Peggy Moran (born Mary Jeanette Moran, October 23, 1918 – October 24, 2002) was an American film actress who appeared in films between 1938 and 1943.
Early years
Born in
Clinton, Iowa
Clinton is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 24,469 as of 2020. Clinton, along with DeWitt (also located in Clinton County), was named in honor of the sixth governor of New York, DeWitt C ...
, Moran was the daughter of
Earl Moran, an artist who specialized in pin-ups for calendars and magazines. Her mother was a dancer before marriage, giving up her career for her family.
She and her mother moved west after Moran's 1937 high school graduation.
Career
Moran's film career began at Warner Bros. in the late 1930s.
She starred in a number of
B movies
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
, including ''
The Mummy's Hand
''The Mummy's Hand'' is a 1940 American black-and-white horror film directed by Christy Cabanne and produced by Ben Pivar for Universal Studios. The film is about the ancient Egyptian mummy of Kharis (Tom Tyler), who is kept alive with a brew o ...
'' (1940), ''Slightly Tempted'' (1940), ''
Horror Island
''Horror Island'' is a 1941 American mystery and horror film directed by George Waggner. It was based on the short story "Terror of the South Seas" by Alex Gottlieb. It stars Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, Leo Carrillo, Eddie Parker, Dale Van Sic ...
'' (1941), ''
Treat 'Em Rough'' (1942), and ''
King of the Cowboys'' (1943), and played smaller parts in A pictures, such as the "first
cigarette girl
In Europe and the United States, a cigarette girl is a person who sells or provides cigarettes from a tray held by a neck strap. They may also carry cigars and other items like candy, snacks, and chewing gum on their trays.
Uniform
The most ...
" in ''
Ninotchka
''Ninotchka'' is a 1939 American romantic comedy film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch, based o ...
'' (1939). After marrying director
Henry Koster
Henry Koster (born Hermann Kosterlitz, May 1, 1905 – September 21, 1988) was a German-born film director. He was the husband of actress Peggy Moran.
Early life
Koster was born to Jewish parents in Berlin, Germany. He was introduced to ci ...
on October 30, 1942,
[ a bust of Moran was featured in every picture her husband directed. After her marriage, Moran retired from acting and appeared in only one other film; a documentary made in 2000.
]
Personal life
Koster and Moran had two sons. After Koster retired in 1966, the couple traveled extensively until his death in 1988.
Death
On October 24, 2002, only one day after her 84th birthday, Moran died of complications from injuries she had suffered in a car accident on August 26, 2002. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered at sea.
Filmography
References
External links
*
*
Interview About ''The Mummy's Hand''
*
Actresses from Iowa
American film actresses
People from Clinton, Iowa
1918 births
2002 deaths
20th-century American actresses
Road incident deaths in California
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