Frank Moran

Gravel-voiced, granite-faced former heavyweight boxer Frank C. Moran made his film debut as a convict in Mae West's She Done Him Wrong (1933). Though quickly typecast as a thick-eared brute, Moran was in real life a gentle soul, fond of poetry and fine art. Perhaps it was this aspect of his personality that attracted Moran to eccentric producer/director/writer Preston Sturges, who cast the big lug in all of his productions of the 1940s. 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 truck driver in Sullivan's Travels (1942), patiently explains to his traveling companions the meaning of the word "paraphrase." On a less lofty level, Frank Moran shared the title role with George Zucco in Monogram's Return of the Ape Man (1944).

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide