From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Joseph Mansfield Santley born Joseph Ishmael Mansfield January 10 1890 August 8 1971 was an American actor singer dancer writer director and producer of musical theatrical plays motion pictures and television shows He adopted the stage name of his stepfather actor Eugene Santley Joseph Santley was born in Salt Lake City Utah As a boy he and older brother Fred began performing in live theatre appearing in summer stock and touring with their parents In 1906 at age seventeen Joseph Santley cowrote 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 Pony Express In 1928 Santley directed his first motion picture a short talkie for Paramount Pictures that featured singer Ruth Etting The next year Paramount had Santley direct three more films that were short singing productions one with Etting another with crooner Rudy Vallee plus a third titled High Hat with Broadway singing star Alice Boulden Also he directed A Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic a musical film featuring Eddie Cantor along with Eddie Elkins and his orchestra In 1929 Joseph Santley codirected with Robert Florey the first Marx Brothers feature film The Cocoanuts a 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 Paramounts All TalkingSinging Musical Comedy Hit His other notable directorial efforts include 1935s 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 sixtyfive to produce the 195455 television comedy The Mickey Rooney Show In 1956 he put together two segments of Jazz Ball a madeforTV musical revue created from various filmed performances by jazz greats from the 1930s to the 1950s Joseph Santley died in 1971 in Los Angeles
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