Ernie Stanton

Ernest George Burch, known professionally as Ernie Stanton, was an English-American actor, manager, and athlete who played baseball and boxed. A vaudeville performer, he also appeared in films.

Early life

Ernest "Ernie" George Stanton Burch was born on August 23, 1890, in England, to Walter Stanton and Annie Burch. He was baptized at St. Philip church in the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth on 21 September 1890 with his parents being listed as Walter and Annie Stanton Burch.
According to Ernie's United States passport application, the Stanton Burch family emigrated to the United States on February 18, 1899. However, the family's record in the 1900 United States census states they arrived in 1898, and were at that time living in Chicago.
Ernie's father was a comic actor who gained the moniker "The Giant Rooster" on the British stage prior to coming to the United States. He was particularly known for his performances in pantomimes. His father also worked as an acting teacher, and one his pupils was Charlie Chaplin. Also, Ernie's mother who used the nickname "Tina Corri" was a opera singer from Dublin and was a member of the Tony Pastor Company. In his youth, Ernie performed alongside his parents and brother in the vaudeville family act known as The Stantons.

Boxing and baseball careers

Stanton trained as a boxer with Jack McCarron in Allentown, Pennsylvania. By 1910, he was working as a sparring partner to boxers Buck Falvey and Billy Allen while simultaneously performing in vaudeville with his family. When he was in Philadelphia, he used the nickname Young George Erne and was also another sparing partner with Jack Britton and Mike Gibbons. Known in the ring as George Ernie, a 1912 article in The Butte Daily Post described him as a "welterweight champion of Maine". In 1942 he reconnected with an old opponent of his, Bill "Wild Bill" Fleming, and in a newspaper article about that meeting described Fleming as "one of the most powerful punchers ever to lace on the leather mittens".
Stanton was also a baseball player. He played professional baseball in 1912 for the Detroit Tigers and then for the Boston Braves in 1914. After this he played in the Pacific Coast League on various teams; including the Oakland Oaks, Sacramento Solons, San Francisco Seals and the Los Angeles Angels. He made his Seals debut in 1923. In the 1920s he managed a baseball team put together by the National Vaudeville Artists union. Baseball legend Babe Ruth was also a member of the N.V.A and became a good friend of Stanton. Known as the N.V.A. Baseball Club, some of the team's players included comedy duo Van and Schenck, and actor Fred Stone. The team won the Tri-State and semi-pro championship.
Ernie befriended Waite Hoyt and claimed that he was responsible for getting Hoyt's career started in the MLB by getting him his first job with the New York Giants. In 1923 he spent two weeks playing with the New York Yankees in New Orleans during an exhibition tour. In 1927 he participated in the Chicago Cubs spring training preparing to play in an N.V.A season.
Ernie was also a golfer. He was very known at the Glen Garden Country Club while he was on vactions and played with many golfers in the For Worth area.

Vaudeville and acting career

By 1910 Ernie and his brother Val Stanton had formed a comic vaudeville duo and were engaged for performances in the B. F. Keith Circuit in which they sang and exchanged witty dialogue. They were sometimes billed as Val and Ernie Stanton, and other times as the Daffydils. One of the comic sketches they performed was "Who Stole the Shoes?"
In 1925 they recorded an eight-minute short in London which was an early Vitaphone project. In 1928 they performed in the Vitaphone Varieties films produced by Warner Bros. The two shorts were English as She Is Not Spoken and Cut Yourself a Piece of Cake. In their act, Ernie played the harmonica, and Val played the ukulele. They were photographed together. They were described as being "Undoubtedly one of the best comedy talking acts in vaudeville."
Ernie would go on to play many roles in films but was most famous for The Case of the Black Parrot, Stage Struck, and Flippen's Frolics. During his film career, he got to work alongside many famous legends including, Bela Lugosi, Errol Flynn, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., and Ralph Bellamy to name a few. Ernie also got to play with George M. Cohan in Harold's Vanities and on the Keith-Orpheum Circuit.

Personal life

Ernie's life was mostly filled with his careers as an actor and athlete. In 1911 he married Mary Callan. They divorced a couple of years later. In the 1920s he met actress Florence Holt who was nicknamed "Flo Holt" on the KGU show. Ernie and Florence got married in 1928. They had no children during their 16 year marriage. During World War II, the couple performed together in shows put on for the American armed forced by the United Service Organizations; serving in unit 27 of the USO with Ernie working as that unit's master of ceremonies.

Death

Ernie died on February 6, 1944. It was that afternoon, Val and Ernie were scheduled to perform a show at the Orpheum Theatre in Oakland, California. Before the show, they went to eat dinner at a restaurant near 20th Street and Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. Coincidentally, earlier that day, Ernie had told his wife that he was feeling "funny". It was at the restaurant, around 6 p.m., that Ernie suffered a stroke and fell unconscious in his chair. He was rushed to the hospital while Val accompanied him in the ambulance. Upon their arrival to Highland Hospital he was pronounced dead. He was only 53 years old. In the words of Val, "The show must go on". As the new hour approached, Val arrived at the theater and performed without Ernie. Among the hundreds of spectators who filled the theater to capacity, none of them knew the burden resting on Val's shoulders. He was still able to make the people laugh and smile. After the show, Val made the arrangements to send Ernie's body to a local mortuary. Then he fainted. Ernie's funeral was held in Los Angeles.

Family

Besides himself and his brother Val, his wife Flo was an actress and appeared with Bob Hope on Son of Paleface. His father Walter Stanton was a famous rooster chanticleer impersonator nicknamed "The Giant Rooster" and his mother, Annie, nicknamed "Tina Corri", was a male impersonator because her voice was so deep. She was also a member of the Corri family of opera singers from Dublin and for many years a member of the Tony Pastor Company. Not only were his parents famous on the stage, his great-grandfather Haydn Corri was a famous organist in Dublin and his father, Domenico Corri, a famous Italian composer. Along with that, one of his cousins, Eugene Corri, was a famous boxing referee in London.

Filmography

Here's the Gang as Ernie Stanton - Master of Ceremonies
Flippen's Frolics
Sing, Baby, Sing as Mac's Friend
Stage Struck as Marley
Thank You, Jeeves! as Mr. Snelling
15 Maiden Lane as Charles - Peyton's Butler
Hats Off as Secretary
After the Thin Man as Thug at Nick's Table
Bulldog Drummond Escapes as Reporter
The Prince and the Pauper as Guard
Scrappy's Music Lesson as Petey Parrot
The Devil's Saddle Legion as Reggie
The Adventures of Robin Hood as Outlaw
Mickey's Parrot, a Disney animated film, as parrot
Mysterious Mr. Moto as Sidewalk Artist
Hell's Kitchen as Nick
Mr. Wong in Chinatown as Burton
Pride of the Blue Grass as Roberts
Foreign Correspondent as a secondary role
A Dispatch from Reuters as Cockney News Vendor
South of Suez as Private Detective
Hit the Road as O'Brien - First Guard
Cracked Nuts as Ivan the Robot double
The Case of the Black Parrot as Colonel Piggott
Free and Easy as Duke's Horse Groom
Desert Bandit as Sheriff Warde
International Squadron as Ground man
Private Nurse as Winton Butler
Moonlight in Hawaii as Truck Driver
The Wolf Man as Philips
Obliging Young Lady as Cedric
The Ghost of Frankenstein as Constable
Yankee Doodle Dandy as Waiter
Discography
English as She Is Not Spoken
''Cut Yourself a Piece of Cake''