Monty Woolley (August 17, 1888 - May 6, 1963) was an American actor.
He was born Edgar Montillion Woolley in New York City to a wealthy family (his father owned the Bristol Hotel) and grew up in the highest social circles. Woolley attended Yale University, where Cole Porter was an intimate friend and classmate, and Harvard University. He eventually became a professor and lecturer at Yale. Thornton Wilder and Stephen Vincent Benet were among his s...
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Monty Woolley (August 17, 1888 - May 6, 1963) was an American actor.
He was born Edgar Montillion Woolley in New York City to a wealthy family (his father owned the Bristol Hotel) and grew up in the highest social circles. Woolley attended Yale University, where Cole Porter was an intimate friend and classmate, and Harvard University. He eventually became a professor and lecturer at Yale. Thornton Wilder and Stephen Vincent Benet were among his students.
He left his academic career and began acting on Broadway in 1936. He was typecast as the wasp-tongued, supercilious sophisticate. His most famous role is that of the cranky radio wag forced to stay immobile because of a seemingly-injured hip in 1942's The Man Who Came to Dinner, which he had performed onstage before taking it to Hollywood. In the film, he caricatured Alexander Woollcott, a radio and press celebrity of the 1930s and 1940s. Like Clifton Webb, Woolley signed with 20th Century Fox in the 1940s and appeared in many films...
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