Ashley Montagu

O B I T U A R Y

Ti�any Fields PhDTouch Research Institute,

University of Miami

Ashley Montagu, 94, author ofTouching, the renowned text dealingwith touch and touch deprivation,died 26 November 1999 of a heartailment. Unfortunately, his workwas not ®nished, especially withrespect to the strong message hewanted to make to the world tobring touch back into modernsociety. I recall ¯ying up to pick upAshley a couple years ago when hecould no longer ¯y alone and hisexpressing to me his greatenthusiasm for speaking at amessage therapy conference we heldin Hollywood, Florida, because, ashe said, ``these are the people whoare going to bring touch into oursociety and thereby reduce disease,crime and wars. I would like to givemy message to these very importantmessengers''. I talked to himapproximately a week before hedied. He expressed anger that he wasclose to death, that he had not®nished his important work and heexpressed a particular distress that

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Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (2000)4(2),151# 2000 Harcourt Publishers Ltd

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he had not yet had time to write thenew edition of Touching. Eventhough he had written many otherfamous books like The ElephantMan and The Natural Superiority ofWomen, touch was his passion andhis mission in life.

Ashley su�ered adversitiesthroughout his life, As a young boygrowing up as a Polish born Jew in aworking class section of London, heexperienced discriminations thathelped catalyze his volumes onexposing racial myths (Man's MostDangerous Myth: The Fallacy ofRace, his ®rst major work); andfavoring economic equality ofwomen in the workplace inThe Natural Superiority ofWomen.

He earned numerous academicawards, including PhDs from bothRutgers and Princeton Universities.Sadly, Ashley was incapacitated andbedridden at a rehabilitation centerfor the last days of his life havingspent many months helping his wife

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Marjorie recover from hip surgery.He would have loved to have spentthese months with her, both of them®nally in good health. Life alwaysseems too short for the greats suchas Ashley Montagu, but he has leftus the legacy of very ®ne works anda very important mission in life, tobring the importance of touch backinto public awareness. We will misshis help with this but know that hewould have us go forward withdynamism. He in¯uenced(`touched') so many people, throughhis writing and teaching, that hislegacy is assured, not least in theresearch work which validates somuch of what he believed touchtherapy to be capable of. He issurvived by his wife Marjorie,a son; two daughters; twograndchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

S APRIL 2000