Zeke Manners
Musician · 1911–2000 · Los Angeles, California
Best known for
Songwriter
Leo “Zeke” Manners was a Los Angeles bandleader, accordionist, and comedy songwriter whose 1930s radio group the Beverly Hill Billies — a Western-swing and hillbilly act that predated the television sitcom of similar name by nearly thirty years — broke nationally out of KMPC. His novelty and polka catalog of more than a hundred titles includes “The Pennsylvania Polka” and “Take My Wife, Please.”
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- Born October 10, 1911, in San Francisco; raised in Los Angeles, where he attended Fairfax High School and picked up fiddle, banjo, accordion, and piano.
- Led the original Beverly Hill Billies on Los Angeles station KMPC in the 1930s, blending Western swing with broad radio comedy; the act also broadcast in New York and toured nationally.
- Co-wrote “The Pennsylvania Polka” with Lester Lee, a hit for the Andrews Sisters and later a Frankie Yankovic staple that featured prominently in the 1993 film Groundhog Day.
- Wrote “Take My Wife, Please,” a comedy number long associated with Henny Youngman.
- Wrote “Los Angeles,” best known in the Les Paul recording.
- Worked frequently with Buddy Ebsen, later television’s Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies.
- Inducted into the Radio and Television Hall of Fame.
- Died October 14, 2000, four days after his eighty-ninth birthday.
