Mantan Moreland

Mantan Moreland was an American actor, comedian, and Broadway performer born on September 3, 1902, in Monroe, Louisiana, to Frank, a Dixieland bandleader, and Marcella. He died on September 28, 1973, in Hollywood, California, of a cerebral hemorrhage, and is interred at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood. His Broadway appearances spanned from 1928 to 1957 and included the revue Yeah Man, Blackberries of 1932, the 1952 production of Shuffle Along, and a starring role in Waiting for Godot.

Moreland began performing at a young age. Some accounts place his departure from home to join a minstrel show as early as 1910, when he would have been eight years old, though his daughter disputed that date to his biographer, suggesting he more likely left home at fourteen. By 1927 he had secured a position as a comedian at Connie's Inn Frolics in Harlem, following what he described as nearly ten years working small venues. He subsequently appeared in the musical revue Blackbirds of 1928, which ran for 518 performances, and by the end of that decade had performed on Broadway, toured Europe, and worked extensively in vaudeville.

Following the 1932 death of Aubrey Lyles, one half of the vaudeville act Miller and Lyles, Flournoy Miller invited Moreland to partner with him for personal appearances, performing comedy routines Miller had originally developed with Lyles. The two appeared together in the 1933 one-reel short That's the Spirit, playing a pair of night watchmen, and later collaborated on the stage productions Dixie Goes High Hat in 1938 and Hollywood Revue in 1939. Moreland also appeared in low-budget race films during this period, including One Dark Night (1939), Lucky Ghost (1941), Mr. Washington Goes to Town (1941), and Mantan Runs for Mayor (1946), several of which again featured Miller.

As his profile grew, Moreland attracted work from major Hollywood studios alongside independent producers. Monogram Pictures cast him opposite Frankie Darro in a series of action pictures, and he took on a more dramatic role in the 1940 film Drums of the Desert, playing a sergeant commanding a squad of Senegalese Tirailleurs in French colonial Algeria alongside Ralph Byrd. He became widely recognized for his recurring role as chauffeur Birmingham Brown in Monogram's Charlie Chan film series. During the 1940s, Moreland teamed with comedian Ben Carter, touring American vaudeville venues and making theater appearances. Their act centered on a comedy routine known as indefinite talk, in which two performers begin sentences only to be interrupted by the other, yet communicate with perfect mutual understanding — a routine Moreland had first learned as Miller's understudy. The pair performed this routine in the Charlie Chan films The Scarlet Clue and Dark Alibi, as well as in the Universal musical Bowery to Broadway. Their partnership continued until Carter's death in 1946. Moreland later performed the same routine with Nipsey Russell in two all-Black variety films in 1955.

Shifting public attitudes toward the portrayal of African Americans in film during the late 1940s led to Moreland being offered fewer roles, as his screen characterizations came to be viewed as demeaning to the African-American community. Financial pressures during this period led him to tour with performers including Bud Harris, Tim Moore, Redd Foxx, and Nipsey Russell. According to his biographer Michael Price, Moreland was briefly considered as a potential replacement for Shemp Howard in the Three Stooges following Howard's death on November 22, 1955. Moe Howard was reported to have offered Moreland the position, and Moreland was said to be enthusiastic, but Columbia Pictures ultimately required a comedian already under contract, and Joe Besser joined the act in 1956.

Moreland suffered a stroke in the early 1960s and subsequently took on minor comedic roles, working alongside Bill Cosby, Moms Mabley, and Carl Reiner. His last featured film role came in Spider Baby, a darkly humorous horror film shot in 1964 and released in 1968. He later formed the comedy team Mantan and Livingood with Roosevelt Livingood, which released several recorded albums on Laff Records, including That Ain't My Finger, Elsie's Sportin' House, and Tribute to the Man. In 2004, Moreland was inducted into the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum Hall of Fame. His daughter Marcella Moreland appeared as a child actor in several films. A biography, Mantan the Funnyman, written by Michael H. Price with an introduction by Josh Alan Friedman, was published in 2007.