Born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia to her mother Nicola, a market researcher, and father, Phil, a restaurateur. The couple had four other children, a son, Jethro Tull, and three daughters Rosie Thorn, Daisy Yellow, Lily Belle and Marigold Sun - all the girls were named after flowers with her parents having been around during the hippie era.

Poppy left school at nearly fifteen years of age to work in father’s restaurant but was not cut for the work of a waitress and soon found wonder lust calling and she packed her bags and took off to travel around Bali with her then boyfriend.

After two years of traveling she decided to head for the states, once again with an American student she believed she was in love with after meeting him in school in Sydney. Not long after she arrived in Florida the relationship fell apart and Poppy decided to take herself off to Hollywood, Los Angeles in the hopes of pursuing an acting career.

Poppy’s sir name at birth was Donahue but as she began to make a name for herself she chose to use her mother’s maiden name, Montgomery. Her first port of call was Julia Robert’s manager whom she barraged with photos of herself on a daily basis. He helped her to find an agent that would sign her up.

One of Poppy’s first roles was in ‘NYPD Blue", along with Amy Brenneman and David Caruso and a small role in "Devil in a Blue Dress" with Denzel Washington. While she was waiting for roles to come her way Poppy worked at The Gap clothing store.

By 1998 she landed her first big screen role in "Dead Man on Campus" with Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Tom Everett Scott. By 1999 Poppy found landed roles acting alongside veterans such as Diane Keaton and Eddie Murphy in the films "The Other Sister" and "Life".

In 2000 she starred in the critically acclaimed independent feature "This Space Between Us" and the short film "Men Named Milo, Women Named Greta" and the television cop show, "The Beat".

In 2001, Poppy landed the role of Marilyn Monroe in the 4 hour television mini-series "Blonde", for which she received rave reviews for her performance.

Poppy’s career as an actress was sealed in 2002 when she landed the role of Samantha Spade in the CBS's crime series Without a Trace where she stars with Anthony LaPaglia and Roselyn Sanchez.
2004 saw Poppy starring in the movie "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", which made it's premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Since 2005 Poppy has appeared in several men’s magazines such as Stuff, Maxim, FHM and Black+White. She was labeled ‘TV’s Hottest Cop’ by Stuff Magazine.

Poppy and her boyfriend Adam Kaufman announced her pregnancy in mid 2007 and later revealed that they are expecting the arrival a son in December 2007.

ABB