Career Beginning and Key Role As Huck Finn
A native of Mattoon, Illinois, John E. Moran first attracted attention through the fine quality of his voice while singing in a church choir. He was seen by Mary Pickford who convinced his mother to take him to Hollywood for a screen test in 1935. Renamed Jackie Moran, the appealing youngster was subsequently cast in a number of substantial supporting roles, becoming, at the age of fourteen, a briefly popular adolescent star with the February 17, 1938 release of David O. Selznick's production The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The 93-minute big-budget Technicolor film was a top moneymaker, receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction. Playing Huckleberry Finn to Tommy Kelly's Tom Sawyer, Jackie Moran received critical praise for his natural acting style and was favorably compared to two earlier child star Jackies, the four-months-older Jackie Cooper and the eight-years-older Jackie Coogan (who seven years earlier starred as Tom (with Junior Durkin as Huck) in the December 1930 release Tom Sawyer and the August 1931 release Huckleberry Finn).
Read more about this topic: Jackie Moran
Famous quotes containing the words career, beginning, key, role and/or finn:
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“No. We haven’t seen the end of them. We’ve only had a close view of the beginning of what may be the end of us.”
—Ted Sherdeman. Gordon Douglas. Dr. Medford (Edmund Gwenn)
“The knight slew the dragon,
The lady was gay,
They rode on together,
Away, away.”
—Unknown. This Is the Key (l. 38–41)
“Of course, some men are very effective caregivers [of elderly parents]. But this situation occurs far less frequently for males than females, because it is a role reversal. For women, caregiving is an expected duty; for men, it is an unexpected expression of love or devotion.”
—Tish Sommers (20th century)
“Mark Twain didn’t psychoanalyze Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Dickens didn’t put Oliver Twist on the couch because he was hungry! Good copy comes out of people, Johnny, not out of a lot of explanatory medical terms.”
—Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)