Lois Moran was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film actress.

She was born Lois Darlington Dowlin in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh, 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...

, and died in Sedona, Arizona

Sedona, Arizona

Sedona is a city that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona...

.

Short career

Her career began in 1921, and Moran appeared in a couple of silent movies in the early 1920s. She is probably best known for her role, as Laurel Dallas, daughter of the title role in the 1925 film Stella Dallas

Stella Dallas (1925 film)

Stella Dallas is a 1925 film that was adapted by Frances Marion and directed by Henry King. It stars Ronald Colman, Belle Bennett, Lois Moran, Alice Joyce, Jean Hersholt, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.-Cast:*Ronald Colman - Stephen Dallas...

. She appeared in early sound movies such as Behind That Curtain

Behind That Curtain (film)

Behind That Curtain is a 1929 mystery film directed by Irving Cummings, starring Warner Baxter and featuring Boris Karloff. It was the first Charlie Chan film to be made at Fox Studios. It was based on the novel of the same name. Charlie Chan is played by Korean American actor E. L...

(1929), and some musical movies, such as A Song of Kentucky (1929), Words and Music

Words and Music (1929 film)

Words and Music is a 1929 American musical comedy film, directed by James Tinling, and starring Lois Moran, David Percy, Helen Twelvetrees, and Frank Albertson...

(1929), and Mammy

Mammy (1930 film)

Mammy is a musical drama film with Technicolor sequences, released by Warner Brothers. The film starred Al Jolson and was a follow-up to his previous film, Say It With Songs ....

(1930). Like many actors and actresses from the silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 era, she did not make a successful transition to the talkies

Sound film

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...

.

She also had a brief affair with writer F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...

 while he was married to Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald , born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama, was an American novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper"...

. He once remarked that she was "The most beautiful girl in Hollywood". She was also an inspiration for the character of Rosemary Hoyt in Fitzgerald's novel Tender is the Night

Tender is the Night

Tender Is the Night is a novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was his fourth and final completed novel, and was first published in Scribner's Magazine between January-April, 1934 in four issues...

(1934).

In 1935, she married Clarence M. Young, Secretary of Commerce, and retired from Hollywood.

Moran also had a co-starring role in the short-lived TV show Waterfront (1954–1955). The show starred Preston Foster

Preston Foster

Preston Foster was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled Two Seconds starring Edward J. Pawley...

as Capt. John Herrick, and Moran as his wife May Herrick.

External links