Background
Primarily a small-screen player, this native Australian reportedly arrived in Los Angeles as a teen clutching a copy of How to Make It in Hollywood under her arm.
Primarily a small-screen player, this native Australian reportedly arrived in Los Angeles as a teen clutching a copy of How to Make It in Hollywood under her arm.
On arriving in Los Angeles, she stayed with two friends of her brother while sending a head shot every day to Julia Roberts's former manager, Bob McGowan, until he signed her. She worked a string of television bit parts through the late-1990s, including NYPD Blue. Her first big break was when she snagged the role of Marilyn Monroe in the 2001 CBS mini-series Blonde, based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates. The next role she was offered was Samantha Spade on Without A Trace, where she was picked out of over 100 women. On being offered the part, she later said, "They (the producers) called me up and said, 'Will you do it?' I said, 'Um' and they said, 'Anthony LaPaglia is in it' and I said, 'sure'. It was that simple."
As of April 2011, she has completed filming a biopic Magic Beyond Words, playing J. K. Rowling. She plays the lead in the television series Unforgettable, a police procedural drama about a former detective with perfect recall. Until the debut of ABC's new family-oriented, late-arriving, Sunday night fairy-tale drama Once Upon a Time, CBS had been airing promos that Unforgettable was the #1 new drama of the 2011-12 season. According to the prime-time Nielsen television ratings released through Sunday, November 6, 2011, season-to-date, Unforgettable has averaged 13.9 million viewers. For a snapshot rating, on Tuesday, November 1, 2011, the series was first in its regular timeslot, with 11.3 million viewers and ranked #24 overall for the week.
Montgomery posed in a series of provocative photographs on Maxim's web site in their Girls of Maxim feature.