Goodee Montgomery

Goodee Montgomery, born Virginia Lawhead in 1906 in St. Joseph, Missouri, was an American actress and musician who worked across Broadway, vaudeville, and film before her death in 1978. Her stage name combined two distinct personal references: a pet name given to her by her uncle, the actor David C. Montgomery, and her mother's maiden name. Her father, Rex Lawhead, managed a theater in Decatur, Illinois, and her parents divorced when she was fifteen years old.

Montgomery's performing abilities extended across multiple disciplines. She sang and played both banjo and ukulele, and her work with the Victor Company included arranging, recording, and broadcasting. She also composed songs and authored books on the ukulele, producing that written work under the pen name Donna McDonald.

Her Broadway career included a 1927 appearance in the musical Piggy, in which she portrayed the character Hotsie. Montgomery also performed in vaudeville, and in the early 1930s she and Dorothy Stone formed a joint act, a pairing that echoed an earlier professional partnership between her uncle David C. Montgomery and Stone's father.

Montgomery appeared in a number of films during the 1930s, including Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), Let's Talk It Over (1934), Stolen Sweets (1934), Stolen Harmony (1935), Beware of Ladies (1936), and Mountain Music (1937). In 1934 she married director Frank Burgess McDonald. A spinal injury sustained in 1940 curtailed her acting career, after which she pursued watercolor painting and established herself as a successful visual artist.