Marjorie Montgomery

Marjorie Montgomery (born May 27, 1912) is an American former child dancer and actress. She appeared in vaudeville and later in motion pictures, before becoming a noted fashion designer.

Career

Montgomery was born in Sikeston, Missouri. As a young girl she was in a group of traveling vaudeville players of the Junior Times Club in Los Angeles, California. Accompanied by truckloads of ice cream, Montgomery and the others entertained children at hospitals. In May 1924 she performed as an eccentric dancer at the Orthopedic and Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. In 1925 Montgomery entered the Mary Pickford silhouette contest which selected a lookalike of America's sweetheart. Other aspiring young actresses like Virginia Davis, Cecilia Parker, and Mary Kestner, also submitted photos.

As a seventeen-year-old Hollywood High School student, Montgomery acted the part of a maid in the stage play Bad Babies. An attorney for the California State Department of Industrial Relations ruled that the theme of the production was too risque for a minor actress to appear in. Montgomery was required to wait until her eighteenth birthday in 1930 to participate. She became upset over the ruling. Her mother, Mrs. Marie Cleveland, hired a private tutor so that Montgomery would comply with the Los Angeles, California compulsory school laws. An understudy, Dorothy Gould, took over the role. Montgomery's film career as an actress was quite brief. She has an uncredited role as a student in Freshman Year (1938).

Designing

She began to sew for herself and her daughter as a young widow residing on an Arizona ranch. Montgomery was a costume designer for the Republic Pictures movie Outside of Paradise (1938). By the late 1940s she owned her own large manufacturing business. Among her original creations was a one-piece knee-length dress with a wraparound skirt. She is noted for her fiesta dresses which combined a jersey tunic with push-up sleeves and a full jersey skirt, with a wide gold leather belt. These outfits served multiple formal and informal functions, being wearable both as hostess gowns and on the beach. In 1948 she offered gingham dresses in a choice of colourways. One of her outfits, a red sheath dress with striped red and white coat, was represented in a 1955 California Designer's Show. For 1958 she designed a front-belted chemise styled coatdress, and her autumn line used jersey in light gray striped on charcoal, or toast on brown. In 1962 the label introduced the California Girl line designed by Jim Church.

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