Tiger Joe Marsh; Wrestler, Actor

Former wrestler-turned-actor Tiger Joe Marsh, who once was declared “heavyweight champion of the world,” died Tuesday of heart failure in Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital. He was 78.

Marsh, who was born Joseph Samuel Marusich in Chicago in 1911, won the supposed world championship in 1937.

Times columnist Jim Murray, writing about Marsh in 1965, said the title “made him one of a select party of 20 or so at the time.”

In fact, Murray said, Marsh won because a referee in Lawrence, Mass., “got his signals crossed,” declaring him the winner over an Irishman, Danno O’Mahoney, who was supposed to be the victor in that heavily Irish region.

In 1954, Marsh quit wrestling to go into acting. He performed small parts in several films and appeared in numerous road or local versions of such stage shows as “Tea House of the August Moon” and “Guys and Dolls.”

He is survived by a brother, Tony, of Chicago.

Services were pending.