Determined to wed, Manville was 17 years old in 1911 when he met Florence Huber, a chorus girl, under a Broadway marquee. They were married five days later. The bridegroom's father, traveling from Europe to the United States, said he would have the match annulled when he reached New York. His son arranged a second wedding ceremony in New Jersey, tried to have another in Maryland and said that he would, if necessary, remarry his bride in most of the then 46 states. When his father shut the family treasury against him, young Manville took a $15 dollar a week job in the family's Pittsburgh factory in order to get along. That he would become a career bridegroom was not immediately apparent.
His first marriage lasted 11 years, though a final separation in 1917 continued until divorce in April 1922.