Lawrence A. Mandley

Lawrence Mandley was born in Springfield, Illinois and grew up in Chicago. His first stage appearance was a school talent show when he was in 2nd grade. The song was "Tequila" and Lawrence sat on the floor, center stage with a wide brimmed straw hat covering his face as two 8th grade girls in calypso garb danced around him. At the key point in the song, Lawrence lifted his head and mouthed the word Tequila then, lower his head again. Every time this was done, it elicited a laugh that triggered a fuse in him that hasn't gone out yet and he is still pursuing. In his late teens and very early twenties, he sang with various vocal groups around Chicago and met with minimal success. Eventually, he decided to re-shift his focus and move to Los Angeles.

Back in those early L.A. days when Lawrence was doing messenger work, he happened onto an elevator in a building on Sunset Blvd. While looking down at his packages to figure out his first stop, a voice asked him: "What floor?" He looked up and it was Cary Grant. What does one say to Cary Grant? In this particular instance: "9 please. Thank you." Lawrence has gone on to work in commercials and numerous TV shows such as: Shameless, How I Met Your Mother, Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Lost, Flash Forward, Mad About You, ER, Brothers & Sisters and recurring roles on Seinfeld and Zeke & Luther. For his stage work, he has won the Drama-Logue Award for Best Actor for his role in the play Fanon's People. His film work has included roles in: For A Good Time, Call..., Midnight In The Garden Of Good & Evil and White Man's Burden. In addition, he is featured as Captain Mahoney in four Angel Business Time videos playing on Funny or Die. A major source of pride, reward and enjoyment for Lawrence was the time he spent working with the late MK Lewis. Not only teaching scene study classes in MK's Santa Monica studios but traveling to Germany three times and working with him at the Internationale Filmschule Koln.