Ernie Stanton

Ernest George Burch (August 23, 1890 – February 6, 1944), known professionally as Ernie Stanton, was an English-American actor, manager, and athlete who played baseball and boxed. A vaudeville performer, he also appeared in films.

Ernest "Ernie" George Stanton Burch was born on August 23, 1890, in England, to Walter Stanton and Annie Burch. 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. According to Ernie's United States passport application, the Stanton Burch family emigrated to the United States on February 18, 1899. However, the family's record in the 1900 United States census states they arrived in 1898, and were at that time living in Chicago.

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. He was particularly known for his performances in pantomimes. His father also worked as an acting teacher, and one his pupils was Charlie Chaplin. 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. In his youth, Ernie performed alongside his parents and brother in the vaudeville family act known as The Stantons.

Stanton trained as a boxer with Jack McCarron in Allentown, Pennsylvania. By 1910, he was working as a sparring partner to boxers Buck Falvey and Billy Allen while simultaneously performing in vaudeville with his family. When he was in Philadelphia, he used the nickname Young George Erne and was also another sparing partner with Jack Britton and Mike Gibbons. Known in the ring as George Ernie, a 1912 article in The Butte Daily Post described him as a "welterweight champion of Maine". 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".

Stanton was also a baseball player. 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 the Los Angeles Angels. He made his Seals debut in 1923. In the 1920s he managed a baseball team put together by the National Vaudeville Artists union. Baseball legend Babe Ruth was also a member of the N.V.A and became a good friend of Stanton. 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.

Ernie 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. In 1923 he spent two weeks playing with the New York Yankees in New Orleans during an exhibition tour. In 1927 he participated in the Chicago Cubs spring training preparing to play in an N.V.A season.

Ernie was also a golfer. He was very known at the Glen Garden Country Club while he was on vactions and played with many golfers in the For Worth area.

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. They were sometimes billed as Val and Ernie Stanton, and other times as the Daffydils. One of the comic sketches they performed was "Who Stole the Shoes?"