Michael P. Moran

Biography

Date of Birth: 8 February 1944, USA Date of Death: 4 February 2004, New York City, New York, USA (Guillain-Barre syndrome) Michael Peter Moran was an American actor and playwright. Moran was born in Yuba City, California, but his family moved frequently because his father was a US Army officer. While his family was living in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, he graduated from Passaic Valley Regional High School in Little Falls. While he was a student there, he designed and supervised construction of an elaborate set for a benefit production of Robert Merrill's musical "Take Me Along." He gained some of his first experience under Gilbert Rathbun in the theater program at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J. - though he was not a student there - and at the Theater on the Mall in Paramus, where he worked with director Robert Ludlum, who had not yet launched his career as a novelist. Moran's roles at Seton Hall included Sir Toby Belch in William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and "Mortimer, the Man Who Dies" in "The Fantasticks" by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones. Moran moved to the lower East Side of New York City in 1966 and was educated at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He became a member of the theatre groups the Manhattan Project and the Cooper-Keaton Group. Both groups produced plays written by Moran, including Call Me Charlie, starring Danny DeVito. He also appeared in several productions for the New York Shakespeare Festival. In 2003, he portrayed Fred "Pap" Rose in the musical "Lost Highway" by Randal Myler and Mike Harelik, based on the life of Hank Williams. The show played to a positive critical response at the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre in Soho and then at the Little Shubert Theater in Midtown. Moran died at the age of 59, in a New York hospital, from Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He was four days short of his 60th birthday. Filmography Little Kings Undermind Law & Order NYPD Blue City by the Sea Law & Order: Criminal Intent The Big Heist Deadline Prince of Central Park The Eden Myth Just the Ticket Harvest A Perfect Murder Sleepers Mother Night The Cosby Mysteries Radioland Murders The Paper Matlock Carlito's Way Square One TV The Turning Mathnet Loser State of Grace H.E.L.P. Ghostbusters II Fletch Lives Lean on Me Physical Evidence Nine 1/2 Weeks Marie Scarface The Survivors Knightriders Squeeze Play!