When I moved to Los Angeles in 1985, my mother called every week, usually early Saturday morning, and asked "What stars have you met?" But she wasn't familiar with most of the actors of my generation, so "Michael J. Fox" got a polite murmur, "Robin Williams" a vague "Oh yeah, I've heard of him," and "Lee H. Montgomery" a blank "Who's that?"
But Lee had more than enough claims to fame (and he was a lot friendlier than Robin Williams).
He played the boy who taught his pet rat to kill in Ben (1972). If you separate it from the premise, the theme song, sung by Michael Jackson, is a touching evocation of same-sex love:
Ben, the two of us need look no more
We both found what we were looking for.
With a friend to call my own, I'll never be alone,
And you, my friend, will see, you've got a friend in me.
In Burnt Offerings (1976), a married couple (Oliver Reed, Karen Black) moves into a California mansion with their son David (Lee) and elderly Aunt Elizabeth (film legend Bette Davis). As the house starts asserting itself, it tries to drown David, and then drops a pillar on him.
Was there a fad for threatening half-naked kids in the 1970s? It also happened in The Possession of Joel Delaney and The Omen.
By the way, the hunky Oliver Reed hangs out in a swimsuit. He showed his altogether during the n*de wrestling scene in Women in Love (1969).
More after the break
Incidentally, there's also a strong gay subtext as Mike (Lee) cries for his dead "brother" Josh (Wings Hauser).
One of the more controversial of the Schoolbreak Specials, "Hear Me Cry" (1984) has two high school boys (Lee, Robert MacNaughton) making a mutual self-harm pact. They aren't a gay couple, precisely: Lee has divorced parents, then portrayed as a life-shattering trauma, and Robert is suffering from academic pressures. But the subtext is obvious.
Lee's characters are often uninterested in women, though a girl is usually thrown in, almost as an afterthought, to provide a heterosexist fade-out kiss. In Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), he wants to become a dancer, which doesn't sit right with his conservative blue-collar father. And he gets a girlfirend.
In 1986, Lee retired from acting to concentrate on his music. He has composed and recorded commercial songs for McDonald's, Miller Beer, Chevy, and others, earning the title "The Jingle King."
I met him at a party in 1987, and assumed he was gay, but he didn't really hook up with anyone (the story is on Tales of West Hollywood). Facebook says that he married a singer named Laurie Shelly in 1993.
