David Manners - Pursuit of Other Interests

Pursuit of Other Interests

After the success of Dracula, Manners worked for several years as a romantic leading man, and was most often seen in a tuxedo in romantic comedies and light dramas. The Last Flight (1931), a "Lost Generation" celebration of alcohol in Paris, and Karl Freund's The Mummy (1932) with Boris Karloff were two standouts. But by 1936 he had grown bored with Hollywood, and abandoned his film career.

Manners never acclimated to Hollywood, which he found to be "a false place." Although he co-founded the Screen Actors Guild along with the efforts of James Cagney and Eddie Cantor in 1933, he returned to New York City. From 1936 to 1956, he lived near Victorville, California on a ranch, and then in Pacific Palisades and Santa Barbara, living with a male partner, writer Bill Mercer, for thirty years until Mercer's death in 1978.

In 1940, he officially changed his name to David Joseph Manners and became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He returned to the theater where he worked regularly until his retirement in the 1950s. Appearing on Broadway, in summer stock, and on tour, Manners was cast in a variety of productions, including the ill-fated Broadway production of the Agatha Christie play Hidden Horizon (1946). The acclaimed actor Marlon Brando, who was cast along with Manners in Maxwell Anderson's play Truckline Cafe (1946), said of his colleague, "I owe him my entire career."

He spent the remainder of his life in private pursuits, such as painting and writing. Several of his novels, published by Dutton, sold over 100,000 copies each. His reflections on philosophy and Being were put forth in Look Through: An Evidence of Self Discovery, published in 1971 by El Cariso Publications.

He passed away in Santa Barbara, California on December 23, 1998 at age 98. His ashes were scattered in Rancho Yucca Loma.