Elizabeth Montagu (3) (1909–2002)

The Hon. Elizabeth Douglas-Scott-Montagu, later Elizabeth Varley, was born at Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire, the ancient seat of her aristocratic English family. Her parents were John Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu, and his first wife Lady Cecil Kerr. She was a direct descendant of King Charles II via his son James, Duke of Monmouth. She attended St. Margaret's School, Bushey, and a finishing school at Lausanne, Switzerland, but was uninterested in society life and chose instead to train as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1932. She began her acting career at the Newcastle Repertory Company and appeared in a number of stage productions in London's West End and on BBC Radio. She traveled widely in Europe in the early 1930s and had numerous friends in the worlds of the theater and music. During World War II, she worked for British intelligence in Europe. After the war, she wrote film scripts for directors such as Alexander Korda. In 1948, at Korda's request, she met Graham Greene in Vienna and showed him, and later Orson Welles, around the city while he worked on the script for The Third Man. (She was given a credit in the film for her assistance.) Later she was a committee member of Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group and also wrote libretti for Rolf Liebermann and Paul Burkhard. She was a loyal public ally and confidante of her brother Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, when he was convicted in 1954 on a gay-sex charge. In 1962, she married Colonel Arthur Varley, founder of the advertising agency Colman, Prentis and Varley. In the 1960s, she co-founded her own agency, Francis-Montagu. She wrote an autobiography, Honourable Rebel: The Memoirs of Elizabeth Montagu (later Elizabeth Varley), published in 2003. A film about her life, Honourable Rebel, appeared in 2015.