Joseph Santley

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Joseph Santley
Los Angeles, California
, U.S.
Occupations
  • Actor
  • writer
  • singer
  • producer
  • director
Spouse(s)Ivy Sawyer; 3 children

Joseph Mansfield Santley (born Joseph Ishmael Mansfield, January 10, 1890 – August 8, 1971) was an American actor, singer, dancer, writer, director, and producer of

motion pictures and television shows.[1] He adopted the stage name
of his stepfather, actor Eugene Santley.

Life and career

Joseph Santley (center) in Irving Berlin's Stop! Look! Listen! (1915)

Joseph Santley was born in

summer stock and touring with their parents. In 1906, at age seventeen, Joseph Santley co-wrote and starred on Broadway in the play, Billy the Kid. In 1907, he acted in film for the first time for Sidney Olcott at the Kalem Company in a silent Western film short called The Pony Express
.

Santley continued to work almost exclusively in

musical comedy plays, returning to Broadway five more times as well as touring nationally. A gifted dancer and choreographer, Santley created the "Santley Tango" and the "Hawaiian Butterfly". He choreographed and starred in the 1913 Broadway musical When Dreams Come True by Silvio Hein and Philip Bartholomae; a piece written specifically for him.[3]

After he married actress/singer and cabaret dancer Ivy Sawyer, beginning in 1916 the two danced as a team, performing together in a number of Broadway musicals beginning with Betty and Oh, My Dear! and eventually other productions at major venues across the United States such as the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. Their final collective Broadway presentation was in 1927's Just Fancy, which Santley co-wrote, produced, and directed.

He and Ivy Sawyer had a son Joseph born in 1916 and a daughter Betty born in 1928.

In 1928, Santley directed his first motion picture, a short

musical comedy for which he is most famous. Based on the George S. Kaufman play, and with music by Irving Berlin, the film was billed as "Paramount's All Talking-Singing Musical Comedy Hit." His other notable directorial efforts include 1935's Harmony Lane, a biographical musical on the life of composer Stephen Foster. In 1940, he directed Melody Ranch starring "singing cowboy" Gene Autry. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
.

During World War II, Joseph Santley worked for the war effort and in 1942 made the film Remember Pearl Harbor. In 1950, he made his last feature film but came back at age sixty-five to produce the 1954-55 television comedy The Mickey Rooney Show. In 1956, he put together two segments of Jazz Ball, a made-for-TV musical revue created from various filmed performances by jazz greats from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Joseph Santley died in 1971 in Los Angeles.

Partial filmography

References

  1. ^ "Joseph Santley". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-11-17.
  2. Salt Lake Telegram
    . September 23, 1933. p. 1.
  3. ISBN 9781538150283
    .

External links

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