Barbara Montgomery Thankful She's Landed on 'Married People' (http://articles.latimes.com/1990-12-08/entertainment/ca-5432_1_barbara-montgomery)

December 08, 1990|LAUREN LIPTON

Barbara Montgomery, late of the sitcom "Amen," currently of "Married People," has one thing to say about her job switch: A-men.

"The 'Amen' atmosphere didn't sit well with me," she says of her decision to leave the NBC show. "It was almost like I never really belonged. I asked to be released from my contract before the end of last season--in other words, I quit. Nothing was impulsive or compulsive. It was just time."

Montgomery, who is reluctant to discuss specific grievances about "Amen," says she had trouble with "some producers and writers who are no longer there--not actors, and not the network.

"It was in the writing of the character," she says (she played church trustee Casietta Hetebrink). "Of all the characters, mine was the most directly neglected. I wasn't particularly liked, and I didn't play the game. I'm not a politician, I'm an actor."

Montgomery is far happier in her current role as Olivia Williams on ABC's "Married People," where she plays the down-to-earth wife of a Harlem landlord.

"There is an atmosphere of work, of course, but there is also a mode of mutual respect--we're here together to do something," she says of life on the set. "There's more care and concern for who the character is."

Montgomery, whose career has spanned 25 years, got her feet wet in Off-Off-Broadway groups such as the La Mama Experimental Theater Company and the Negro Ensemble Company ("that's the really exciting part of my life"). In the early 1970s, she received an Obie award for her role in "My Sister, My Sister," which was written, coincidentally, by her "Married" co-star, Ray Aranha.

She's right, they put too much focus on everyone else, and Roz Ryan's character Amelia was loud compared to her character of Cassietta, who had so little to do. They could have given her a lot more. I haven't seen all the episodes, but I recall her character was usually just "there", arguing with her sister or standing around with a few lines here and there and that was it. I do recall at the talent shows, or at least just one of them, they had her character recite a monologue.

Yeah, she has some good moments, but they really could have developed her more.

Too bad Married People was only a one season wonder but it ended in the same season (1990-1991) that Amen did so it was a terrible move. Amen was running out of gas and she probably knew the show was going to end in 1991 and hedged her bets that Married People would have lasted a few seasons.

In a 1986 article where Clifton Davis was discussing his comeback as a man of god compared to the heartthrob, he was in the 1970s, he mentioned that he had many requests for him to take the role (he had retired from the business and wanted to be devout with his religion) such as the reverend is actually a man of integrity, the show treats the religion with respect not for mock, ridicule and cheap laughs and accepted that Sherman wanted a show that yielded belly laughs so he wanted to look at scripts too.

It made sense for her to leave because her character wasnt important