Jim Moran

On the Vox Pop radio program for February 4, 1939, publicist Jim Moran was interviewed by Parks Johnson and Wally Butterworth as he prepared to throw eggs at an electric fan. James Sterling Moran (January 1, 1908 – October 18, 1999) was a publicist, actor, and a press agent for film studios, manufacturers, retailers, Washington politicians from the 1930s to the 1980s. In 1989, Time ranked him as "the supreme master of that most singular marketing device--the publicity stunt."

Early life Born in Woodstock, Virginia, in 1907. Moran was the son of a chimney maker. When he was 12 years old, he was riding a bicycle and was hit by a car. The driver was so relieved to see Moran unharmed that he gave him $100, which Moran immediately used to take a train to New Orleans, returning home two weeks later.

Instead of attending college, Moran took a variety of jobs: a tour guide in Washington, an airline executive and manager of a studio where Congressmen recorded speeches for local radio. Moran married several times but had no children.

Radio and film He acted in several films: The Body Snatcher (1945), Specter of the Rose (1946), The Mask (1961) and Is There Sex After Death? (1971). He was a panelist on the 1954 TV quiz show What's in a Word? along with Clifton Fadiman, Audrey Meadows, Faye Emerson and Mike Wallace. Moran appeared on The Mike Douglas Show in 1964, and one of his last appearances was promoting the movie Yellowbeard (1983) on Late Night with David Letterman.

Moran's show business and writer friends included Burl Ives, Lee J. Cobb, John Henry Faulk and the humorist H. Allen Smith, who wrote extensively about Moran in his books Lost in the Horse Latitudes (1944) and The Compleat Practical Joker (1953). At age 91, Jim Moran died in an Englewood, New Jersey retirement home on October 18, 1999, survived by his brother, Paul Moran, of Alexandria, Virginia.