Mike Mazurki

Contrary to his conventional image as a brawny but not very smart tough guy, Mazurki actually graduated at the top of his class from Manhattan College (Class of 1930), with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

He was a champion wrestler in pre World War Two days but in 1934 decided to try his luck in Hollywood where he got work as an extra including a walk on part in Mae West's 1934 film 'Belle of the Nineties'.

In 1936 he played minor-league football with the Wessington Passaic (NJ) Red Devils, a team in the American Football Association.

His first speaking role was in 'Shanghai Gesture' in 1941.

With an intimidating face like craggy granite and a towering 6'5" solid frame, Mike Mazurki (born Mikhail Mazuruski or Mikhail Mazurkiewicz) was one of cinema's first serial thugs and specialized in playing strongarm men, gangsters and bullies for over 50 years on screen. Nearly always portrayed as a lowbrow muscle, in real life Mazurski was highly intelligent, very well read and a witty conversationalist. He was also an accomplished sportsman, having been a football player and a professional wrestler. He first appeared onscreen in uncredited roles in films such as Gentleman Jim (1942) and About Face (1942); however, his daunting bruiser looks were soon noticed and he became phenomenally busy in the 1940s, appearing in nearly 50 movies during the decade, including his well remembered performance as ex-con "Moose Malloy" in the film noir thriller Murder, My Sweet (1944) and as the gruesome "Splitface" in Dick Tracy, Detective (1945).

Best remembered as the lumbering, intense yet soft-hearted Moose Malloy in the classic 1945 film-noir adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel 'Farewell, My Lovely', called Murder, My Sweet (1944) in the US (while retaining the novel's title overseas).

He continued his menacing onscreen presence throughout the 1950s and 1960s, often showing he could be quite adept at deadpan comedy in films including Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood (1945), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Donovan's Reef (1963) and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967).

Well known to generations of wrestling fans as "Iron" Mike Mazurki, he delighted them with several world-class battles during his long career. Outside the squared circle he was dedicated to serving those in his wrestling brotherhood, and in the 1960s he founded the "Cauliflower Alley Club", a non-profit organization that awarded scholarships and financial assistance to retired or injured wrestlers and their families.

Always a character and supporting actor, he did have one starring role late in his career, as "Trapper" in Challenge to Be Free (1975).