Children with Tove Janson: Barbara Ann and Richard (d. 1962)
Entered films as a screenwriter and stuntman with D.W. Griffith.
Father of Tove Blue Valentine.
He was raised in an orphans' home (The Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home in Knightstown, Indiana). His father, a Civil War veteran in the Union army who had once served as a scout for famed frontiersman Buffalo Bill Cody, was killed in a car crash when Blue was eight years old and his mother could not raise Monte and her other four children by herself.
Once appeared in a Harry Houdini movie called The Grim Game (1919) in which he did stunts in an airplane because Houdini had a fear of flying.
Once saved a chorus girl (Wanda Stewart) from serious injury by tearing her gown off after it had accidentally caught on fire during a stage performance in Seattle.
Silent-film actor.
Wife Tove Janson is daughter of Bodil Rosing.