Frank Leavitt - Overview

Frank Simmons Leavitt (June 30, 1891 – May 29, 1953) was an American professional wrestler of the early 1900s, known by the ring name Man Mountain Dean. Leavitt wrestled with limited success at first, and after an injury took a job as a police officer in Miami, Florida. Here he met his wife, Doris Dean, who also became his manager. At her suggestion, in 1932 he adopted the nickname "Man Mountain" and substituted the more Anglo-Saxon-sounding last name of Dean. At a stocky 5'11" and weighing over 300 pounds, Dean was an imposing figure. He also grew a long, full beard as part of his ring persona. After a successful wrestling tour of Germany which had been booked by his wife, Doris Dean, he was invited to take a job in the UK as stunt-double for Charles Laughton in the movie The Private Life of Henry VIII. This would be the beginning of a subsidiary movie career for Dean, who would appear in various roles in twelve other movies, playing himself in five of them. One of the movies in which he portrayed himself was the Joe E. Brown comedy The Gladiator, a 1938 adaptation of Philip Gordon Wylie's 1930 novel Gladiator.