Lee Moran
actor, director, writer
- Birth name:
- Leon George Brown
- Born:
- 1888-06-23, Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Died:
- 1961-04-24, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor, director, writer
Biography
A mid-summer baby, Lee Moran arrived in Chicago on 23 June 1888 and grew up trading Lake winds for greasepaint. By the roaring ’20s he had become the grinning utility player who could script a gag in the morning and perform it by night, leaving audiences humming after The Little Irish Girl (1926) and Fixed by George (1920). His face—rubber-browed, quick-winked—helped turn The Racket (1928) into one of early crime-cinema’s cornerstones. Off-screen he shared life with Esther (Brown) Schinzel, his steady leading lady once the set lights dimmed. Sixty-three years after that first Chicago cry, he took a final bow on 24 April 1961 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, closing a show that stretched from silent slapstick to soundstage shadows.
