David Manners Movies and Career Information

David Manners (April 30, 1900 – December 23, 1998) was a Canadian - American film actor. Born Rauff de Ryther Daun Acklom in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Manners came to Hollywood at the beginning of the talking films revolution after studying acting with Eva Le Gallienne, and acting on stage with Helen Hayes. His family moved to New York City in 1907 and to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York in 1922. In spite of his father's protestations of his thespian ambitions and his even having studied forestry (which bored him) at the University of Toronto, Manners resolutely pursued a stage career and appeared in both Broadway and out-of-town productions, one of which induced Le Gallienne to comment that he was "a very bad actor." Manners was serendipitously "discovered" by the film director James Whale at a Hollywood party, and within a few years, he was a popular leading man, playing opposite such up and coming actresses as Katharine Hepburn, Gloria Stuart, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young, and Ann Dvorak, and he was paired several times with Helen Chandler. His very first film, directed by Whale, was unfortunately destroyed before having been released, but with his second movie, Journey's End (1930), The