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Monte Landis

American actor

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ6904803
Source-derived summary

Max Landstein (20 April 1931 – 14 December 2024), known as Monte Landis, was a Scottish-American film and television actor.

Landis was perhaps best known for playing the comic foil in multiple episodes of The Monkees, most notably as Mr. Zero in the episode "The Devil and Peter Tork". He began his career in Britain before moving to the United States in 1963. Landis also had a career in Paris in the mid-1950s as emcee in cabarets and jazz clubs (Crazy Horse, Club Saint-Germain, etc.) – he played his own role later in Charade (1963) – and choreographer for the French vocal group The Blue Stars of France.

Among Landis' film appearances include turns in The Mouse That Roared (1959), School for Scoundrels (1960), Double Trouble (1967), Targets (1968), Myra Breckinridge (1970), Young Frankenstein (1974), Yellowbeard (1983), Body Double (1984), Real Genius (1985), and Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985).

Landis died in Joshua Tree, California on 14 December 2024, at the age of 93.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Monte Landis” as american actor. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1931, 2024, 1963, 1959—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1933-04-20. The account is most persuasive where Monte, Landis and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actor. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6904803. VIAF identifies the subject as 170057878. The Library of Congress control number is no2011051595. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931, 2024, 1963 and 1959.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Monte Landis”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Monte Landis primary sources, Monte Landis archive and Monte research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Monte Landis”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Monte Landis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.