{{Short description|English actor and athlete}}
{{Infobox person | name = Ernest George Stanton Burch | image = Ernie Stanton as the Master of Ceremonies.png | alt = | caption = Stanton as MC for the Fort Worth Optimist Club’s musical | birth_name = Ernest George Burch | birth_date = {{Birth date|1890|08|23}} | birth_place = England, UK | death_date = {{Death date and age|1944|02|06|1890|08|23}} | death_place = Oakland, California, US | other_names = | occupation = actor, manager and athlete | years_active = | burial_place = Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, US | notable_works = | spouse = Flo Stanton | parents = {{ubl|Walter Stanton|Tina Corri}} | relatives = Val Stanton (brother) }}
'''Ernest George Burch''' (August 23, 1890 – February 6, 1944), known professionally as '''Ernie Stanton''',<ref>{{cite news|title=Ernest G. Burch|work=The Los Angeles Times|date=February 10, 1944|page= 23}}</ref> was an English-American actor, and athlete who played baseball and boxed. He also served as a baseball manager. As a vaudeville performer, he was mostly known from the vaudeville team, Val & Ernie Stanton. He was also known for the voice of Walt Disney’s, ''Mickey's Parrot''
==Early life== Ernest "Ernie" George Stanton Burch was born on August 23, 1890, in England, to Walter Stanton and Annie Burch.<ref name="Passport">Ernest George Stanton Burch in ''U.S., Passport Applications, 1795–1925'', Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 – March 31, 1925; 1922; Roll 2040; Certificate 196584, 23 June 1922</ref><ref>''U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942'' for Ernest Stanton Burch; Serial Number 3958</ref><ref>Ernest G. Stanton Burch in ''California, Death Index, 1940–1997''</ref><ref>Stanton-Burch, Ernest Stanton in "Births Registered in July, August, and September 1890, ''England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837–1915'', p. 494</ref> He was baptized at St. Philip church in the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth on 21 September 1890 with his parents being listed as Walter and Annie Stanton Burch.<ref>Ernest Stanton Birch in ''London, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813–1906'', Reference Number 3883393</ref> According to Ernie's United States passport application, the Stanton Burch family emigrated to the United States on February 18, 1899.<ref name="Passport"/> However, the family's record in the 1900 United States census states they arrived in 1898, and were at that time living in Chicago.<ref>Ernest Stanton in 1900 United States Federal Census, Illinois Cook County, Chicago, Ward 01, District 0002, June 2, 1900; sheet No. 1</ref>
Ernie's father was a comic actor who gained the moniker "The Giant Rooster" on the British stage prior to coming to the United States.<ref name="Rooster"/> He was particularly known for his performances in pantomimes.<ref name="Tour"/> His father also worked as an acting teacher, and one his pupils was Charlie Chaplin.<ref name="Rooster">{{cite news |title=Cinesound at prince |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1149632607/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |publisher=The Daily News}}</ref> Also, Ernie's mother who used the nickname "Tina Corri" was a opera singer from Dublin and was a member of the Tony Pastor Company.<ref>{{cite web |title=Stanton's come from Theatrical Family |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/64719311/ |publisher=Vancouver Daily World}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Tina Corri at the Orpheum |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/80567230/|publisher=Los Angeles Herald}}</ref> In his youth, Ernie performed alongside his parents and brother in the vaudeville family act known as The Stantons.<ref name="BF">{{cite news|title=Buck Falvey Starts Training|work=Norwich Bulletin|date=February 5, 1910|page= 3}}</ref>
==Boxing and baseball careers== Stanton trained as a boxer with Jack McCarron in Allentown, Pennsylvania.<ref name="BTT">{{cite news|title=Actors Are Ball Tossers Too|work=The Morning Call|date=August 2, 1911|page=11}}</ref> By 1910, he was working as a sparring partner to boxers Buck Falvey and Billy Allen while simultaneously performing in vaudeville with his family.<ref name="BF"/> When he was in Philadelphia, he used the nickname Young George Erne and was also another sparing partner with Jack Britton and Mike Gibbons.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ernie Stanton Actor-Athlete Coming to Orph |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/518123331/ |access-date=30 January 2025 |publisher=The Capital Times}}</ref> His father was also his manager at the time. Known in the ring as George Ernie, a 1912 article in ''The Butte Daily Post'' described him as a "welterweight champion of Maine".<ref>{{cite news |title=Eastern Champion Appears on Stage |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/350711324/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |publisher=The Butte Daily Post}}</ref> In 1942, he reconnected with an old opponent of his, Bill "Wild Bill" Fleming, and in a newspaper article about that meeting described Fleming as "one of the most powerful punchers ever to lace on the leather mittens".<ref>{{cite news |title=Recalls battles with Bill Fleming |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1106473781/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |newspaper=Bangor Commercial Sports|date=March 17, 1942|page=10}}</ref>
thumb|upright|1912 photograph of Ernie Stanton
Stanton was also a baseball player.<ref name="BTT"/> He started his career with the Jackson club team of the New York State League, where he played first base. He was then drafted by the New York Giants.<ref>{{cite news |title=Orpheum star is great athlete |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1169683020/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |publisher=The Fresno Bee|date=November 30, 1922}}</ref> He played professional baseball in 1912 for the Detroit Tigers and then for the Boston Braves in 1914. After this, he played in the Pacific Coast League on various teams; including the Oakland Oaks, Sacramento Solons, San Francisco Seals, and Los Angeles Angels.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ernie Stanton Who comes here Sunday is Famous Athlete |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/300156547/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |publisher=The Daily Times|date=October 4, 1924}}</ref> He made his Seals debut in 1923.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ernie Stanton Seals Debut |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/997407718/ |access-date=November 24, 2025 |publisher=San Francisco Bulletin |date=September 15, 1923}}</ref> In the 1920s, he managed a baseball team put together by the National Vaudeville Artists (N.V.A.) union.<ref>{{cite news |title=A trio of popular N.V.A's |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/897761135/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |newspaper=The Vaudeville News|date=April 13, 1923|page=5}}</ref> Baseball legend Babe Ruth was also a member of the N.V.A and became a good friend of Stanton.<ref>{{cite web |title=Many cities after games with artists |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/897761543/ |publisher=The Vaudeville news}}</ref> Known as the N.V.A. Baseball Club, some of the team's players included comedy duo Van and Schenck, and actor Fred Stone. The team won the Tri-State and semi-pro championship.<ref name="Tour"/>
Stanton befriended Waite Hoyt and claimed that he was responsible for getting Hoyt's career started in the MLB by getting him his first job with the New York Giants.<ref>{{cite news |title=How Hoyt got started |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/863967593/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |newspaper=Omaha World-Herald|date=May 20, 1928|page=14}}</ref> In 1923, he spent two weeks playing with the New York Yankees in New Orleans during an exhibition tour.<ref name="Tour">{{cite news |title=Vaudeville actor plays with yankees |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/544042452/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |newspaper=Times Union|date=April 13, 1923|page=21}}</ref> In 1927, he participated in the Chicago Cubs spring training preparing to play in an N.V.A season.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ernie Stanton in Lineup |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/897749459/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |newspaper=The Vaudeville News and New York Star|date=April 30, 1927|page=22}}</ref>
Stanton was also a golfer. He was very known at the Glen Garden Country Club while he was on vacations and played with many golfers in the Fort Worth area.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ernie stanton dead at stroke |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/637203310/ |access-date=November 24, 2025 |agency=Fort Worth Star-Telegram |publisher=Fort Worth Star-Telegram |date=February 8, 1944}}</ref>
==Vaudeville and acting career== thumb|right|Val and Ernie (1929) By 1910, Ernie and his brother Val Stanton had formed a comic vaudeville duo and were engaged for performances in the B. F. Keith Circuit in which they sang and exchanged witty dialogue.<ref>{{cite news|title=Five Fine Acts at the Shultz|work=The Zanesville Signal|date=May 31, 1910|page=3}}</ref> They were sometimes billed as Val and Ernie Stanton, and other times as the Daffydils.<ref>{{cite news|title=Stageland Gossip|work=The Cincinnati Enquirer|date= November 30, 1911|page= 8}}</ref> One of the comic sketches they performed was "Who Stole the Shoes?"<ref>{{cite news|title=Empress|work=The Kentucky Post|date= November 30, 1911|page= 3}}</ref>
thumb|Ernie Stanton standing in the middle with his mother, Tina Corri; his nieces Doris, Marjorie, and Virginia; and another women
In 1925, they recorded an eight-minute short in London which was an early Vitaphone project. In 1928, they performed in the Vitaphone Varieties films produced by Warner Bros. The two shorts were ''English as She Is Not Spoken'' and ''Cut Yourself a Piece of Cake''. In their act, Ernie played the harmonica, and Val played the ukulele. They were photographed together.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://vaudeville.library.arizona.edu/items/ernie-stanton-and-performer/|title=Ernie Stanton and Val Stanton|website=The American Vaudeville Museum Archive}}</ref> They were described as being "Undoubtedly one of the best comedy talking acts in vaudeville."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Val and Ernie Stanton |url=http://vaudevilleamerica.org/performance/val-ernie-stanton-2/ |website=Vaudeville America}}{{Dead link|date=April 2026}}</ref>
{{multiple image | align = right | total_width = 320 | image1 = English as She Is Not Spoken (1928).webm | thumbtime1 = 3:00 | image2 = Cut Yourself a Piece of Cake (1928).webm | thumbtime2 = 2:00 | footer = Val and Ernie in ''English as She is Not Spoken'' (''left'') and ''Cut Yourself a Piece of Cake'' (''right'') }}
Ernie would go on to play many roles in films but was most famous for ''The Case of the Black Parrot'' (1941), ''Stage Struck'' (1936), and ''Flippen's Frolics'' (1936). During his film career, he got to work alongside many famous legends including, Bela Lugosi, Errol Flynn, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., and Ralph Bellamy to name a few. Ernie also got to play with George M. Cohan in Harold's Vanities and on the Keith-Orpheum Circuit.{{cn|date=June 2025}}
==Personal life== Ernie's life was mostly filled with his careers as an actor and athlete. In 1911, he married Mary Callan. They divorced a couple of years later. In the 1920s, he met actress Florence Holt who was nicknamed "Flo Holt" on the KGU show. Ernie and Florence got married in 1928. They had no children during their 16-year marriage. During World War II, the couple performed together in shows put on for the American armed forced by the United Service Organizations, serving in unit 27 of the USO with Ernie working as that unit's master of ceremonies.<ref>{{cite news|title=Ernie Stanton's Back Home After Tossing His Gag At Soldiers, Coast to Coast|work=Fort Worth Star-Telegram|date= July 7, 1942|page= 14|author=Dorothy M'aulay}}</ref>
==Death== Ernie died on February 6, 1944. It was that afternoon, Val and Ernie were scheduled to perform a show at the Orpheum Theatre in Oakland, California. Before the show, they went to eat dinner at a restaurant near 20th Street and Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. Coincidentally, earlier that day, Ernie had told his wife that he was feeling "funny". It was at the restaurant, around 6 p.m., that Ernie suffered a stroke and fell unconscious in his chair.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ernie Stanton dies of Stroke |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/637203310/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |agency=Fort Worth Star-Telegram}}</ref> He was rushed to the hospital while Val accompanied him in the ambulance. Upon their arrival to Highland Hospital, he was pronounced dead. He was only 53 years old. In the words of Val, "The show must go on". As the new hour approached, Val arrived at the theater and performed without Ernie. Among the hundreds of spectators who filled the theater to capacity, none of them knew the burden resting on Val's shoulders. He was still able to make the people laugh and smile. After the show, Val made the arrangements to send Ernie's body to a local mortuary. Then he fainted.<ref>{{cite news |title=Actor carries on after brother dies |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/380691662/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |work=The Los Angeles Times}}</ref> Ernie's funeral was held in Los Angeles.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ernie Stanton Burial to be in Glendale, Cal. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/636865241/?match=1&terms=ernie%20stanton |publisher=Fort Worth Star-Telegram}}</ref>
==Family== Besides himself and his brother Val, his wife Flo was an actress and appeared with Bob Hope on Son of Paleface. His father Walter Stanton was a famous rooster chanticleer impersonator nicknamed "The Giant Rooster" and his mother, Annie, nicknamed "Tina Corri", was a male impersonator because her voice was so deep. She was also a member of the Corri family of opera singers from Dublin and for many years a member of the Tony Pastor Company.<ref>{{cite web |title=Mr. Walter Stanton |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/387702780/}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=The Giant Rooster and Tina Corri |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/80568044/ |publisher=Los Angeles Herald |date=March 2, 1896}}</ref> Not only were his parents famous on the stage, his great-grandfather Haydn Corri was a famous organist in Dublin and his father, Domenico Corri, a famous Italian composer. Along with that, one of his cousins, Eugene Corri, was a famous boxing referee in London.<ref>{{cite web |title=Val and Ernie Stanton, cousin with Corri.|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/348952140/ |publisher=The Butte Miner}}</ref>
==Filmography== {{More sources section|date=November 2025}} *''Here's the Gang'' (1935) as Ernie Stanton – Master of Ceremonies (writer) *''Flippen's Frolics'' (1936) (script writer) *''Sing, Baby, Sing'' (1936) as Mac's Friend (uncredited) *''Stage Struck (1936 film)'' (1936) as Marley *''Thank You, Jeeves!'' (1936) as Mr. Snelling *''15 Maiden Lane'' (1936) as Charles – Peyton's Butler (uncredited) *''Hats Off (1936 film)'' (1936) as Secretary *''After the Thin Man'' (1936) as Thug at Nick's Table (uncredited) *''Bulldog Drummond Escapes'' (1937) as Reporter (uncredited) *''The Prince and the Pauper (1937 film)'' (1937) as Guard (uncredited) *''Scrappy's Music Lesson'' (1937) as Petey Parrot (uncredited) *''The Devil's Saddle Legion'' (1937) as Reggie *''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' (1938) as Outlaw (uncredited) *''Mickey's Parrot'' (1938), a Disney animated film, as parrot (voice) *''Mysterious Mr. Moto'' (1938) as Sidewalk Artist (uncredited) *''Hell's Kitchen (1939 film)'' (1939) as Nick (uncredited) *''Mr. Wong in Chinatown'' (1939) as Burton - Davidson's Butler *''Pride of the Blue Grass (1939 film)'' (1939) as Roberts (uncredited) *''Foreign Correspondent (1940 film)'' (1940) as Newsmen at table (uncredited) *''A Dispatch from Reuters'' (1940) as Cockney News Vendor (uncredited) *''South of Suez'' (1940) as Private Detective (uncredited) *''Hit the Road (1941 film)'' (1941) as O'Brien – First Guard (uncredited) *''Cracked Nuts (1941 film)'' (1941) as Ivan the Robot (Shemp Howard's stunt) double<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://threestooges.net/cast/actor/1582|title=Cast Member : Ernie Stanton|website=threestooges.net}}</ref> *''The Case of the Black Parrot'' (1941) as Colonel Piggott *''Free and Easy (1941 film)'' (1941) as Duke's Horse Groom (uncredited) *''Desert Bandit'' (1941) as Sheriff Warde *''International Squadron (film)'' (1941) as Ground man (uncredited) *''Private Nurse'' (1941) as Winton Butler (uncredited) *''Moonlight in Hawaii'' (1941) as Truck Driver (uncredited) *''The Wolf Man (1941 film)'' (1941) as Philips (uncredited) *''Obliging Young Lady'' (1942) as Cedric (uncredited) *''The Ghost of Frankenstein'' (1942) as Constable (uncredited) *''This Above All (film)'' (1942) as policeman (uncredited) *''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' (1942) as Waiter (uncredited)
==Discography== *''English as She Is Not Spoken'' (1928) *''Cut Yourself a Piece of Cake'' (1928)
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{Find a Grave|id=138001959|name=}} *{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMvF78qD44U&t=156s |title=Val and Ernie Stanton - Cut Yourself A Piece Of Cake (1928) |date=2025-02-06 |last= |publisher=vintage video clips |access-date=2026-04-16 |via=YouTube}} *{{Cite web |title=Ernie Stanton |url=https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/166378 |website=BoxRec}} *{{Cite web |title=Ernie Stanton |url=https://mubi.com/en/cast/ernie-stanton |access-date=2026-04-16 |website=MUBI |language=en}}
*{{Cite web |title=Ernie with friends Babe Ruth and Waite Hoyt pictured |url=https://now.tufts.edu/2024/03/28/alum-goes-bat-baseball-legend |access-date=2026-04-16 |website=Tufts University |language=en}}
*{{Cite news |last=Grossman |first=Al |date=November 17, 1920 |title=N.V.A. sports and sayings |url=https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=VVN19200917.2.14 |work=Vaudeville News |pages=4 |via=Illinois Digital News Collection}} *{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3t7F0zdR-A |title=English as She Is Not Spoken (1928) |date=2024-04-05 |last= |publisher=Free Public Domain Media |via=YouTube}}
{{Authority control}} Category:1890 births Category:1944 deaths Category:American baseball players Category:American male boxers Category:American vaudeville performers