Dudley manlove biography sample

By the time Dudley Devere Manlove joined Oakland High School in 1927, he was already well-known throughout the Bay Area, having spent the past decade as a successful child performer in vaudeville. His mother Flossie, who had theatrical aspirations, trained Dudley and promoted him in the press as 'Oakland's golden haired boy' from almost as soon as he could walk, while his father Fred's job with the Southern Pacific Company gained the family cut-price rail tickets that allowed Master Dudley (as he was billed) to undertake personal appearance tours at theatres across California.

Such was the popularity of Manlove's act - in which the youngster exhibited great versatility by combining dancing, singing and comedy routines with piano- and accordion-playing - that these tours by 1923 took in venues as far east as Illinois.

Manlove thereafter joined the hugely successful O'Neill Sisters Kiddie Revue, based in San Francisco, while also gaining employment in a string of silent movies shot