Thanks for the Memories, Mr. Montgomery

Robert Montgomery died on this day, September 27th, in 1981.  That is 35 years ago.  A short period of time looking back as a senior.  A lifetime and more for a youth.  He was 76, a decent lifespan for a man of his time, but it is sad the cancer that ended his life forced him to spend his final weeks in a hospital in Manhattan.  Not the death one wishes.  The country squire he had become would have imagined, hoped for a peaceful death at his beautiful estate with his family in attendance.  It would have been a more fitting death for the man.  But even Mr. Montgomery could not control his final destiny.

           View of the estate from the terrace of Bob's final home,
                       Hollow Brook in the Canaan Valley, CT.

In the April, 1982 issue of Architectural Digest, good friend Brendan Gill wrote an article on Robert, which ends with the following tribute.

"For a conservative Republican from an old family, Montgomery possessed a rather moody restlessness of spirit.  At a certain point as he grew older, nothing would do but that he and Buffy sell the Hook Pond property and move on to new adventures --- a summer place on the water in North Haven, Maine, and in winter a beautiful ancient farmhouse in the Canaan Valley in northwestern Connecticut.  It was here in 1981, a short drive from the family house overlooking the Hudson at Fishkill, NY (where he was born), that Montgomery died. "

                A portion of the main residence at Hollow Brook.

"He had played many roles in his lifetime, off-camera and on-; the slender playboy of Our Blushing Brides had become a no-longer-slender country squire, but the grace of the performer remained what it had always been:  a prompting to merriment, an occasion for applause."

You are missed Mr. Montgomery.  The smile.  Ah, yes, the smile.  Thanks for sharing.