The Indestructable Terry Moore

The perennial starlet is how I saw her.  She made a couple of big, important films but was not the lead in them and she made a lot of inconsequential films.  She was the sexpot at 20th Century Fox who misused her.  I found her to be more talented than I suspect they did.  Her personal life garnered far more attention than her career and she seemed to spend far more time in newspaper columns and movie magazines than she did on the screen.

One wonders what came first for Terry Moore... the attention on a social life or the lack of a prestigious acting career.  If the social life came first that may be why the studio didn't assign her better projects.  Fox certainly always had a full stable of attractive and talented actresses.  Or was the career lackluster first and she decided, oh what the hell, I might as well become a good-time girl?

She was a good actress, possessed a lovely face, a knockout bod, sparkling blue eyes, a deep voice and was often portrayed onscreen  as a sexy, voluptuous tease.  I always liked and found something fun about her and she endlessly entertained me.

As Helen Koford she was born into a Mormon family in 1929 in Glendale, California.  She began modeling at age 11.  Never lacking in the looks department, it is assumed her exposure in modeling led to some film work.  

She knocked around in some movies beginning in 1940.  Most everything was in uncredited, walk-on roles.  Along the way she was known as Judy Ford, Jan Ford, January Ford and even her real name before settling on Terry Moore when she had her first decent role at Columbia where she was signed to a contract.  She was wholesome in a horse story opposite Glenn Ford called The Return of October.

Throughout the 40s and into the mid-50s she was a serial dater.  So much was studio-arranged, given her dates with gay actors, but she was with many a handsome man at the famous Hollywood nightspots where there were flashbulbs piercing the smoky air.  There are pictures with Nicky Hilton, Johnnie Ray, Robert Evans, Tony Curtis, Tab Hunter, Hugh O'Brian, Jacques Sernas, Laurence Harvey, Robert Wagner, James Dean and more.

In 1948 she met billionaire playboy-aviator Howard Hughes around the time he took over RKO studios.  His relationships with scores of beautiful actresses are the stuff of legends but he didn't marry them.  It was always said HH was marriage-shy.  But the following year Moore claimed that she and Hughes were secretly married on a yacht in international waters off the coast of Mexico.  She said they remained married until his death in 1976, despite no public acknowledgement and the fact that Moore was twice married in the interim and Hughes had been married to actress Jean Peters from 1957-71.

Mighty Joe Young and young Terry Moore

Mighty Joe Young (1949) may have helped usher in creature movies that nested in Hollywood in the 1950s.  Don't put too much weight on my saying it's not bad.  Moore plays a young woman who raises a pet gorilla from infancy and now takes her buddy to Hollywood, seeking fame and fortune.  Her starring role in her gorilla pic led to several other films, all B's and none of them special.  Those who like such films certainly flocked to it.  It added a layer to Moore's fame.

In 1951 she married handsome Heisman Trophy winner Glenn Davis, a former fiancé of Elizabeth Taylor's.  It lasted about 14 months.  None of the rest of Moore's four husbands were famous, except for perhaps being married to her.

She commanded my attention because of the attention she paid to herself.  I find no fault in that.  She was in the business of selling herself and she was simply masterful at it.  She gave great care to dress, makeup, hair, lighting, colors and the like was nothing short of mesmerizing in all those movie magazines of so many years ago.  And she was, of course, in one after another.  Her photos could show wholesomeness one minute, the pert ingenue, and next hit me over the head with sexy.  She certainly had the goods to work with.

They (the goods) were displayed to sultry perfection in 1952's Come Back, Little Sheba.  Burt Lancaster plays an emotionally vacant recovering alcoholic who is unhappily married to a frumpy, whiny Shirley Booth.  Another crisis moves in in the form of a sexy boarder, our very own Ms. Moore.  Hers is not the starring role but without her character, there's not a lot of story.

As the son of an alcoholic I can attest to the film's illumination on that subject but as a patron I found it all a little dull.  I saw Lancaster as the exciting star of The Crimson Pirate and his wanting to stretch himself and try some offbeat role didn't register for me.  I never much cared for Booth as an actress.  But when Moore was on the screen, particularly when she was canoodling with my old buddy, hunky Richard Jaeckel, well, that was another story.

With Richard Jaeckel

One wonders if she canoodled with Lancaster off screen because she has apparently written a book about the two of them.  I assume it's more of a personal nature rather than listing his impressive screen credits, don't you?

One final thing on Sheba and Moore.  She received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress and it was deserved.  Sure she knew these roles well... hell, it was her bread and butter performance, but she opened this character up so we could have a look at her, understand her better, feel something for her.  Here, then, of course, coming down from her most glorious industry high so far, she should have pounced on the opportunity and sought and been given better opportunities.  Unfortunately that never happened, at least not with consistency.

In 1953 20th Century Fox signed her to a contract and it was hoped things would continue successfully.  As I said in the piece on Debra Paget, it was not a good time at that studio for sexy starlets because the big Fox machine gave most of its attention to Marilyn Monroe.  However, in her maiden year at the studio, they gave Moore three movies.  One was good but not popular with the public and two were little more than colorful B flicks that were quite popular.

Chatting it up with Hudson, Mitchum and Monroe 

She costarred as Fredric March's daughter in Man on a Tightrope (1953), the story of a WWII family that owns a Czech circus and their valiant effort to get the entire troupe out from behind the Iron Curtain.  Moore and Cameron Mitchell as her boyfriend provided the horny moments and Gloria Grahame, always fascinating, is March's unhappy wife.  I liked it and consider it one of Moore's good cinematic moments but it was too dreary for American audiences.

Fox's third picture in Cinemascope, a process they and the public were wild about, was Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953).  The story concerns young love in two feuding families involved in Florida's sponge-diving.  Moore and Robert Wagner, another Fox employee looking to make a name for himself, were ideal leads particularly since they were dating at the time (although it would soon end).  He plays a Greek so they gave him curly black hair so you'd remember.  Mexican Gilbert Roland played his father.  Moore is the daughter of Richard Boone (obviously she gets her good looks from Mom's side of the family).  Beautiful as it is to observe, it never had a chance to be anything heard about at the Oscars. 

Great pic with Robert Wagner

King of the Khyber Rifles (1953) was a kick because when Tyrone Power strapped on a sword and went to work for one of Fox's best directors, Henry King, magic was generally made for me.  And it was here, too, as long as I remembered it wouldn't attain any legendary status.  The Khyber Pass provided an opportunity for a rumble with the local populace, the British army and a renegade.  It provided Michael Rennie with a good role although Moore as his daughter is little more than decorative and Power received some unkind reviews.

Her 1954 Vegas debut at the Flamingo, showcasing her at her sexy best and taking in her sultry singing voice and womanly moves around the stage were eclipsed for a time by her appearance in a transparent dress.  Hughes was undoubtedly helpful with this opportunity.    

She had been spending time in Europe, much of it in Spain, and was photographed in the company of bullfighters and kings and presidents.  By 1956 she married Eugene McGrath, who was apparently a CIA contact and ran a Panama insurance company.  For awhile Moore even tried living in Panama. 

Though third-billed in Daddy Long Legs (1955), Moore didn't get much attention.  She was all but ignored in reviews.  Most of the chatter involved stars Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron with some leftover attention going to the wonderful Thelma Ritter and Fred Clark.  I never really connected to the film in the way many people did and I don't really know why.

Films about communists lurking about were never much in my favor but I did enjoy a little B noir called Shack Out on Highway 101 (1955) anyway.  Moore is good and top-billed as a naive young woman who hangs out at an isolated diner on California's colorful Pacific Coast Highway.  Unfortunately super bad guy Lee Marvin is scaring the hell out of everyone and Frank Lovejoy has a rare male lead as Moore's boyfriend who has a secret.

Despite no longer being involved with Wagner, she reunited with him in Between Heaven and Hell (1956).  It's Wagner all the way in one of his best young roles as the spoiled son of a wealthy southerner who becomes a soldier fighting in the Pacific during WWII.  Moore, as his wife and a colonel's daughter, has little to do.

Fox had hired on popular singer Pat Boone (hard to believe he and Elvis Presley were in some sort of competition) and Bernardine (1957) was to be his first film.  I'm not going to discuss what it's about but I will go one better... avoid at all costs.  

One of Moore's best performances came thankfully in the most famous of all her movies, Peyton Place (1957).  That's not to say she's the one people think of as that would be Lana Turner or Hope Lange and even Diane Varsi.  But Moore as the town tramp, Betty Anderson (to be played and toned down by Barbara Parkins in the TV version), is very good.  She and handsome Fox actor, Barry Coe, made a fine-looking couple.  

Toying with Barry Coe in Peyton Place

Of course, she went from having another good role in a top film to not only doing so-so movies but leaving Fox as well.  After sixth billing in some inane teenybopper travesty, she moved on to an Audie Murphy western and a Mickey Rooney juvenile delinquent caper, neither of which elevated the status of anyone's careers.

Two months after she divorced McGrath, she married Stuart Cramer III, who was formerly married to Jean Peters.  (Is there a pattern here with Peters?)  Moore had her only children, two sons, with Cramer.  It was also Moore's longest marriage at 11 years.

In 1960 she turned to producing with Why Must I Die? at lowly American International with her old Fox buddy, Debra Paget.  The story has Paget committing a murder for which Moore is blamed.  Paget commits another crime and both women end up in the same prison.  When Moore is scheduled to die, Paget has still not told the truth.  Will she?  

In the mid-60s she made three westerns for the Paramount producer A. C. Lyles... Black Spurs, Town Tamer and Waco.  Lyles, not only a moviemaker but a huge movie fan, gathered more fame for himself for making cheapie B- westerns and using stars of the past in generally large casts.  Otherwise, Moore turned more to television.  That was fine with me because I thought she always jazzed up the projects she was in.

In 1976 Howard Hughes died and Moore arguably became more famous (in some circles infamous) as the news media at the time could attest to.  She called a news conference to announce that she was the secret wife of the reclusive billionaire.  She claimed the marriage at sea was conducted by the ship's captain and recorded in a log but was later destroyed.  She also said that while their relationship, by and large, ended in the mid-50s, they were never divorced.

Well...!!!  This was exciting.  When others, as would be expected, questioned her about her bigamy involving two other marriages, she said she didn't care, that she had a strong desire to have children.  The claim she made for a part of the vast Hughes estate as his wife was rejected by the Texas courts.  Nevertheless, in 1984 the Hughes estate awarded her a settlement because of her long relationship with Hughes.  

The marriage story has always fascinated me, mainly because part of my fandom loves stuff like this.  Regardless of one's take on the were-they-married-or-weren't-they-married issue, what amuses me is how amused Hughes must be, up there, laughing his ass off.  The famous mystery man, the man who actually loved being at the center of mysteries, got his last one, a goodie, after his death and it remains.  And for all the work she's done, all the things that can and have been said about her, this is what she will be most remembered for.  It's one of those great Hollywood stories.

In 1979 Moore had a brief marriage to someone named Richard Carey whom she claims disappeared a few days after the Mexican ceremony, having swindled her out of all her money.

As far as I can tell she is working as we write.  The lady is nothing if not determined, resourceful and wanted for projects I have never even heard of, let alone not seen.  I expect her name value helps sell  them.  When Mighty Joe Young was remade in 1998, Moore played elegant woman at party.

In 1984 she wrote a book called The Beauty and the Billionaire, detailing her relationship with Hughes.  The same year she appeared in a pictorial in Playboy with an accompanying article that dealt mainly with her relationship with Hughes.  At 55, still a knockout, she was the oldest celebrity to appear nude in the magazine, a record which probably still stands.

She married for the sixth time in 1992... to her manager, Jerry Rivers, a union which lasted until his death in 2001.  

In 1996 she wrote The Passions of Howard Hughes.  She's written other books as well.  She gave a touch of Hollywood glamour to some stage productions.  

In 2004, a pilot herself (thanks to Hughes), she apparently was a benefit to Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Di Caprio on their Hughes film, The Aviator. 

The above is a picture taken two years ago this month of Moore with my son.  She was then 90 years old... still a looker and still with that zest for life.  She may have been knocked down a few times but she always seems to have been resilient enough to bounce right back.  I wish her well and thank her for years of keeping me entertained.

Next posting:

Visiting Film Noir