She suffered a second loss at age nine, when her stepfather (whom she later described as "my dearest person in the world next to mother") died from influenza.

[3]: 8–9 Moran's stage activities included singing and dancing at the Paris National Opera[4] when she was 13 years old.

She then moved to Broadway, where she appeared in the play This Is New York (1930) and the musicals Of Thee I Sing (1933) and Let 'Em Eat Cake (1934).

[7] In 1927, she had a short affair with writer F. Scott Fitzgerald who had moved with his wife to Hollywood in order to write a flapper comedy for United Artists.

[8] Moran became a temporary muse for the author, and he rewrote Rosemary Hoyt, one of the central characters in Tender is the Night (who had been a male in earlier drafts), to closely mirror her.