Family
Mantley had a sister, eleven years older than himself, who taught dancing well into her eighties. Mantley said that she was "the one born in a (show business) trunk", but strangely enough, I was the one who ended up involved in television and films."
Their father, Cecil Clay Van Manzer, adopted the stage name Clay Mantley. Van Manzer met his wife Violet Petello in 1906 in New York City at the casting of The Convict's Daughter, directed by Maurice Costello. He later wrote playlets which his wife appeared in on the vaudeville circuit.
In later years Van Manzer operated a traveling circus while his wife ran a number of concession stands in a park across the lake from Toronto. Their son John operated the candy booth and at 17 traveled with the carnival, serving as the bingo game barker.
Read more about this topic: John Mantley
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“I swear ... to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“Unfortunately, life may sometimes seem unfair to middle children, some of whom feel like an afterthought to a brilliant older sibling and unable to captivate the family’s attention like the darling baby. Yet the middle position offers great training for the real world of lowered expectations, negotiation, and compromise. Middle children who often must break the mold set by an older sibling may thereby learn to challenge family values and seek their own identity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“If it had not been for storytelling, the black family would not have survived. It was the responsibility of the Uncle Remus types to transfer philosophies, attitudes, values, and advice, by way of storytelling using creatures in the woods as symbols.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)