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Monty Woolley

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Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Edgar Montillion "Monty" Woolley<ref>Truitt, Evelyn Mack. Who Was Who Onscreen New York: Bowker (1977)</ref> (August 17, 1888Template:Spaced ndashMay 6, 1963) was an American film and theater actor.<ref name="WVobit">Obituary Variety, May 8, 1963, page 223.</ref> At the age of 50, he achieved a measure of stardom for his role in the 1939 stage play The Man Who Came to Dinner and its 1942 film adaptation. His distinctive white beard was his trademark and he was affectionately known as "The Beard."<ref name="MiamiNews"/>

Early life

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Woolley was born in the New York City borough of Manhattan to William Edgar (1845–1927) and Jessie Woolley (1857–1927), née Arms, and grew up in the highest social circles. Woolley received a bachelor's degree at Yale University, where Cole Porter was an intimate friend and classmate,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and master's degrees from Yale and Harvard Universities.<ref name="EveInObit">Template:Cite news</ref> He eventually became an assistant professor of English and drama coach at Yale.<ref name="S.Gazette"/> Thornton Wilder and Stephen Vincent Benét were among his students. He served in World War I with the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant assigned to the general staff in Paris.<ref name="EveInObit"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Acting career

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Woolley's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, showing the television emblem, though his official category is "Motion Pictures"
Hollywood Walk of Fame, 6542 Hollywood Blvd.

Woolley began directing on Broadway in 1929 with Fifty Million Frenchmen,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and began acting there in 1936 after leaving his academic career. In 1939 he starred in the Kaufman and Hart comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner for 783 performances. It was for this well-reviewed role he was typecast as the wasp-tongued, supercilious sophisticate.<ref name="St. Pete"/><ref name="Crowther"/>

Woolley signed with 20th Century Fox in the 1940s and appeared in many films through the mid-1950s. His most famous film role, a reprise of his Broadway role, was in 1941's The Man Who Came To Dinner in which he plays a cranky radio wag restricted to a wheelchair because of a seemingly injured hip, a caricature of the legendary pundit Alexander Woollcott. The film received a good review from The New York Times.<ref name="Crowther">Crowther, Bosley (January 2, 1942) "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Review. The New York Times. Retrieved August 9, 2010.</ref> He played himself<ref>"Played himself" is something of a stretch. In the movie he played himself "as a relentless 'skirt chaser' despite the fact that in real life Woolley, himself gay, chased pants (particularly if they encased a sailor) and not skirts." George F. Curten, "Where Is the Life that Late He Led? Hollywood's Construction of Sexuality in the Life of Cole Porter", in Larry Gross & James D. Woods, eds., The Columbia Reader on Lesbians and Gay Men in Media, Society, and Politics (1999, NYC, Columbia Univ. Press) page 320.</ref> in Warner Bros.' fictionalized film biography of Cole Porter, Night and Day (1946), and the role of Professor Wutheridge in The Bishop's Wife (1947). In the comedy As Young as You Feel (1951), he played a printer who, fired routinely from his job at the age of 65, poses as an executive to get his job back.

He was also a frequent radio guest performer, first appearing in the medium as a foil to Al Jolson.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Woolley became a familiar guest on such shows as The Fred Allen Show, Duffy's Tavern, The Big Show, The Chase and Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and others. In 1950, Woolley landed the starring role in the NBC series The Magnificent Montague. He played a former Shakespearean actor whose long fall onto hard times forced him to swallow his pride and take a role on daily network radio, becoming an unlikely star while sparring with his wife, Lily (Anne Seymour), and his wise-cracking maid, Agnes (Pert Kelton). The show lasted from November 1950 through September 1951.<ref>Everitt, David (2000). King of the half hour: Nat Hiken and the golden age of TV comedy. Syracuse University Press. Template:ISBN. Retrieved August 9, 2010.</ref>

Monty Woolley's concrete tile showing, from the top, the words "My beard" adjoining his beard imprint, the inscription "To Sid [Grauman] Wish you were here", his signature, the date "5-28-43", and his handprints
Hand and beard print at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Woolley first appeared on television in cameos, then in his own dramatic play series On Stage with Monty Woolley.<ref name="S.Gazette">"Monty Woolley to Appear in a Series of Television Films". Schenectady Gazette', July 11, 1953. p. 8. Retrieved August 9, 2010.</ref> He starred in a CBS TV adaptation of The Man Who Came to Dinner in 1954,<ref name="Hawes"/> which he and some reviewers lambasted,<ref>Thomas, Bob (AP) (June 27, 1955). "Monte Woolley Snorts At Liberace, Bore Bars". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved August 9, 2010.</ref><ref>Gould, Jack. (October 15, 1954). "Television in Review; Bite Taken Out of Man Who Came to Dinner". The New York Times. Retrieved August 9, 2010.</ref> and appeared in other televised dramas in the series Best of Broadway.<ref name="St. Pete">"Monty Woolley Dies In Albany". St. Petersburg Times, May 7, 1963. Retrieved August 9, 2010.</ref><ref name="Hawes">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

After completing his last film, Kismet (1955), he returned to radio for about a year, after which he was forced to retire due to ill health.

Woolley was nominated twice for an Academy Award, for Best Actor in 1943 for The Pied Piper and for Best Supporting Actor in 1945 for Since You Went Away. He won a Best Actor award from the National Board of Review in 1942 for his role in The Pied Piper.

His hands and beard were impressed in the pavement of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1943.<ref name="Cerf">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>1940s Template:Webarchive. Grauman's Chinese Theatre</ref> Woolley received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, officially listed in the "Motion Picture" category,<ref>Template:Cite web Note: Official category is Motion Pictures but his star bears the television emblem.</ref> though his star bears the television emblem.<ref>"Hollywood Star Walk—Monty Woolley". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 25, 2010.</ref> The error of the television emblem was evident, considering his only TV efforts were his classic role as Sheridan Whiteside in a 1954 TV adaptation of The Man Who Came to Dinner, and another small role in an episode of a short-lived series called Five Fingers in 1959.

Personal life

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Woolley and Cole Porter enjoyed many adventures together in New York and on foreign travels, although Porter reportedly disapproved of Woolley taking a black man as his lover.<ref name=colebio>Template:Cite book</ref> Woolley has been described in scholarly and other works as gay and closeted.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Starting in 1939, Woolley was living with a gay companion, Cary Abbott, who had also graduated from Yale in 1911. Abbott was discreetly identified publicly as Woolley's "courier-secretary-traveling companion." In 1942, Woolley and Abbott moved into a house in Saratoga Springs, where they lived together until Abbott's death, at age 58, from lung cancer, in 1948.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

According to Bennett Cerf in his 1944 book Try and Stop Me, Woolley was at a dinner party and suddenly belched. A woman sitting nearby glared at him; he glared back and said, "And what did you expect, my good woman? Chimes?" Cerf wrote, "Woolley was so pleased with this line that he insisted it be written into his next role in Hollywood."<ref name="Cerf"/><ref>Cerf, p. 57. (remainder of quote).</ref>

In 1943, Alfred Hitchcock wrote a mystery story for Look titled "The Murder of Monty Woolley."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Woolley was portrayed by Allan Corduner in the 2004 biopic of Cole Porter, De-Lovely.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Death

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On April 6, 1963, Woolley was taken to the Saratoga Springs Hospital with heart problems, and two days later transferred to the Albany Hospital.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He died of complications from kidney and heart ailments on May 6, 1963, in Albany, New York, aged 74.<ref name="MiamiNews">"Actor Monty Woolley Dies in Hospital at 74". Miami News. May 6, 1963.</ref> He is interred at the Greenridge Cemetery, Saratoga Springs, Saratoga County, New York.

Stage

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Complete filmography

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Radio appearances

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Year Program Episode/source
1942 Philip Morris Playhouse The Man Who Came to Dinner<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Open access</ref>
1943 Duffy's Tavern Christmas show 12/21/43
1950 The Magnificent Montague Comedy, 11/10/1950-11/10/1951<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

References

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Notes Template:Reflist

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