Charles Manley (1916) 🇺🇸

Charles Manley Dead

Veteran theatrical and screen actor passes away at Los Angeles home.

Charles Manley, veteran actor of both the legitimate and the motion picture screen, passed away at his home in Los Angeles, Saturday, February 26, after a short illness, at the ripe old age of 86 years. At the time of his death Mr. Manley was a much beloved member of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company at Universal City, Cal., where he had been located for over a year.

Mr. Manley was born in a small town in Pennsylvania, and his meagre schooling was procured in a little log hut near the village of his birth. From boyhood he had aspirations for the stage and at the age of fourteen he had his first experience in the theatrical business, but it was not until he was sixteen years old that he really procured a steady position on the stage. From that time on he gradually worked his way up, until he was much sought for by the big theatrical managers of his time. He is better known to his host of friends and admirers as “Daddy,” and always took pride in the fact that he spent the greater part of his life in the theatrical business.

Mr. Manley started in the motion picture business with the Edison, later playing with the Biograph, Lubin, Powers, and since 1914 has been with the Universal at Universal City, he and Mother Benson being the oldest couple in the motion picture industry.

Mr. Manley’s past work with the Universal Company is too well known to all picture patrons to need any summarizing at this time. What will be of interest to them, however, is that Mr. Manley is the only octogenarian ever featured in a series of pictures, such as Mr. Manley was featured in The Master Key, with Ella Hall and Robert Leonard. Other features in which he appeared were Their Golden Wedding, by Frank Lloyd, and Learning to Be a Father, by Jacques Jaccard. He also was the writer of many scenarios, chief among which was “Hearts of Gold.”

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Essanays for March and April

Offers a strong list for V-L-S-E and General Film programs.

George K. Spoor, president of Essanay, announces an unusually strong list of releases for the months of March and April. Among these, released on the V-L-S-E program, are Sherlock Holmes and “Secret Service,” the two plays written and enacted on the stage with such great success by William Gillette.

Mr. Gillette’s services were secured by Mr. Spoor and this famous actor will portray in film the characters which every stage lover knows.

Another strong multiple release is The Havoc, written by H. S. Sheldon, which play also had an exceptional run on Broadway. Gladys Hanson, the famous Broadway star, was secured to enact the leading role, that taken in the stage success by Laura Hope Crews. Lewis H. Stone, who played the leading role in the speaking production of The Misleading Lady and in many other plays famous on the stage, takes the leading masculine part, in which Henry Miller (1859–1926) appeared in the stage version. Bryant Washburn, known to all film lovers, is the heavy, and carries out the part with his characteristic ability.

Among Essanay’s shorter productions, released through the General Film Company, are several notable plays. Beyond the Law is one of the strongest of these. This is a three-reel subject taken from The Snow-Burner Pays, written by Henry Oyen, the well-known novelist, and published in the Adventure Magazine. This is a sequel to the three-reel production released some time ago by Essanay, The Snow-Burner.

This story is of the north woods, and a troupe of players went to Virginia. Minnesota, the exact location in which the novel is laid, where the play was taken under the direction of E. H. Calvert, who also plays the role of the snowburner. All the characteristic scenery of the country of deep snows is shown. Marguerite Clayton takes the leading feminine role in the picture.

Another notable subject is Joyce’s Strategy, a two-reel play, written by Harry Beaumont especially for Joyce Fair, the eleven-year-old star who made such a hit on Broadway in The Dummy, playing opposite Ernest Truex. Darwin Karr takes the leading masculine role and Lillian Drew the heavy lead.

Other strong three-reel releases are A Man’s Work, featuring John Junior and Elizabeth Burbridge; Unknown, featuring Richard C. Travers, Marguerite Clayton and Ernest Maupain, and I Will Repay, featuring Marguerite Clayton, John Junior and Edward Arnold.

The House of Surprise, in which John Junior and Elizabeth Burbridge are featured, and The Intruder, featuring Marguerite Clayton and Richard C. Travers, and other strong two-reel releases.

With several of Vernon Howe Bailey’s sketch books of various cities in America and abroad, the Canimated Nooz Pictorials, by Wallace A. Carlson, and The Mary Page series, with Henry B. Walthall and Edna Mayo, the program is one of the best put out.

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Scene from A Man’s Work (Essanay).

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Dinner to Dan Frohman.

In recognition of his years of service for the betterment of the stage and the motion picture, in which field of late he has been very active, Daniel Frohman will be the principal guest at a dinner in his honor in the Astor Hotel ballroom some Sunday evening in April. Both men and women of prominence on the stage and screen will attend. The committee in charge consists of Messrs A. L. Erlanger, Otto H. Kahn, Alexander Lambert, Brander Matthews, Dudley Field Malone, J. Stuart Blackton, Marc Klaw, John Drew, Alf Hayman, Walter Damrosch, Augustus Thomas, Charles B. Dillingham, Adolph Zukor, William Harris Sr., George M. Cohan, William Courtleigh, Sam H. Harris, John W. Rumsey, David Belasco, William A. Johnston, Joseph Brooks and Samuel Goldfish.

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Birthday Party for Mrs. Lonergan.

On Monday evening, February 27, Mrs. Lonergan, of 130 Lefferts place, Brooklyn, mother of the well-known scenario writers, Lloyd [Lloyd Lonergan] and Phil Lonergan, and Elizabeth Lonergan, a newspaper woman, was pleasantly surprised by the arrival of a gay party of friends who were anxious to wish her many happy returns of the day. Among the guests were Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Thanhouser, who, with Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Lonergan, motored from New Rochelle in honor of the occasion; Miss Emma R. Steiner; Mr. Chas. S. Sewell. Miss Anna Bird Stewart, Mrs. Joy, Miss McKee, Miss M. I. MacDonald and others. Mrs. Lonergan was made the recipient of many beautiful presents, accompanied by hosts of the season’s blossoms.

Collection: Moving Picture World, March 1916