Love for Dudley Manlove

If I didn’t know any better and you had asked me which of the cast members of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) was named “DUDLEY MANLOVE” I almost certainly would have pointed to Bunny Breckinridge. But in spite of being named “Manlove”, the subject in question was straight. Straighter than straight. In fact stiff as a board, dry as a bone, liable to snap, as so many radio veterans seemed when they moved into film and television in the ’50s. “Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!”

Still Manlove (1914-1996) was not a total stranger to wider thespian arts, having been a stage actor since childhood in his native San Francisco. As an adult he developed a rich baritone voice perfectly suited to the new medium of radio. He worked as both an actor, host, and announcer on such shows as Eight o’ Clock Players, Faucit Theater of the Air, The Musical Clock, and most notably Candy Matson, YUkon 2-8209 (1949-51).

In 1957, Ed Wood hired Manlove to narrate “Final Curtain” the pilot episode of Wood’s proposed TV series Portraits of Terror. After decades of being buried, this bizarre artifact resurfaced in 2012 and entered the Woodian canon. Predictably, it is a thing no reputable television network would ever air, though less because of its dark incoherence (after all, Plan 9 was often shown on television) but because of the off fact that entire thing is M.O.S., with Duke Moore wandering around a spooky old theatre while Manlove provides atmospheric narration throughout. Wood devotees will recognize both writing and footage that he later repurposed for other projects. At any rate, Manlove also got to play his best known role with Wood, the alien Eros in Plan 9 around the same time. How delightful that his birthday falls the day after Paul Marco’s. I hope they had a joint celebration…at midnight…in a graveyard!

Manlove also managed to work in television a bit around this period, with guest shots on shows like Dragnet,Alfred Hitchcock Presents, State Trooper, Official Detective, and Schlitz Playhouse. He had bit parts in the movies Ten North Frederick (1958) with Gary Cooper, and The Runaway (1961) with Cesar Romero. He got a bigger role in Wesley Barry’sThe Creation of the Humanoids (1962).

That last film seems to have been a career ender. There were no more screen credits after this, and of course the medium he knew best, radio, was dead. Dudley Manlove died of cirrhosis of the liver over three decades later.