David Manners

David Joseph Manners (April 30, 1900 – December 23, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor.

Manners married only once. In New York City, on May 23, 1929, he wed Suzanne Bushnell, a native of Springfield, Ohio. A year later, according to the United States Census of 1930, he and his 23-year-old wife were living together in Los Angeles in a $175-a-month rental property, along with Antonio Dumles, a 22-year-old Filipino who was listed as the couple's servant. David and Suzanne's marriage proved to be a brief one; they divorced in 1932.

In 1940 he officially changed his name to David Joseph Manners (Manners being his mother's maiden name), a change that is verified by its citation in the federal census of 1940. That same census also documents that he had applied to become a naturalized citizen of the United States. It further identifies Manners as an "Author/Actor" and that he was then living in Victorville, California, residing alone in a home, part of a ranch, that he had purchased several years earlier. He became a published novelist in 1941 with Convenient Season; a second novel, Under Running Laughter, followed in 1943. (He used the name David J. Manners for his novels, both of which were published by E.P. Dutton.) Later, in 1948, he established a long-term partnership with playwright Frederic William "Bill" Mercer. Initially, they lived together at David's ranch but left Victorville in 1956 to move to another residence in Pacific Palisades. Manners and Mercer remained partners until Bill's death in 1978.

Following his retirement from acting, Manners spent the remaining decades of his life pursuing his personal interests, including painting, writing, and studying philosophy. His reflections on philosophy were presented in Look Through: An Evidence of Self Discovery, published in 1971 by El Cariso Publications.

In 1998, 20 years after Mercer's death, Manners died at age 98 in the health center of a retirement community in Santa Barbara, California. His body was cremated and the ashes were taken to San Bernardino County and scattered at Rancho Yucca Loma in Victor Valley.