17-Year-Old Dolores Moran Takes Up Boxing To Stay In Shape – 1943
In 1941, Warner Bros. talent scout Solly Baiano went to an Elks Lodge picnic in Sacramento, CA. for a talent try-out for young people. As usual at events like these, there was no talent at the picnic. But as Baiano was walking back to his car he stopped in his tracks when he came upon Dolores Moran sitting near his path eating a hot dog. Baiano froze and just stared at Moran later saying she “struck me blind.”
Dolores Moran was just 15-years-old. She had not entered the talent contest thinking she was too young. At five foot seven and 123 pounds the well developed teen was just the type of talent Baiano was looking for.
With Moran’s parents permission she was signed to a Warner Bros. seven year movie contract a few weeks before her sixteenth birthday.
Moran’s first major film appearance was an uncredited role in Yankee Doodle Dandy a highly fictionalized account of actor, producer and director George M. Cohan’s life starring James Cagney, Joan Leslie and Walter Huston. Moran plays the “pippirino”, the girl Cohan disses for a date with Mary, his future wife. The film won three Academy Awards including the Best Actor award for Cagney.
The Warner Bros. publicity machine would keep Moran busy throughout World War II. In between films Moran did a lot of posing for pin-up type magazines.
Warner Bros. cast Moran in some big films including fifth billing as Deirdre ‘DeDe’ Drake in Old Acquaintance (1943) with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, two real life rivals. Yet both Davis and Hopkins helped guide Moran’s solid performance including Davis overseeing hours of experimental hairdo’s and Hopkins advising Moran on tensing her diaphragm to denote emotion. And both actresses gave Moran advice on stealing scenes from them.
In 1944 Moran played Hellene de Bursac in To Have and Have Not (1943) with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Moran next co-starred with Jack Benny and Alexis Smith in The Horn Blows At Midnight (1945).
Dead End Movie Career
Yet none of these roles really boosted her career. In 1946 she married Benedict Bogeaus, a movie producer 21 years her senior. This did nothing for Moran’s prospects as Bogeaus wanted Moran to appear in his films only including forgettable flicks like Johnny One-Eye (1950), Count the Hours! (1953) and Silver Lode (1954). After Silver Lode Moran retired from the screen having appeared in 18 films and receiving on-screen credit only 10 times. She and Bogeaus divorced in 1962.
In 1968 after years of being out of the limelight, Moran made news with an unforeseen inheritance.
A bachelor, Anthony Ponce of Sunnyvale, CA, left Moran a 10 acre parcel of land that Ponce purchased years ago. In 1941 the land containing an orchard, was worth about $1,000. By the time Ponce died in 1968 the land was worth an estimated $250,000 – $300,000.
Ponce met Moran just once when she was a 15-year-old waitress at the grand opening of a restaurant in San Jose. Moran served Ponce a cup of coffee and burger. After their brief meeting Ponce would never call, write or communicate with Moran. But obviously Ponce was quite taken by Moran’s beauty and kindness.
Moran’s response upon learning of the bequest was “what a beautiful thing” and – “it’s phenomenal.” Moran of course did not remember meeting her benefactor.
Ponce’s will written in 1947 bequeathed his nephews and nieces $6,000, a generous amount at the time. The land, Ponce felt, would be a nice gift for Moran, the teen who captivated him six years earlier. Little did Ponce know that this land would greatly appreciate in the intervening years. After executing Ponce’s will the other heirs would contest its validity.
The will was upheld, but, a long court process, court costs, negotiations and lawyers fees substantially reduced the amount Moran received.
Dolores Moran passed away from cancer on February 5, 1982 in Woodland Hills, CA at the age of 56.
You can tell it was different time when a grown man could say that he was wonderstruck by the sight of a teenage girl eating a hot dog; and no one even batted an eyelash.