotel’s many boarders. Mrs. Montgomery’s birthplace is listed as New Jersey and her mother’s birthplace is Jamaica. Robert Montgomery’s mother is named in biographies of her son as Mary Weed Barnard, but her maiden name was actually Barney . At the time of the 1900 federal census, the Montgomerys had been married a little over six months, their marriage date being 14 December 1899. Mrs. Montgomery appears twice on the federal census in 1900, the second instance being as ‘May W. Barney,’ age twenty-five, born in March of 1875 in New Jersey. Her marital status was indicated as single, then written over to read married . She is named as a daughter of eighty-one-year-old Nathan Barney, who rented a Third Street home in Brooklyn, wife Mary A., age fifty-six (born in October 1843), sons George D., age thirty-four (born in October 1865 in Connecticut), Nathan C., age twenty-seven (born in June 1873 in New Jersey), and Walter S., age eighteen (born October 1882 in New Jersey). A twenty-three-year-old Irish servant also made her home with the family. Mr. Barney was born in Pennsylvania, and Mrs. Barney was born in ‘Jamaica, W. I.,’ a fact consistent with what May W. Montgomery supplied in 1900. According to Genealogy of the Barney Family in America , Mary Weed Barney was born on 30 March 1875 in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey, to Nathan Barney, Jr. and his second wife, the former Mary A. Deverell. The Barney genealogy identifies the parents of Henry Montgomery, Sr., as Archibald Montgomery and the former Margaret Edminston of Brooklyn. Henry Montgomery, a one-year-old, is found in the household of Irish-born Archibald Montgomery—a prosperous shipping merchant—and Margaret (born in Scotland) on the rolls of the 1870 Federal Census in Brooklyn.
    In 1970, Robert Montgomery gave an interview to Richard Lamparski for his book, Whatever Became Of …? Volume III (Ace Books, 1970). He explained how he had to support himself after his father, “an executive with a rubber company,” died and left the family without an income.
    As Lizzie expressed to Ronald Haver in 1991, “Daddy had to quit school and go to work, to help support the family; and his father just kind of fell