Maurice Tillet started out life as a beautiful child. In his teens his features started growing dramatically, due to a pituitary tumor... a condition called acromagally.
Heidi Myers I tried to rewrite Wikipedia to properly reflect Maurices more factual life but I was thwarted by Wikipedia. First person research is frowned upon. He was Not the lonely soul portrayed. He was beloved locally and very embraced. Definitely had challenges, but his life was much different than the tired Wikipedia story.
@@Kfowlkes09 are you kidding right? It’s a theater! Not even someone with down syndrome would fight like this… they are faking he was a freak meant to be on a show
There is so little video out there on Maurice. This is my favorite found, so far. He does a great job. Although he was older in this one. I would love to see more of his earlier stuff when he was a bit more nimble & stronger. It's clear to me in this video the Acromegaly is coming after him a bit.
This man is from the Ural mountains in Russia. That was one of the last surviving strongholds of the Neanderthal. A common trait when interbreeding common but slightly different species is they won't stop growing like Ligers when you mix a lion and a tiger. Tillet no doubt had hybrid human Neanderthal genes.
Maurice Tillet (October 23, 1903 - September 4, 1954) was a French professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, The French Angel. Tillet was a leading box office draw in the early 1940s and was twice World Heavyweight Champion by the American Wrestling Association run by Paul Bowser in Boston. Tillet was born in 1903 in the Ural Mountainsin Russia to French parents.[1] His mother was a teacher and his father was a railroad engineer. Tillet's father died when he was young. As a child he had a completely normal appearance and Tillet was nicknamed "The Angel" due to his angelic face. In 1917, Tillet and his mother left Russia due to the Revolution and moved to France, where they settled in Reims. When Tillet was 20, he noticed swelling in his feet, hands, and head, and after visiting a doctor was diagnosed with acromegaly-a condition usually caused by a benign tumor on the pituitary gland, resulting in bone overgrowth and thickening.[1] He had wanted to become a lawyer, but his acromegaly prevented him from doing so. Tillet served in the French Navy for five years as an engineer.[1] In February 1937, Tillet met Karl Pojello (Lithuanian Karolis Požėla) in Singapore. Pojello was a professional wrestler, and convinced Tillet to enter the business. Tillet and Pojello moved to Paris for training, and Tillet wrestled for two years in France and England until World War II forced them to leave for the United States in 1939. In Boston, Massachusetts, in 1940, promoterPaul Bowser pushed Tillet, who was wrestling as The French Angel, as a main eventer, and he became a large draw in the area. As a result of his popularity, Tillet was booked as unstoppable, Was unbeaten for a span of 19 consecutive months. Tillet was the AWA World Heavyweight Champion from May 1940 until May 1942. In early 1942, he also worked as the Montreal-based world heavyweight champion.[citation needed] He re-appeared with the Boston-based title for a short time in 1944.[1] As a result of his success, several Angel imitators emerged, including Paul Olaffsen (Swedish Angel), who also had 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), and Jean Noble (Lady Angel). Tillet competed against Tor Johnson, who was billed as The Swedish Angel on those occasions.[1] By 1945, Tillet's health began to fail and he was no longer advertised as unstoppable. In his final wrestling match, in Singapore on February 14, 1953, working The National Wrestling Alliance Mid South Area then known as Tri-State and owned by Leroy McGuirk he agreed to lose to Bert Assirati.[1] In 1950, Chicago sculptor Louis Linckbefriended Tillet and made a series of plaster busts commemorating him for his wrestling career. One of the busts is in Chicago’s International Museum of Surgical Science. Tillet died on September 4, 1954, in Chicago, from cardiovascular disease after hearing of his trainer's passing.[1] Tillet is buried at the Lithuanian National Cemetery in Justice, Illinois, Cook County, 20 miles (32 km) south of Chicago. Some have speculated that Maurice's appearance and behavior inspired the likeness of the main character in the DreamWorks film Shrek (2001) of the same name, but this rumor hasn't been confirmed.
He was not born like that. It hit him at age 17, and by 19 he was diagnosed with Acromegaly. He is the classic example of turning lemons into lemonade. But this guy took it a step further. He was very health conscious. He worked out very hard, enjoyed teaching and helping children, and gave the vast majority of his money to charities. I am biased, as I have been studying him for years, but I am also a skeptic, and every last person that knew him, or new of him, cannot say enough positive about the man.
There is currently only one-known video containing any of his voice & there is a narrator talking over him. His voice has been described, but in essence it would have been very similar to that of Andre the Giant, as he had the same disease and was also from France. With Maurice, he spent the first 13 years of his life in Russia, & eventually spoke many languages, so his accent would have been a bit different. By all indications he was somewhat hard to understand, at times. Here is that previously mentioned video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6BACedwYyFQ.html
it's a disease called "Acromégalie" which is a benign tumor that creates an excess of growth cells, augmenting bone structure. similar cases: André the Giant, Carel Struycken, Richard Kiel, Nicolay Valuev...
Did he have kids? When I checked out Maurice's Wikipedia out it didn't mention if he ever married and had kids. I was curious because other places state that he hooked up with a beautiful woman.
Bobbi Joe. The straight answer is no, he never married or had kids. I can tell you that he had girlfriends and aspirations of having a wife & children but that never materialized. There is a complicated backstory which I believe includes his having been an intelligence agent, I've yet to be able to prove. In the end he gave away most of his money to children & mothers dealing with difficult circumstances. That site you are mentioning is likely showing a picture of him with model Dorian Leigh, who I believe was the girlfriend of the photographer Irving Penn. Feel free to reach out to me directly with any additional questions at: thefrenchangeldeathmask@gmail.com
@Jeannie Brown Sorry for the late reply. I rarely check in here. Short answer is no, he did not have a wife. Never married. Never had kids. Olga was the name of his manager's wife. It's a myth someone created that I tried to stop but it keeps going.
I came to this the vid and for some reason I was waiting for the slams and All those moves and then realized this was in the 40s 😂 doesn’t help that I’m a lays baked potato chip. Do you think this was staged back then too. It is for entertainment purposes. 🤔
The evidence I have amassed showing his VERY likely was "A" inspiration, is here. I say "A" because I would say there is a 90+% chance he was part of the character development: deathmaskofmauricetillet-theangel.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
He has Giantism, also known as Acromegaly. In his case, the issue hit him after he was fully grown in height, and so expanded only his head, chest, hands & feet.
Show. Although in the beginning of his career he was a competitor and trained by the best. In this time, you had to earn your bones, because someone could choose to throw you. So early on he did real, but later joined the ranks of the show.
