George Montgomery was boxing champion at the University of Montana, where he majored in architecture and interior design. Dropping out a year later, he decided to take up boxing more seriously, and moved to California, where he was coached by ex-heavyweight world champion James J. Jeffries. While in Hollywood, he came to the attention of the studios (not least, because he was an expert rider) and was hired as a stuntman in 1935. After doing this for four years, George was offered a contract at 20th Century Fox in 1939, but found himself largely confined to leads in B-westerns. He did not secure a part in anything even remotely like a prestige picture, until his co-starring role in Roxie Hart (1942), opposite Ginger Rogers. Next, in Orchestra Wives (1942), he played the perfunctory love interest for Ann Rutherford -- though both, inevitably, ended up playing second trombone to Glenn Miller and His Orchestra.