"... a prompting to merriment, an occasion for applause."

 
                Robert Montgomery, b. 5-21-1904, d. 9-27-1981

 

"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 --- in summer, a place on the water in North Haven, Maine, and in winter a beautiful ancient farmhouse in the Canaan Valley, in northwestern Connecticut.  It was there in 1981, a short drive from the big family house overlooking the Hudson at Fishkill, that Montgomery died.  He had played many roles in his long lifetime, off-camera and on-; in age, 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."

From an article by Brendan Gill, a friend of Bob and Buffy, which appeared in the April, 1982 issue of Architectural Digest.