November 2009
A Career Jump
by Cindy Bellinger
Michael Moroff broke into Hollywood by literally breaking in. He’d heard there was a movie and they were looking for Latinos. Moroff knew he could do it, but the guards at Universal Studios wouldn’t let him in.
“So I jumped the fence. They caught me and threw me out. So I see this garbage truck and offered the driver twenty bucks to get me in. I walked into the big executive office and said, ‘I’m one of the guys you’re looking for.’”
They looked him over, asked if he could act, and told him to be on the set at six o’clock Monday morning. The movie was “Scarface” with Al Pacino and from there Moroff went on to work in 88 feature movies and 108 television shows.
It wasn’t all that far fetched for Moroff to think he could break into Hollywood. He was already a star in Mexico, but no one knew him here. “I’d made 25 movies by then,” he says from his ranch in Quemado, where he moved five years ago because he missed New Mexico.
Moroff was born in El Paso to migrant farm workers who followed the crops from Texas to California and back again. His father was Basque and from Chihuahua. Moroff had nine brothers and sisters, and his parents adopted four more kids. They all picked cotton, melons, onions, and citrus. Moroff was 18 when his father died. He had to help support the family but didn’t want to spend his life working in the fields.
“Then I worked for one crew in Arizona. The man who ran the chuckwagon heard me sing and play the guitar. He told me about a competition in Phoenix and I won a hundred dollars. That was in 1968. In the fields I made $25 a week. It all took off from there.”
He started making movies in Mexico, but eventually officials threw him in jail for 90 days because he was illegal. When he got out, he headed straight for Hollywood.
“Soon I was working opposite Burt Lancaster. I worked with Rod Steiger, Tom Selleck, Sam Elliot, and Farrah Fawcett,” Moroff says. The movie “La Bamba” “put him on the map.” Other movies include: “RoboCop,” “Born in East L.A.,” “Death Wish IV,” “Tall Tale,” “Desperado,” “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “The Crew,” “Night of the Living Dead III,” and “Candyman III.” He co-starred in “A Man Apart,” playing Commander Gustavo Leon.
“I was having a good time,” recalls Moroff. Then time came to leave. He’d spent 27 years in Hollywood. Now he and his wife Kathleen are fixing up their ranch to produce films, and start a foundation to raise money for kids in need of education.
He has a botanical garden that’s been featured in several high-end magazines, and he also goes into the Quemado schools to play guitar, sing and just talk to the students. Moroff says, “I want them to know you can do anything you have your heart set on. You really can.”
If you know anyone who'd make a good profile for this column—including yourself—let us know at sespinoza@enchantment.coop.
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