| Biography | Francis Charles Moran 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.
While Moran was serving in the U.S. Navy in 1908, he knocked out fighter Fred Cooley in the second round. While serving on the U.S.S. Mayflower, he served as a spar partner for President Theodore Roosevelt. 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.
After acting in one show on Broadway in 1926 a stage adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy 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. |