Milburn Morante

Milburn Morante (often alternatively credited as 'Moranti') began as a turn-of-the-century vaudevillian, part of a family trio calling themselves 'The Three Morantes'. After moving from San Francisco to L.A., he gravitated towards the film industry by 1913, initially with Keystone-Triangle, and, later, becoming regular support for eccentric knockabout comedienne Gale Henry in Universal's 'Joker' and 'Model' series of comedy shorts. Two years later, he formed his own production company, Mercury, which effectively provided steady employment to his old vaudeville partners, father Joe and brother Al. He released through the independent Bull's Eye Film Corporation, but his comic characterisations never caught on with the public. By the time Bull's Eye became incorporated into Reelcraft in 1920, the Morante company had gone bust and Milburn moved into directing small-scale westerns (usually starring Pete Morrison) and comedy shorts for Morris R. Schlank's independent Premier Pictures Corporation, inevitably destined for rural release only. Milburn also continued as a prolific character actor, both in slapstick farce (eg in The Detectress (1919), opposite Henry), and as comic relief in westerns, notably as sidekick to Buzz Barton in a series of oaters made between 1926 and 1929. As visual madcap comedy waned with the advent of sound, Milburn confined himself almost exclusively to playing grizzled prospectors, tramps, bartenders and more town drunks than one can throw a whiskey glass at. On occasion, he essayed the odd seedy second string villain and was last gainfully employed in several episodes of The Cisco Kid (1950).