Frank Moran
Encyclopedia
Charles Francis "Frank" Moran (18 March 1887–14 December 1967) was an American boxer and film actor who fought twice for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, and appeared in over 135 movies in a 25 year film career.
, Moran studied dentistry at the University of Pittsburgh
where he also played football
. He played professional football for the Pittsburgh Lyceums and Akron Pros
as a guard
and center
.
While Moran was serving in the U.S. Navy in 1908, he knocked out fighter Fred Cooley in the second round. He began his career as a prize-fighter that same year with a match against Fred Broad. Soon, Moran, who had a hard right hand punch which he called "Mary Ann", became known as the "White Hope" of the teens. In 1914 he fought Jack Johnson
for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, and in 1916 "The Fighting Dentist" went up against Jess Willard
for the same title, but lost both bouts. He lost his last fight to Marcel Nilles for the Heavyweight Championship of France on December 22, 1922. He retired from boxing after 66 bouts with a record of 36 wins (28 by a knockout), 13 losses, 16 draws and 1 no contest.
– Moran made his film debut in 1928 when he did two silent films, The Chinatown Mystery and Ships of the Night, but his film career didn't start in earnest until 1933, when he appeared as himself in The Prizefighter and the Lady
, and also in Mae West
's She Done Him Wrong
, in which he played a convict. This was typical of the kinds of roles Moran was to play for the next 25 years – gangsters, henchmen, "plug uglies", bartenders, stage hands, sailors, guards, cops, bouncers, moving men, sergeants and other soldiers – roles which belied his personal gentleness and sensitivity.
In the 1940s, Moran was part of Preston Sturges
' unofficial "stock company" of character actors
, appearing in every American film written and directed by Sturges with one exception. He was seen in The Great McGinty
, Christmas in July
, The Lady Eve
, Sullivan's Travels
, The Palm Beach Story
, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
, Hail the Conquering Hero
, The Great Moment
, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock
and Unfaithfully Yours
.
Moran was usually credited for his performances, but almost never received star or featured billing. One exception was Monogram Pictures
's Return of the Ape Man (1944), starring Bela Lugosi
and John Carradine
, in which Moran shared credit for the title role with George Zucco
, although, in fact, Zucco became ill and Moran replaced him – Zucco does not appear in the film as released. Also, at the beginning of his acting career, Moran was part of the featured cast in Raoul Walsh
's Sailor's Luck
(1933).
Other notable films in which Moran appeared include Charlie Chaplin
's Modern Times
1936, Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers
's Follow the Fleet
Shall We Dance and Carefree
1936, 1937 and 1938), Frank Capra
's Meet John Doe
(1941), 1943's Lady of Burlesque
starring Barbara Stanwyck
and Road to Utopia
with Bob Hope
and Bing Crosby
(1946).
Moran's final film appearance was an uncredited bit part in The Iron Sheriff, a Western, in 1957 at the age of 70. He was 80 when he died in Hollywood, California on 14 December 1967 of a heart attack.
Sports career
Born in Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, Moran studied dentistry at the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
where he also played football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
. He played professional football for the Pittsburgh Lyceums and Akron Pros
Akron Pros
The Akron Pros were a professional football team located played in Akron, Ohio from 1908–1926. The team originated in 1908 as a semi-pro team named the Akron Indians, however name was changed to the Pros in 1920 as the team set out to become a charter member of the American Professional...
as a guard
Guard (American football)
In American and Canadian football, a guard is a player that lines up between the center and the tackles on the offensive line of a football team....
and center
Center (American football)
Center is a position in American football and Canadian football . The center is the innermost lineman of the offensive line on a football team's offense...
.
While Moran was serving in the U.S. Navy in 1908, he knocked out fighter Fred Cooley in the second round. He began his career as a prize-fighter that same year with a match against Fred Broad. Soon, Moran, who had a hard right hand punch which he called "Mary Ann", became known as the "White Hope" of the teens. In 1914 he fought Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson (boxer)
John Arthur Johnson , nicknamed the “Galveston Giant,” was an American boxer. At the height of the Jim Crow era, Johnson became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion...
for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, and in 1916 "The Fighting Dentist" went up against Jess Willard
Jess Willard
Jess Willard was a world heavyweight boxing champion. He won the heavyweight title from Jack Johnson in April 1915 and lost it to Jack Dempsey in July 1919....
for the same title, but lost both bouts. He lost his last fight to Marcel Nilles for the Heavyweight Championship of France on December 22, 1922. He retired from boxing after 66 bouts with a record of 36 wins (28 by a knockout), 13 losses, 16 draws and 1 no contest.
Film career
After acting in one show on Broadway in 1926 – a stage adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel An American TragedyAn American Tragedy
-Plot summary:The ambitious but immature Clyde Griffiths, raised by poor and devoutly religious parents who force him to participate in their street missionary work, is anxious to achieve better things. His troubles begin when he takes a job as a bellboy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are...
– Moran made his film debut in 1928 when he did two silent films, The Chinatown Mystery and Ships of the Night, but his film career didn't start in earnest until 1933, when he appeared as himself in The Prizefighter and the Lady
The Prizefighter and the Lady
The Prizefighter and the Lady is a 1933 black-and-white MGM crime romance comedy starring Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Primo Carnera, Jack Dempsey, and Walter Huston. It was the film debut for professional boxers Baer and Carnera. Carnera was the world heavyweight boxing champion at the time of the film's...
, and also in Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
's She Done Him Wrong
She Done Him Wrong
She Done Him Wrong is a Pre-Code 1933 Paramount Pictures comedy romance film starring Mae West and Cary Grant. Others in the cast include Owen Moore, Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery, Sr., Louise Beavers and Rochelle Hudson....
, in which he played a convict. This was typical of the kinds of roles Moran was to play for the next 25 years – gangsters, henchmen, "plug uglies", bartenders, stage hands, sailors, guards, cops, bouncers, moving men, sergeants and other soldiers – roles which belied his personal gentleness and sensitivity.
In the 1940s, Moran was part of Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...
' unofficial "stock company" of character actors
Preston Sturges Unofficial Stock Company Actors
Actors who frequently worked with film director Preston Sturges: !! Christmas in July !! The Lady Eve !! Sullivan's Travels !! The Palm Beach Story !! The Miracle of Morgan's Creek !! Hail the Conquering Hero !! The Great Moment !! The Sin of Harold Diddlebock !! Unfaithfully Yours !! The...
, appearing in every American film written and directed by Sturges with one exception. He was seen in The Great McGinty
The Great McGinty
The Great McGinty is a 1940 political satire comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff and featuring William Demarest and Muriel Angelus. It was Sturges's first film as a director; he sold the story to Paramount Pictures for just $10 on condition...
, Christmas in July
Christmas in July (film)
Christmas in July is a 1940 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges based on his 1931 play A Cup of Coffee. It was Sturges' second film as writer-director, after The Great McGinty, and stars Dick Powell and Ellen Drew....
, The Lady Eve
The Lady Eve
The Lady Eve is a 1941 American screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. The film is based on a story by Monckton Hoffe about a mismatched couple who meet on board a luxury liner...
, Sullivan's Travels
Sullivan's Travels
Sullivan's Travels is a 1941 American comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges. It is a satire about a movie director, played by Joel McCrea, who longs to make a socially relevant drama, but eventually learns that comedies are his more valuable contribution to society. The film features...
, The Palm Beach Story
The Palm Beach Story
The Palm Beach Story is a 1942 romantic screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallée. Victor Young contributed the lively musical score, including a fast-paced variation of William Tell Overture for the...
, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is a 1944 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton, and featuring Diana Lynn, William Demarest and Porter Hall...
, Hail the Conquering Hero
Hail the Conquering Hero
Hail the Conquering Hero is a satirical comedy/drama written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Eddie Bracken, Ella Raines and William Demarest, and featuring Raymond Walburn, Franklin Pangborn, Elizabeth Patterson and Bill Edwards....
, The Great Moment
The Great Moment (1944 film)
The Great Moment is a 1944 biographical film written and directed by Preston Sturges. Based on the book The Triumph Over Pain by René Fülöp-Miller, it tells the story of Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, a 19th century Boston dentist who discovered the use of ether as an anesthetic...
, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock is a 1947 comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring the silent film comic icon Harold Lloyd, and featuring Jimmy Conlin, Raymond Walburn, Rudy Vallee, Arline Judge, Edgar Kennedy, Franklin Pangborn and Lionel Stander...
and Unfaithfully Yours
Unfaithfully Yours
Unfaithfully Yours is a 1948 American screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges and starring Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallee and Barbara Lawrence. The film is a black comedy about a man's failed attempt to murder his wife, who he believes has been unfaithful to him...
.
It was Moran who, as a cop in Sturges' Christmas in July (1940), halted a tirade by an argumentative Jewish storeowner by barking, "Who do ya think you are, Hitler?" And it was Moran who, as a tough chauffeur in Sullivan's Travels (1942), patiently explains to his traveling companions the meaning of the word "paraphrase."
Moran was usually credited for his performances, but almost never received star or featured billing. One exception was Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation is a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to...
's Return of the Ape Man (1944), starring Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
and John Carradine
John Carradine
John Carradine was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. A member of Cecil B DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, he was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history...
, in which Moran shared credit for the title role with George Zucco
George Zucco
George Desylla Zucco was an English character actor who appeared, almost always in supporting roles, in 96 films during a career spanning two decades, from 1931 to 1951. He is fondly remembered for his roles in classic horror films.-Early life:Zucco was born in Manchester, England...
, although, in fact, Zucco became ill and Moran replaced him – Zucco does not appear in the film as released. Also, at the beginning of his acting career, Moran was part of the featured cast in Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh...
's Sailor's Luck
Sailor's Luck
Sailor's Luck is a 1933 Pre-Code film which openly depicted homosexuality.-References:*Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934. New York: Columbia University Press 1999. ISBN 0-231-11094-4*Smith, Sarah. Children, Cinema and...
(1933).
Other notable films in which Moran appeared include Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
's Modern Times
Modern Times
Modern Times can refer to modern history.It may also refer to:* Modern Times , a 1936 Charlie Chaplin film* Modern Times , a 1975 album by Al Stewart...
1936, Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
's Follow the Fleet
Follow the Fleet
Follow the Fleet is a 1936 Hollywood musical comedy film with a nautical theme and stars Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard, and Astrid Allwyn, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Lucille Ball and Betty Grable also appear, in small supporting roles...
Shall We Dance and Carefree
Carefree
Carefree may refer to:*Carefree, Arizona, town in the United States*Carefree , a football chant sung by Chelsea FC supporters*Carefree , 2008*Carefree , feminine hygiene product...
1936, 1937 and 1938), Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
's Meet John Doe
Meet John Doe
Meet John Doe is a 1941 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra, and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The film is about a "grassroots" political campaign created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman. It became a box office hit...
(1941), 1943's Lady of Burlesque
Lady of Burlesque
Lady of Burlesque is a 1943 American mystery film starring Barbara Stanwyck and Michael O'Shea, based on the novel The G-String Murders written by famous strip tease artist Gypsy Rose Lee...
starring Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
and Road to Utopia
Road to Utopia
Road to Utopia, filmed in 1943 but not released until 1946, is the fourth film of the "Road to …" series starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.-Plot:After the credits we see Sal and Chester Hooton, an old married couple...
with Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
and Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
(1946).
Moran's final film appearance was an uncredited bit part in The Iron Sheriff, a Western, in 1957 at the age of 70. He was 80 when he died in Hollywood, California on 14 December 1967 of a heart attack.
External links
- Frank Moran at Cyber Boxing Zone