Background
Kirkwood was born in Melbourne, Australia. His father, Joe Kirkwood, Senior, was a golf pro acknowledged as having put Australian golf on the world map.
Kirkwood was born in Melbourne, Australia. His father, Joe Kirkwood, Senior, was a golf pro acknowledged as having put Australian golf on the world map.
He started going by the name Joe, Junior. in the late 1930s. In 1945, Kirkwood was invited by Monogram Pictures to test for the role of boxer Joe Palooka, a popular comic book character. He got the part and starred in Joe Palooka, Champ (1946) as well as ten additional Joe Palooka films through 1951.
Kirkwood returned to the role in the 1954 television series The Joe Palooka Story.
In the late 1950s, Kirkwood, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1620 Vine Street, was one of the reporters on the popular National Broadcasting Company Radio program Monitor. 1949 Philadelphia Inquirer Open.
