He was born in Helena, Montana, United States of America to Rancher Michael Fitzgerald and Mary Moran, he"s father died when he was two, and his mother who had two children, Frank and Mary from a previous marriage, supported the family by holding several jobs.
Along with his step-brother Frank, they devised a vaudeville act, billed as The Mahoney Brothers, and toured around United States, Mexico and Australia. He had, had extensive experience on the vaudeville circuit in the United States, becoming the highest paid variety star in the country by the early 1930s, when he arrived in Australia with Hayes they acting in the film Come Up Smiling (1939), after which he became a theatre manager in Australia of the Cremorne theatre in Brisbane. After the war he went back to the United States of America to revitilize his career, being nominated for a Tony Award in 1956 for revival of Finian"s Rainbow before eventually settling permanently in Australia, in Melbourne in 1958, playing in musicals and revue and teaching a generation of young performers.He died on February 9, 1967.
