BARBARA MONTGOMERY
 “If we lose our history, we lose our life’s blood, our culture,” Barbara voiced. As Barbara Montgomery shared her story, her statement rang true. She is a well filled with our history, connected to legendary people and places that will stand as a landmark in the chronicles of Black culture, theatre and American literature. Everything about Barbara Montgomery is legendary including her own status. In an era of pop culture celebrity excess, it’s soul-stirring to sit with an authentic artist with theatrical density and cultural richness. And a sense of urgency built up within to go and tell the next generation about this treasure in our Harlem garden.
She is home in the famous “triple nickel,” which is really Washington Heights – which we consider Harlem. Besides being one of the most prestigious addresses of the Harlem Renaissance and home to many legendary Black people like heavy-weight boxing champ Joe Louis, Count Basie, Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall and Lena Horne, it is now a city landmark. Barbara Montgomery is probably most popularly known for her role in the sitcom Amen with Clifton Davis and Sherman Helmsley, and one may run into her in the syndication of The Cosby Show, A Different World or Fresh Prince of Bel Air. But New York is where her most impressive successes took place. Barbara Montgomery’s many life cycles loop in and out of love and work and play into a thrilling tale of development and womanhood. It is as if the incarnation of Barbara evolves with each new role, each new theatre, incessantly taking on a new journey at new heights. In all her many experiences, the most impactful, above both Broadway and television prime time, were her moments in the grassroots, noncommercial movement of experimental theatre. She was a pioneering actor for two, now very famous houses; La Mama Experimental Theatre Company, founded by Ellen Stewart and the Negro Ensemble Company.
La Mama is said to be the foundation where notable actors Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Danny DeVito, Diane Lane, Billy Crystal and Nick Nolte first began. The Negro Ensemble Company boasts alumni like Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Basset and Louis Gosset, Jr. But Barbara remembers the humble beginnings in the 1960’s into the 70’s, which she calls her creative touchstone, specifically La Mama. “La Mama is a place forever in me, it is a part of who I am when it comes to development,” Barbara says, “seeing the world and developing and the world seeing me as an artist.” She was on the first La Mama European tour in 1970 where their company performed five Shakespearean plays from Italy to Persia, “which is Iran,” she murmurs and even Yugoslavia, “which no longer exists by that name,” she adds.
“We didn’t make money but we were in the world, we got fifty or sixty dollars a week,” smiling in reminiscence, “if the money came at all.”Barbara describes La Mama founder Ellen Stewart as tough but caring and always being there for them. Most of those performances were done barefoot. One barefoot show, in former Yugoslavia, they performed in a cave that had been opened especially for them. She said they placed chairs inside and added a couple of lights, which made the bats flying above, look enormous.
Barbara Montgomery performed several plays with the Negro Ensemble Company. She is pictured on the left in the circle above, from a 1979 brochure for the famous theatre company. The images on the adjacent page are also legendary performance shots of Barbara and cast members from the Negro Ensemble Company. Barbara is picture center in the photo on the left for the 1978 production of Judi Ann Masons’ Daughters of the Mock with Michelle Shay (left) and Olivia Williams. The other photo on the right was the same season in a production of Steve Carter’s Nevis Mountain Dew featuring (clockwise) Barbara Montgomery, Arthur French, Frances Foster and Graham Brown.
Looking back Barbara said she didn’t really grasp what was going on politically during the period they toured. She was an artist and always on the side of the people, but didn’t feel the power of those times and places until she looked back on them. In reflection she realizes she was in Persia during the time the Shah was still in power - big historical milestones.
Barbara has worked consistently and early on in her career juggled several roles at once. At one particular time Barbara was on Broadway for My Sister, My Sister, the on call for Mama in Raisin in the Sun musical, then at the 46th Street Theater, and working a recurring role for the soap opera, The Guiding Light. She was finally getting the chance to do more of her original work, back with her first love experimental theatre, when she was convinced by a friend to audition for a pilot in Los Angeles, California for a sitcom with Redd Foxx. She said that her friends Debbie Allen and Nell Carter convinced her to stay for pilot week – where they audition and present to pitch new shows for the season – and that is where she landed her role in Amen. In fact, she auditioned for two pilots, was cast in both and chose the role with Amen. That was in 1986.
Her story starts out like other artists; she had that moment like many other performers when she knew she wanted to be an entertainer. Lena Horne in the film Stormy Weather awakened her passion at age six when she had the opportunity to see it. But for Barbara that dream didn’t fully manifest until she was well into her adult years. Although she continued to study her craft, she worked various jobs, waitressing at times, she had married, they had a son, and at a very indiscriminate time she got a call from her acting teacher that opened a new portal. “I can picture it now,” she recalls, “we lived near LaGuardia then, my son was doing his homework and Ed Montgomery [late former husband] was reading the paper and the phone rang. It was Janine, my acting teacher. She was a chunky, Irish Elizabeth Taylor look alike.” Barbara was in her 30’s when that first theater role presented her and she hasn’t stopped acting, writing and creating since – it has been almost four decades of performing in some capacity. The only thing that tops Barbara’s love for theater is her love for her son and granddaughter.
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 There is no sign that Barbara is slowing down, she seems to be expanding. Right now there are two irons in her fire, the hottest is a new film project called EL MITOTE, as mentioned earlier that she will produce and direct. The film will star Ruby Dee, Mary Alice, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Barbara in an adaptation from a one act drama by author Maisha Baton. Mitote is set in New Mexico and portrays the story of four Black women who settled in the Southwest. “Mitote,” which means talking, or more accurately translated, a Mexican slang term for gossip, the setting is a back porch with a table for tea talk that unfolds into an assortment of stories run in a series of flashbacks throughout the film.
Barbara is also considering running acting workshops in Harlem. There’s a generation of young talent out there that could benefit from the depth of her knowledge. It’s the right time for both projects - understanding the past and arming our future with the stuff they need to take it forward. Harlem will just have to get her in between takes - and Broadway is still calling.
By Keira Wesley-Busher |
