Moore, Terry 1929-

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MOORE, Terry 1929-

PERSONAL: Born Helen Koford, January 7, 1929, in Los Angeles, CA; married Howard Hughes (a businessman and film executive), 1949; married Glenn Davis (a football player), 1951 (divorced, 1952); married Eugene McGrath (an entrepreneur), 1956 (divorced); married Stuart Cramer (a businessman), 1959 (divorced, 1972); married Richard Carey (a businessman), 1979; partner of Jerry Rivers; children: (fourth marriage) two sons. Religion: Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon).

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, B&B Audio, 3175 Commercial Ave., Suite 107B, Northbrook, IL 60062.

CAREER: Actress, producer, and businesswoman. Worked as a model; partner in Business People, Inc. (international commodity traders), 1975—. Actress in films, including Maryland, 1940; My Gal Sal, 1942; A-Haunting We Will Go, 1942; True to Life, 1943; Gaslight, 1944; Since You Went Away, 1944; Sweet and Lowdown, 1944; Son of Lassie, 1945; Shadowed, 1946; The Devil on Wheels, 1947; Heartaches, 1947;The Return of October, 1948; Summer Holiday, 1948; Mighty Joe Young, 1949; Gambling House, 1950; He's a Cockeyed Wonder, 1950; The Great Rupert, 1950; Two of a Kind, 1951; Sunny Side of the Street, 1951; The Barefoot Mailman, 1951; Come Back, Little Sheba, 1952; King of the Khyber Rifles, 1953; Beneath the Twelve-Mile Reef, 1953; Man on a Tightrope, 1953; Daddy Long Legs, 1955; Shack out on 101, 1955; Portrait of Alison, 1955; Between Heaven and Hell, 1956; Postmark for Danger, 1956; Bernardine, 1957; Peyton Place, 1957; Cast a Long Shadow, 1959; A Private's Affair, 1959; Why Must I Die?, 1960; Platinum High School, 1960; Town Tamer, 1965; City of Fear, 1965; Black Spurs, 1965; Waco, 1966; A Man Called Dagger, 1967; Bonanza: Gideon the Good, 1970; The Daredevil, 1971; Death Dimension, 1978; Double Exposure, 1982; Hellhole, 1985; My American Cousin, 1985; Death Blow, 1987; W.A.R.; Women against Rape, 1987; Father's Day, 1988; Jake Spanner: Private Eye, 1989; (and coproducer) Beverly Hills Brats, 1989; American Boyfriends, 1989; Going Overboard, 1989; Marilyn and Me, 1991; Second Chances, 1998; Final Voyage, 1999; Stageghost, 2000; and Sweet Deadly Dream, 2002. Appearances in television films, including Quarantined, 1970; and Smash-up on Interstate 5, 1976. Appearances in television series, including Empire, 1962; and Hollywood Women (miniseries), 1994. Guest appearances for television series, including Rawhide, Playhouse 90, Burke's Law, The Virginian, Batman, Matt Houston, The Love Boat, Murder She Wrote, and others. Executive producer of television series The Dating Experiment, 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS: Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1952, for Come Back, Little Sheba.

WRITINGS:

The Beauty and the Billionaire (memoir), Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1984.

(With Jerry partner Rivers and Linda Silverthorn) Beverly Hills Brats (screenplay), Taurus Entertainment, 1989.

(With Jerry Rivers) The Passions of Howard Hughes (memoir), General Publishing Group (Los Angeles, CA), 1996.

ADAPTATIONS: The Beauty and the Billionaire was adapted for a television movie titled Howard Hughes: His Women and His Movies, Columbia Broadcasting System, 2000; The Passions of Howard Hughes was adapted for audio (two cassettes), read by Terry Moore, B&B Audio, 1997.

SIDELIGHTS: Actress Terry Moore was born Helen Koford, and used her birth name, as well as the names Judy Ford and Jan Ford, before she settled on Terry Moore in 1949. She was just eleven years of age when she made her first film, and she played teen roles until the late 1940s. The voluptuous Moore, who in 1953 wore her famous ermine bathing suit for U.S. troops stationed in Korea, was cast in sexy roles, as well in supporting roles in many classic films, including Come Back, Little Sheba and Mighty Joe Young.

Moore's first marriage was to the wealthy filmmaker Howard Hughes, a man twenty-five years her senior who favored beautiful Hollywood actresses. They were together from 1947, when she was still a teenager, to 1956, and were married in 1949, while at sea, by the captain of Hughes' yacht. Moore never received documentation of the marriage, and Hughes kept it secret. The couple had one child, a girl who died shortly after birth. Dale Pollock, who reviewed Moore's memoir The Beauty and the Billionaire in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, said "Moore claims Hughes insisted on the secrecy because he feared it would damage her career, although she suspects it was so he could continue his affairs with actresses such as Jean Peters and Ava Gardner."

Michelle Green wrote in People that "Moore says her success was anathema to Hughes. Even though he owned RKO Pictures, 'he hated me being in the movies. He was jealous of all my leading men, and he tried to wreck my career.' Fights were frequent; Hughes had her followed from the moment he met her and commanded her to wear a heavy bra even while sleeping, lest her breasts sag." Hughes needn't have worried, however. Moore proudly posed for the cover of Playboy in 1984, at the age of fifty-two.

When Moore had enough of her husband's flings with other women, she did not go through the trouble of divorcing Hughes before marrying her second husband, Glenn Davis. After she and Davis split, she again lived for a time with her first husband before divorcing Davis and marrying Eugene McGrath. Hughes then married Jean Peters. Moore had two sons with her fourth husband, Stuart Cramer, during their thirteen-year marriage. When they divorced, she remained single for seven years before marrying Richard Carey, who was already married at the time. His attorneys claimed he had received a Mexican divorce before he and Moore were wed.

Carey acted as Moore's business manager, but in 1983, he was indicted on sixty-eight criminal counts, including forgery and grand theft. Moore, who testified against him, claimed that he had swindled her out of 200,000 dollars. President Ronald Regan's son, Michael, also testified that Carey had cheated him of 1,500 dollars through a phony investment deal.

Moore never divorced Hughes, who died in the late 1970s. In 1983, she received an estimated ten million dollars from the Hughes estate, based on her claims that they had been married. The settlement came after a seven-year battle. Green wrote that "by all accounts, . . . Moore's sudden wealth won't appreciably alter her style. Over the years, she's grown accustomed to the prerogatives of affluence: her father parlayed her own earnings into a tidy fortune, and monied husbands have helped along the way. Still, she continues to haunt neighborhood flea markets, walk around Beverly Hills with ten dollars in her wallet, and drink soda pop while others sip Dom Perignon."

Her relationships with Hughes and McGrath, and her own wide social circle, brought Moore into contact with influential business people and political leaders, with whom she forged strong friendships. During the 1970s, she partnered with Bill Shirley in a California-based commodity brokerage collaboration with offices in Ecuador, Lebanon, and Atlanta, Georgia, and she became one-fifth owner of the Birmingham, Alabama group Business People, Inc.

Moore's acquaintances at the time included the presidents of Nicaragua and Venezuela, the archbishop of Panama, President Richard Nixon's close confidante Bebe Rebozo, and several influential Saudi Arabian families. She met the important families of Mexico during a romantic relationship with actor Tyrone Power, and she cut the ribbons at the openings of many Hilton hotels during her time with Nicky Hilton. She told Paul Gainor in an interview for Detroit News that a Tibetan friend is her "entrance into Red China and Taiwan." Moore, who was involved with another company that booked music and entertainment, explained to Gainor that it is her belief that this is the way to bridge international gaps. She and Robert Knight, her partner in this venture, arranged such events as the opening of the New Orleans Superdome.

In The Beauty and the Billionaire Moore suggests that Hughes used his influence with the major studios to have her blacklisted. Karen Stang Hanley noted in Booklist that in spite of that fact, Moore's description of Hughes is generally favorable, but also commented that the book "offers little new insight into his puzzling psyche and the reclusive life he drifted toward after their separation."

Moore also talked about her life with Hughes with Interview contributor George Christy, who asked her about her relationship with the man who was reported to be very tightfisted with money. Moore responded, "No, I certainly didn't feel his millions or billions or whatever it was. I was in love with him. For one thing, he was the first person I'd ever been with sexually, and I thought he was the greatest in the whole world. I was totally in love with him." A Publishers Weekly contributor who reviewed The Beauty and the Billionaire felt that "she may not tell all, but Moore tells enough to keep Hollywood groupies happy."

A second memoir, The Passions of Howard Hughes, was published by Moore in 1996.