Trivia

In the final years of his life, he claimed that he had never seen Dracula (1931) and didn't care to. He asked that people NOT send him any videos of it.

One of the earliest recipients of a Hollywood "Walk of Fame" star, though it was later removed for reasons which have never been formally disclosed.

Earned $2,000 a week during filming of Dracula (1931), as leading man John Harker. Top-billed Bela Lugosi only earned $500 a week. However, this discrepancy is misleading. Manners was under contract to Warner Bros./First National. Studios "loaned out" their contract players to each other at rates considerably higher than the performers' weekly salaries, and kept the profit.

Wrote spiritual novels in his later years. In 1971 he published "Look Through, An Evidence of Self Discovery".

He made four films with Helen Chandler. Two of the films were made at Warner Brothers/First National and one was made at Fox. Their most famous pairing, Dracula (1931), was made at Universal.

Manners was a gay man. In 1948, he met playwright Frederic William Mercer and the two lived together as partners for 30 years until Mercer's death in 1978.

"Manners" is his mother's maiden name.

In 1940 he officially changed his name to David Joseph Manners and became a citizen of the US.

Once worked at a New York art gallery and served as a cowboy guide out west.

After leaving films in 1936, he purchased a CineKodak 16mm movie camera and began making his own productions in and around his ranch, chronicling his life. The footage was stolen and never recovered.

Studio publicity tongues claimed he was a descendant of William the Conqueror.

He left Hollywood abruptly in 1936, still a popular and in-demand actor, in part for having been harangued bitterly by Joan Crawford for turning down a role in a picture she was making.