The French Angel

Maurice Tillet
Photograph by Tillet from 1940
Data
Ring name	The French Angel
Additions to names	Unstoppable
height	173 cm
Fighting weight	127 kg
birth	October 23, 1903 Urals , Russian Empire
death	9/4/1954 Chicago , Illinois
Trained by	Karl Pojello
debut	1937
retirement	1953

Maurice Tillet (born October 23, 1903 in the Ural Mountains , Russian Empire , † September 4, 1954 in Chicago , Illinois ) was a French wrestler who appeared from the 1940s under the name "The French Angel" and repeated the title of heavyweight champion the American Wrestling Association wore.

Life

Maurice Tillet was born in 1903 in the Ural Mountains in the Russian Empire , where his parents from France worked, his mother as a teacher , his father as a train driver . Tillet's childhood appearance was unremarkable. Because of his face he was called "little angel" by his mother, which led to his later wrestler name. His father died when he was a toddler. In 1917 he and his mother moved back to France after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution , where they settled in Reims . At the age of 20, Maurice Tillet began to notice the swelling of his hands and feet and his head. A doctor whom he had seen about it diagnosed acromegaly , which led to gigantism . The desired profession of a lawyer had become obsolete due to the illness, which is why he worked for several years as a machinist in the French Navy until he began his wrestling career.

Wrestling career

Maurice Tillet in a fight with Lou Thesz , 1940

Radio interview with Tillet in Montreal, 1940.

In February 1937 , Tillet met the professional wrestler Karl Pojello in Singapore , who convinced him to pursue such a career as well. The two trained together in Paris afterwards . Until the outbreak of the Second World War , Tillet stood in the ring for two years in both France and England . He then emigrated to the United States with Pojello . Paul Bowser from Boston promoted him there from 1940 under the name "The French Angel" and made him the main attraction of the fighting. His wrestling shows were great successes and he himself was marketed as "unstoppable". In the arranged fights he emerged victorious for nineteen months without a break. From May 1940 to May 1942 Tillet held the title of heavyweight champion of the American Wrestling Association. After a trip to the Canadian league in 1942, he led the title again until 1944 . His success led several other wrestlers to give themselves similar ring names:

• Paul Olaffsen (Swedish Angel) - he also suffered from acromegaly
• Tony Angelo (Russian Angel)
• Tor Johnson (Super Swedish Angel)
• Jack Rush (Canadian Angel)
• Wladislaw Tulin (Polish Angel)
• Stan Pinto (Czech Angel)
• Clive Welsh (Irish Angel)
• Jack Falk (Golden Angel)
• Gil Guerrero (Black Angel)
• Jean Noble (Lady Angel)

Maurice Tillet, 1953

From 1945 onwards , Tillet had increasing health problems and was no longer promoted as "unstoppable". From 1950 he became friends with the sculptor Louis Linck , who took several plaster casts of his face. One of the resulting casts is now in the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago . Tillet agreed to end his career in his last wrestling match on February 14, 1953 against Bert Assirati with a loss.

death

Tillet died of heart disease in Chicago on September 4, 1954 , after learning of the death of his coach. He was buried in the Lithuanian National Cemetery in Justice, Illinois south of Chicago .

Cultural influence

Several authors have speculated whether Maurice Tillet's appearance served as a model for the cartoon hero Shrek and thus helped Tillet to posthumous fame with film buffs . DreamWorks never officially commented on these assumptions .

Web links

Commons : Maurice Tillet  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• "Maurice Tillet - Was he the role model for Shrek?" - with historical recordings by Tillet
• Profile at genickbruch.org
• detailed biography (en.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Profile at genickbruch.com, access on October 4, 2019
2. ↑ Biogram in the IMDb, accessed on October 4, 2019
3. ↑ Overview of the most important career positions at OWN, accessed on October 4, 2019