Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

130 SCREENLAND A Leading Manners DAVID MANNERS, he emphasizes, and not David Mannerisms ! This tall, husky young leading man has had one of the most interesting careers a modern young man could have. His life, he will tell you, has been, in recent years, a matter of constantly adapting himself to circumstances and people, far more so than the average young man of today; but he's glad of it, for after all an actor's chief job is to adapt himself to a character, whatever character he happens to be playing. And long before he went on the stage, David Manners was acting. He was, first of all, a Canadian kid who came to New York with his parents in 1909, when he was seven years old, and had to make new friends at what is one of the most difficult ages to make new friends. Then a few years later he went back to Toronto, to prep school and the university, and had to adapt himself to the manners and customs, prejudices and beliefs, of his native land! He'd been away so long that he was New Yorkized, or at least he was afraid his old friends in Canada would think he was. So he acted. He stifled his New York manner. At college he had to adapt himself to a course that he wasn't any too fond of : civil engineering. It was his father's choice of a career, although David wanted to be an actor, in the tradition of his kinswoman, Lady Diana Cooper, or a writer, after the manner of his kinsman, the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But when he had finished the distasteful course what did he do? Did he follow the bent of Lady Cooper or Sir Arthur (he had written in college, and played in the Toronto Little Theatre) ? He did not. He adapted himself again ! He worked for Durlacher Brothers, dealers in objets d'art, and he went about in society, making contacts that would result in the sale of antiques and paintings. He wore his tailcoat and white tie on Park Avenue and in London's Mayfair. And hated both. A serious illness came almost as a relief ; he was whisked off to Arizona to recuperate, and remained at a dude ranch. Again it was a case of adaptation, for at that particular season there were few younger persons at the ranch, except among the cowboys, so David, as an effete Easterner, had to adapt himself to the cowpunchers' way of living and thinking— or else lead a pretty lonely life of it. That he adapted himself once again was proven by the fact that the foreman of the ranch gave David, always a good horseman since childhood, a job as a dude wrangler, which is dude ranch slang for one of those cowboys who answer the guests' foolish questions and keep them from doing foolish things like David is one of the best. Read about him here By Brian Herbert nervous cayuse from the right — which is the wrong — side. In all this time he had had only a short theatre experience, that with the Toronto Little Theatre group, and a much shorter time with the Theatre Guild. He knew he had small chance of getting a job in New York, so he asked an influential friend to get him a job on a South Sea island for a fruit company. He was on his way to that job, passing a few days in Los Angeles, and some discerning casting director met him and suggested his taking a screen test, with the part of Raleigh, in "Journey's End," in view. So the cowboy of a few weeks before, became the English officer of the Sherriff play. Again he was adapting himself. Since then — well, life has been a series of even more rapid and diverse adaptations : in "The Millionaire" he is the young architect who is the pal of George Arliss. the automobile magnate incognito. In his current picture, "The Last Flight," he is the pal of Dick Barthelmess as one of the group of rollicking young aviators in post-war Europe. Carrying on: There's an acting tradition in the family of David Manners, who is related to Lady Diana Manners Cooper — so he sidestepped civil engineering and went into the movies.