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Mantan Moreland

{{Short description|American actor and comedian (1902–1973)}}

{{Use American English|date=November 2021}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2021}}

{{Infobox person

| name =

Mantan Moreland

| image = Mantan Moreland in Let's Go Collegiate (1941) 2.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Moreland in Let's Go Collegiate (1941)

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1902|09|03|mf=yes}}

| birth_place = Monroe, Louisiana, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1973|09|28|1902|09|03|mf=yes}}

| death_place = Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.

| resting_place = Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery

| other_names = Man Tan Moreland
Manton Moreland

| occupation = {{hlist|Actor|comedian}}

| years_active = 1933–1973

| spouse = Hazel Moreland

| children = 1

}}

Mantan Moreland (September 3, 1902 – September 28, 1973) was an American actor and comedian most popular in the 1930s and 1940s. He starred in numerous films. His daughter Marcella Moreland appeared as a child actor in several films.

Early years

He was born in Monroe, Louisiana, to Frank, an old-time Dixieland bandleader, and Marcella.{{cite news |title = Charlie Chan's Right-Hand Man - The Eyes Have It |newspaper = Washington Afro-American |location = Washington, D.C. |page = 5, Afro Magazine Section |date = February 26, 1957 |url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=EuElAAAAIBAJ&pg=5302%2C1131155|access-date=December 4, 2014}} Moreland began acting by the time he was an adolescent; some sources say he ran away to join a minstrel show in 1910, at age eight, but his daughter told Moreland's biographer she doubts this date is correct.{{cite book| last = Price| first = Michael | title = Mantan the Funnyman: The Life and Times of Mantan Moreland| publisher = Midnight Marquee Press |year = 2007| pages = 63, 207–208| isbn = 978-1-88766-470-7}} She and other sources agree it is more likely he left home when he was fourteen.{{cite news| title= M. Moreland, Charlie Chan Butler, Died| work= Pomona Progress-Bulletin| place= Pomona, California| date= September 29, 1973| page= A-2| publisher= | first= | last= }}

Career

File:King_of_the_Zombies_lobby_card.jpg"|Mantan Moreland (right) in "King of the Zombies"]]

After "nearly ten years of working the small, small time", Moreland gained an opportunity in 1927 when he was hired as a comedian in Connie's Inn Frolics in Harlem.{{cite book|last1=Cullen|first1=Frank|last2=Hackman|first2=Florence|last3=McNeilly|first3=Donald|title=Vaudeville old & new: an encyclopedia of variety performances in America|date=2007|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9780415938532|pages=756–757, 792–794|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XFnfnKg6BcAC&q=%22musical+comedy+that+costarred+Spencer+Williams%22&pg=PA793|access-date=7 July 2017|language=en|archive-date=January 4, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240104051532/https://books.google.com/books?id=XFnfnKg6BcAC&q=%22musical+comedy+that+costarred+Spencer+Williams%22&pg=PA793#v=onepage&q=%22musical%20comedy%20that%20costarred%20Spencer%20Williams%22&f=false|url-status=live}} He next worked in the musical revue Blackbirds of 1928, which ran for 518 performances. By the late 1920s, Moreland had made his way through vaudeville, working with various shows and revues, performing on Broadway and touring Europe.

Following the death of Aubrey Lyles, one half of African American vaudeville act Miller and Lyles, in 1932, Flournoy Miller asked Moreland to team up with him for personal appearances.{{cite book| last = Slide| first = Anthony | author-link = Anthony Slide| title = The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville| publisher = Greenwood Press|year = 1994| pages = 345| isbn = 978-1-61703-249-3}} With Moreland, Miller performed comedy routines he had done with Lyles. The pair performed together in the one-reel short film That's the Spirit (1933) as a pair of night watchmen and for stage productions by Miller, Dixie Goes High Hat (1938) and Hollywood Revue (1939). Moreland appeared in low-budget "race movies" aimed at African American audiences, including One Dark Night (1939) with Bette Treadville, Lucky Ghost (1941), Mr. Washington Goes to Town (1941) and Mantan Runs for Mayor (1946), again with Miller.

As his comedic talents became recognized, Moreland appeared in larger productions. At the height of his career, Moreland received steady work from major film studios, as well as from independent producers who starred Moreland in low-budget, all-African American-cast comedies. Monogram Pictures signed Moreland to appear opposite Frankie Darro in the studio's popular action pictures. Moreland, with his bulging eyes and cackling laugh, quickly became a favorite supporting player in Hollywood movies. In 1940's Drums of the Desert, Moreland played a more serious role as the sergeant in charge of a squad of Senegalese Tirailleurs in French colonial Algeria alongside Ralph Byrd, known for appearing in Republic Pictures' Dick Tracy serials. He is perhaps best known for his role as chauffeur Birmingham Brown in Monogram's Charlie Chan series.

During the 1940s, he teamed up with Ben Carter as his straight man, touring America in vaudeville and making personal appearances in the nation's movie theaters. Moreland and Carter performed comedy routines the former learned when he became Flournoy Miller's understudy in the 1930s,{{cite news |title = New York Show Whirl |newspaper = The Afro-American |location = Baltimore|page = 8, Theatre Section |date = March 17, 1945}} including the famous "indefinite talk" routine, in which they would speak to one another, start a sentence only to be interrupted by the other, yet they understand each other perfectly.{{cite book| last = Hill | first = Constance Valis| title = Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2010| location = Oxford | page = 136| isbn = 978-0-19022-538-4}} Moreland and Carter had developed an excellent rapport and impeccable timing. During World War II, they performed at the then segregated USOs such as one in Riverside, California.{{cite book |last1=Lech |first1=Steve |title=Riverside During World War II |date=October 2022 |publisher=Riverside Historical Society |location=Riverside, CA |isbn=979-8849200880 |pages=144–147 [144] |chapter=Riverside's Negro USO Club}} Their version of "indefinite talk" can be seen in two Charlie Chan pictures, The Scarlet ClueFor an example of the "indefinite talk" routine, see The Scarlet Clue at 39 minutes 25 seconds. and Dark Alibi, as well as in the big-budget Universal musical Bowery to Broadway.For an example of the "indefinite talk" routine, see Dark Alibi at 19 minutes 25 seconds,.{{cite news |work=The New York Times |date=June 13, 2010 |title=Golly, Pop, You Always Get 'Em, Even on a Poverty Row Budget |author=Dave Kehr |page=AR12}} The partnership lasted until Carter died in 1946.{{cite news |title = Hundreds of Hollywood's Celebs Pay Final Tribute to Ben Carter |newspaper = The Afro-American |location = Baltimore|page = 7 |date = December 28, 1946}} Moreland and Nipsey Russell performed this routine in two all-black variety films in 1955.

During the second half of the 1940s, the public attitudes toward the portrayals of African Americans in the cinema had changed. When filmmakers began to reassess roles given to black actors, Moreland's characterization in his film appearances was considered demeaning to the African-American community, resulting in his being offered fewer roles in the 1950s.{{cite journal| last = Cripps| first = Thomas R. | date = 1967 | title = The Death of Rastus: Negroes in American Films since 1945| journal = Phylon|doi= 10.2307/273665| volume= 28| issue = 3 | pages = 267–275| jstor = 273665 }}{{cite web|last1=Thompson|first1=Jennifer|title=From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Representations Of African Americans In Film|url=http://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/africanamericansinfilm|website=Duke University Library|publisher=Duke University|access-date=26 October 2015|archive-date=November 8, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151108071852/http://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/africanamericansinfilm|url-status=live}} Financial difficulties forced Moreland to tour making personal appearances during the late 1940s and the early 1950s with Bud Harris, Tim Moore, Redd Foxx and Nipsey Russell as his straight men.{{cite book| last = Boyd| first = Herb| title = Autobiography of a People: Three Centuries of African American History Told by Those Who Lived It | publisher = Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group| year = 2010| location = New York | page = 351 | isbn = 978-0-38549-279-9}}

Mantan's biographer, Michael Price, states Moreland was briefly considered as a possible addition to the Three Stooges. After Shemp Howard died of a sudden heart attack on November 22, 1955, at age 60, Moe Howard was said had been observing Moreland's act for years and offered Moreland a chance to join the act as the new "third stooge" at the behest of his late brother Shemp. Moreland was reported to be enthusiastic about the offer, but Columbia Pictures insisted on a comedian already under contract. Joe Besser, one of a few comedians still making comedy shorts at the studio, was eventually recruited to join the act in 1956.{{cite book| last = Maurer| first = Joan Howard| author-link = Joan Howard Maurer|author2=Jeff Lenburg |author3=Greg Lenburg | title = The Three Stooges Scrapbook| publisher = Citadel Press| orig-year = 1982| year = 2012| page = 93| isbn = 978-1-61374-074-3}}

Later career and death

File:The_Trap_(1946)_-_Moreland_&_Mouse.jpg

Moreland's last featured role was in the darkly humorous horror film Spider Baby (1968, filmed in 1964), which was patterned after Universal's thrillers of the 1940s. After suffering a stroke in the early 1960s, Moreland took on a few minor comedic roles, working with Bill Cosby, Moms Mabley and Carl Reiner. He later partnered with Roosevelt Livingood to form the comedic team of Mantan and Livingood, which produced a number of recorded albums on Laff Records.

Moreland died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1973 in Hollywood, aged 71, and is interred at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.{{cite news |title=Moreland, Actor Is Dead At 72. Played in Chan Films and in Black 'Codot' |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04E1DB1E30E63ABC4151DFBF668388669EDE |quote=Mantan Moreland, the comedian who played the chauffeur Birmingham Brown in the Charlie Chan movies, died today at the age of 72. |newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 29, 1973 |access-date=2014-10-30 |archive-date=March 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305085150/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04E1DB1E30E63ABC4151DFBF668388669EDE |url-status=live }}{{cite book|last=Cullen|first= Frank |author2=Hackman, Florence |author3=McNeilly, Donald |title=Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America|url=https://archive.org/details/vaudevilleoldnew00cull|url-access=limited|publisher=Routledge|year=2007|pages=[https://archive.org/details/vaudevilleoldnew00cull/page/n840 794]|isbn=978-0-415-93853-2}}

Recognition

In 2004, Moreland was inducted into the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum Hall of Fame.{{cite web|title=2004 Hall of Fame Inductee|url=http://www.cowboysofcolor.org/profile.php?ID=25|website=National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum|access-date=7 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170707031252/http://www.cowboysofcolor.org/profile.php?ID=25|archive-date=7 July 2017}}

Selected filmography

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;Television

Recordings

Cultural references

File:Irish_Luck_lobby_card.jpg

Robert B. Parker makes allusions to Moreland in A Catskill Eagle and Hush Money, both being part of his long-running series of Spenser novels.Parker, Robert B. Hush Money, page 12, New York: Putnam{{primary source inline|date=October 2015}}

Bamboozled, a 2000 film directed by Spike Lee, centers around a fictional television show called Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show featuring stereotypes of minstrel theater and starring a tap dancing character, played by Savion Glover, named Mantan. Clips of Moreland are featured during a montage at the end of the film.

"B-Boys Makin with the Freak Freak", a song by Beastie Boys featured on their 1994 album Ill Communication, samples a line from Mantan's comedy album That Ain't My Finger, referencing a bit about a party and mashed potatoes.{{Cite web|url=https://www.whosampled.com/Beastie-Boys/B-Boys-Makin%27-With-the-Freak-Freak/|title=B-Boys Makin' With the Freak Freak by Beastie Boys - Samples, Covers and Remixes | WhoSampled|website=WhoSampled |access-date=October 13, 2023|archive-date=February 27, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160227162530/http://www.whosampled.com/Beastie-Boys/B-Boys-Makin%27-With-the-Freak-Freak/|url-status=live}}

Further reading

  • Michael H. Price - Mantan the Funnyman (2007), a biography of Moreland with an introduction by Josh Alan Friedman

Footnotes

= Notes =

{{reflist|group=note}}

= References =

{{reflist}}

External links

{{commons category}}

  • {{IMDb name|0603646}}
  • {{IBDB name}}
  • [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bIyMBSx5Qo Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter perform their "Incomplete Sentences" routine in this YouTube clip]
  • {{Find a Grave|5884}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moreland, Mantan}}

Category:1902 births

Category:1973 deaths

Category:Male actors from Louisiana

Category:American male film actors

Category:American male stage actors

Category:American male television actors

Category:Burials at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery

Category:People from Monroe, Louisiana

Category:American vaudeville performers

Category:20th-century American male actors

Category:20th-century African-American male actors

Category:African-American male comedians

Category:African-American comedians

Category:American male comedians

Category:Comedians from Louisiana