John Truman Mantley (
TorontoToronto is the most populous city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. With over 2.5 million residents, it is the fifth most populous municipality in North America...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, April 25, 1920, died Sherman Oaks,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, January 14, 2003) was a Canadian theatrical actor, writer, director, screenwriter and producer of the long-running television series,
GunsmokeGunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
, and was
Mary PickfordMary Pickford was a Canadian motion picture actor, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Known as "America's Sweetheart," "Little Mary" and "The girl with the curls," she was one of the first Canadian...
's cousin.
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.
John Truman Mantley (
TorontoToronto is the most populous city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. With over 2.5 million residents, it is the fifth most populous municipality in North America...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, April 25, 1920, died Sherman Oaks,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, January 14, 2003) was a Canadian theatrical actor, writer, director, screenwriter and producer of the long-running television series,
GunsmokeGunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
, and was
Mary PickfordMary Pickford was a Canadian motion picture actor, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Known as "America's Sweetheart," "Little Mary" and "The girl with the curls," she was one of the first Canadian...
's cousin.
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
vaudevilleVaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
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.
Childhood
Reading was Mantley's childhood escape and his dream was to become an actor. While attending St. Catherine's Institute of Vocation School in Toronto, he persuaded a teacher to open a dramatic society, of which he became its first president. "And, therefore," he said, "I got to play the leads in all sorts of marvelous
melodramaThe theatrical genre of melodrama uses theme-music to manipulate the spectator's emotional response and to denote character types. The term combines "melody" and "drama" . While the use of music is nearly ubiquitous in modern film, in most cases it is used within a fairly rigid structure...
s" in addition to performing as an athlete in high school. He was later president of the Victoria College Dramatic Society, which won international competitions.
Career
Mantley trained as a
fighter pilotA fighter pilot is a military aviator trained in air-to-air combat while piloting a fighter aircraft . Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and dogfighting...
in the Royal Canadian Air Force during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and was sent to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
. While there he exchanged long letters with his second cousin Mary Pickford, from which later evolved his first novel,
The 27th Day. After the war he studied at the
Pasadena PlayhouseThe Pasadena Playhouse is a historic theatre located in Pasadena, California.-History:The Playhouse's history began in 1917 when actor/director Gilmor Brown began producing a season of plays at an old burlesque house he called the Savoy...
, where he graduated magna cum laude. Earning his master's degree, he subsequently performed in a variety of roles in the legitimate
theatreTheatre is a branch of the performing arts. While any performance may be considered theatre, as a performing art, it focuses almost exclusively on live performers creating a self contained drama. A performance qualifies as dramatic by creating a representational illusion...
, including the role of Sir Robert Cecil to Jane Cowl's lead in
Elizabeth the Great; a two-year summer theatre run of
The Hasty Heart, and
Summer Smoke with
Dorothy McGuire-Career:Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she began her acting career on the stage at the Omaha Community Playhouse. Eventually, she succeeded on Broadway, first appearing as an understudy to Martha Scott in Our Town, and subsequently starring in the domestic comedy, Claudia.Brought to Hollywood by producer...
. His final role in legitimate theatre was the lead role in
Cyrano de BergeracCyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. There was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, but the play bears very scant resemblance to the life of the actual person....
at the Kansas City Playhouse.
The actor returned to his native Canada to recover from exhaustion. While there, the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
issued a tax on American films and "Hollywood went into complete chaos. Entire departments of all the major studios were dismantled and it was really a bad time in the
film industryThe film industry consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i.e. film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution; and actors, film directors and other film...
." He had planned to work for Mary Pickford following graduation from Pasadena Playhouse, but she sold both her production companies when it appeared there was no future for the motion picture industry.
Mantley worked in radio shows with Lorne Green, of
BonanzaBonanza is an American television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons, it is among the longest running Western television series and continues to air in syndication....
television fame, as well as other actors who later had successful careers. He eventually played the lead on
Buckingham Theatre the most prestigious program on Canadian radio's coast-to-coast network. Subsequent acting and directing roles won him provincial and national awards comparable to the American ANTA.
He then returned to California to perform at the LaJolla Theatre and to
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, "where I starved," he said. He eventually played the leads in a number of shows produced by Harvey Marlow, and assumed his job as producer of television station WOR. There he produced "Mr. & Mrs. Mystery," written by
John GayJohn Gay was an English poet and dramatist. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
, who later won an Oscar for
Separate TablesSeparate Tables is a 1958 American drama film based on two one-act plays by Terence Rattigan that were collectively known by this name. It was directed by Delbert Mann, and adapted by Rattigan, John Gay and an uncredited John Michael Hayes....
.
The Canadian actor also produced the first foreign language television show in the U.S., starring an all-Italian cast, and he changed his name for the show to Giovanni Mantley. During his time at WOR, Mantley began to write for television and edited scripts from university students because the station could not afford a writer. He then spent four years in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, where he produced and directed a series of 39 successful half-hour dramatic anthologies for American television, a pioneering effort which played in some 200 markets.
The first of Mantley's three children was born in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, where the couple managed to financially survive because John's wife Angela did the voiceovers--post synchronization of the voices of Gina Lollobridgida and
Sophia LorenSophia Loren is an Italian film actress and an international sex symbol. In 1961, she won an Academy Award for Best Actress for Two Women, becoming the first actor to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance....
, among others. Mantley said that he translated Italian films into English by the lip synching process because American audiences would not accept subtitles, "and because at that time the American motion picture industry would not sell their films to television because they were trying to destroy the media."
When the Mantleys returned to
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, he began his writing career, turning out a number of short stories and articles. He wrote his first novel,
The 27th Day, which became a "Book of the Month Club" selection and was adapted to film for
Columbia PicturesColumbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. At Mary Pickford's urging, he then wrote
The Snow Birch, which was produced by
20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation , also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox, is one of the six major American film studios...
as
Woman Obsessed starring Susan Hayward.
Mantley's first television script was for Desilu Westinghouse Theatre, for which he wrote five. He also wrote for
Harrigan and Sons,
The UntouchablesThe Untouchables is a television series that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the American Broadcasting Company. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s...
,
The Outer LimitsThe Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. Similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone with more science fiction than fantasy stories, The Outer Limits is an anthology of discrete story episodes, sometimes with a plot twist at the end.The series was...
,
Kraft Theatre,
RawhideRawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...
, and freelanced scripts for
GunsmokeGunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
, the longest running dramatic show in television history, which he produced for the next ten years. "I can tell you that
James ArnessJames Arness is an American actor best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke for 20 years. Arness has the distinction of having played the role of Marshal Matt Dillon in five separate decades: 1955 to 1975 in the weekly series, then in the decade of the 1980s Return to Dodge, and...
and the crew were great fun to work with," he said.
John Mantley received five consecutive Western Heritage awards for his
Gunsmoke series, and shared writing honors with Calvin Clements and Earl Wallace for a 1978
Spur AwardThe Spur Award is an annual literary prize awarded by the Western Writers of America. Founded in 1953 with only four categories , the award today has expanded to include the following categories:...
from
Western Writers of AmericaWestern Writers of America, founded 1953, promotes literature, both fiction and non-fiction, pertaining to the American West. Although its founders wrote traditional western fiction, the more than five hundred current members also include historians and other non-fiction writers as well as authors...
for
How the West Was WonHow the West Was Won is an American western television series starring James Arness, Fionnula Flanagan, and Bruce Boxleitner. A spin-off of the 1962 Cinerama film, it aired as a mini-series in 1977, and as a regular series in 1978 and 1979, preceded by a 2,5 hours long pilot episode, The Macahans,...
. He also received the William F. Cody Award.
He operated his own production company for a number of years, and was loaned out to produce
Wild Wild WestWild Wild West is a science fiction Western action-comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and starring Will Smith, Kevin Kline Wild Wild West (1999) is a science fiction Western action-comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and starring Will Smith, Kevin Kline Wild Wild West (1999) is a...
Dirty SallyDirty Sally is a short-lived comedy-drama Western series which ran on CBS from January 11 and April 5, 1974. The program was a spin-off of CBS's Gunsmoke.-Synopsis:...
, and
How the West Was Won, among other films. He also served on the board of directors of the Producer's Guild and hosted the earliest meeting of the Caucus of Producers, Writers, and Directors in his own backyard.
Mantley felt that networks should stay out of the creative process. During the golden age of television, "the only people who looked at your rough cuts, or your manuscripts, were advertising agencies in order to protect their clients. They came to rough cut screenings to make sure that you didn't "ford" a river if you were sponsored by
ChevroletChevrolet is a brand of automobile produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant in 1911, Chevrolet was acquired by General Motors in 1917...
, as was
BonanzaBonanza is an American television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons, it is among the longest running Western television series and continues to air in syndication....
. As a result,
Bonanza in its thirteen-year history, never forded a river. They
crossed rivers. On the other hand, we at
Gunsmoke forded a lot of rivers, but I was found of saying that 'we never chevroleted one.'" (Excerpted from
S. Jean MeadJean Henry Mead is an American novelist, award-winning photojournalist, historian and editor/publisher. She has also written under the names: Jean Henry, Jean Mead, and S...
's interview with John Mantley for her book,
Maverick Writers, pages 151-55.)