Demi Moore facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Demi Moore
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Moore in 2011
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| Born |
Demi Gene Guynes
November 11, 1962 Roswell, New Mexico, U.S.
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| Occupation |
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| Years active | 1981–present |
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Works
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Full list |
| Spouse(s) |
Freddy Moore
(m. 1981; div. 1985) |
| Children | 3, including Rumer Willis |
Demi Gene Moore (/dəˈmiː/ DƏ-mee; née Guynes; born November 11, 1962) is an American actress. She made her film debut in 1981 and appeared on the soap opera General Hospital (1982–1983) before coming to prominence as a member of the Brat Pack with roles in Blame It on Rio (1984), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), and About Last Night... (1986). While the lattermost made Moore a star, she established herself as a bankable performer with Ghost, the highest-grossing film of 1990. Her performance was praised and earned her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.
She had further box-office success in the early 1990s, with the films A Few Good Men (1992) and Disclosure (1994). In 1996, Moore became the highest-paid actress in film history. The large-budget starring vehicles The Scarlet Letter (1995), The Juror (1996) and G.I. Jane (1997) were commercially unsuccessful and contributed to a downturn in her career. She has since held sporadic leading roles in the arthouse dramas Passion of Mind (2000), Flawless (2008), and Blind (2017), as well as supporting roles in such films as Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Bobby (2006), Mr. Brooks (2007), and Margin Call (2011). Moore's television work includes the Emmy-nominated cable anthology If These Walls Could Talk (1996) and the streaming series Brave New World (2020).
In 2019, she released a memoir titled Inside Out, which became a New York Times Best Seller. Moore has been married thrice, to the musician Freddy Moore and the actors Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher. She has three daughters with Willis.
Early life
Childhood and family
Moore was born November 11, 1962, in Roswell, New Mexico. Her biological father, Air Force airman Charles Foster Harmon Sr., left her then 18-year-old mother, Virginia (née King), after a two-month marriage before Moore was born. Charles came from Lanett, Alabama, and Virginia was born in Richmond, California, but had grown up in Roswell. Moore's maternal grandmother was raised on a farm in Elida, New Mexico. Moore has deep roots in the South Central and Southern United States, particularly Oklahoma, Arkansas and Georgia. When Moore was three months old, her mother married Dan Guynes, a newspaper advertising salesman who frequently changed jobs; as a result, the family moved many times. In 1967 they had Moore's half-brother Morgan. Moore said in 1991, "My dad is Dan Guynes. He raised me. There is a man who would be considered my biological father who I don't really have a relationship with." Moore has half-siblings from Charlie Harmon's other marriages, but she doesn't keep in touch with them either.
Moore's stepfather Dan Guynes married and divorced Virginia twice. On October 20, 1980, a year after their second divorce from each other, Guynes died. Her biological father Harmon died in 1997 from liver cancer in Brazoria, Texas. Moore's mother had a long arrest record. Moore broke off contact with her in 1989. Moore and Virginia Guynes reconciled shortly before Guynes died of a brain tumor on July 2, 1998.
Moore spent her early childhood in Roswell, and later, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. She suffered from strabismus, which was corrected by two operations, as well as kidney dysfunction. Moore learned that Guynes was not her real father at age 13, when she discovered a marriage certificate and inquired about the circumstances since she "saw my parents were married in February 1963. I was born in '62."
Education
At age 14, Moore returned to her hometown of Roswell and lived with her grandmother for six months before relocating to Washington state, where her recently separated mother was residing near Seattle. Several months later, the family moved again to West Hollywood, California, where Moore's mother took a job working for a magazine distribution company. Moore attended Fairfax High School there. She moved out of her family's house the day after her 16th birthday and quit high school in her junior year to work as a receptionist at 20th Century Fox.
Career
1980–1985: Early roles and breakthrough
Moore signed with the Elite Modeling Agency, then enrolled in drama classes after being inspired by her next-door neighbor, 17-year-old German actress Nastassja Kinski. In August 1979, at age 16, Moore met musician Freddy Moore who was married and at the time leader of the band Boy, at the Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour. They lived in an apartment in West Hollywood. Moore co-wrote three songs with Freddy Moore and appeared in the music video for their selection "It's Not a Rumor," performed by his band, The Nu Kats. She continues to receive royalty checks from her songwriting work (1980–1981). Moore also sang in the films One Crazy Summer and Bobby.
Moore made her film debut with a brief role in the 1981 teen drama Choices, directed by Silvio Narizzano. Her second film feature was the 3-D sci-fi horror film Parasite (1982), for which director Charles Band had instructed casting director Johanna Ray to "find me the next Karen Allen." Moore then joined the cast of the ABC soap opera General Hospital, playing the role of investigative reporter Jackie Templeton until 1983. During her tenure on the series, she made an uncredited cameo appearance in the 1982 spoof film Young Doctors in Love. Moore's film career took off in 1984. She portrayed Laura Victor in the comedy film No Small Affair (1984), opposite Jon Cryer.
Moore's commercial breakthrough came in Joel Schumacher's yuppie drama St. Elmo's Fire (1985), which received negative reviews, but was a box office success and brought Moore widespread recognition. Because of her association with that film, Moore was often listed as part of the Brat Pack, a label she felt was "demeaning". Moore progressed to more serious material with About Last Night... (1986), co-starring Rob Lowe, which marked a positive turning point in her career, as Moore noted that, following its release, she began seeing better scripts. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and praised her performance, writing, "There isn't a romantic note she isn't required to play in this movie, and she plays them all flawlessly."
1986–1996: Breakthrough and critical success
The success of About Last Night... was unrivaled by Moore's other two 1986 releases, One Crazy Summer and Wisdom, the last youth-oriented films in which she would star. Moore was listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1986" in John Willis's Screen World, Vol. 38. Moore made her professional stage debut in an off-Broadway production of The Early Girl, which ran at the Circle Repertory Company in fall 1986. In 1988, Moore starred as a prophecy-bearing mother in the apocalyptic drama The Seventh Sign—her first outing as a solo film star— and in 1989, she played the quick-witted local laundress in Neil Jordan's Depression-era allegory We're No Angels, opposite Robert De Niro.
Moore's most successful film to date is the supernatural romantic melodrama Ghost (1990), which grossed over US$505 million at the box office and was the highest-grossing film of the year. She played a young woman in jeopardy to be protected by the ghost of her murdered lover. The love scene between Moore and Patrick Swayze that starts in front of a potter's wheel to the sound of "Unchained Melody" has become an iconic moment in cinema history. Ghost was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Moore's performance earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. In 1991 Moore starred in the horror comedy Nothing but Trouble, co-produced and appeared in the mystery thriller Mortal Thoughts, and played a blonde for the first time in the romantic comedy The Butcher's Wife, with Roger Ebert's review describing her as "warm and cuddly". Moore sustained her A-list status with her starring roles in Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men (1992) and Barry Levinson's Disclosure (1994)—all of which opened at No. 1 at the box office and were blockbuster hits.
By 1995 Moore was the highest paid actress in Hollywood. Her portrayal of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter (1995), a "freely adapted" version of the historical romance novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was met with harsh criticism. The coming-of-age drama Now and Then (1995) found moderate box office success. Moore was paid a record-breaking salary of US$12.5 million in 1996. Moore starred in the thriller The Juror (1996). It was a box office bomb and was heavily panned by critics.
Moore produced and starred in a controversial miniseries for HBO called If These Walls Could Talk (1996). Its screenwriter, Nancy Savoca, directed two segments, including one in which Moore played a widowed nurse in the early 1950s. For that role, Moore received a second Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress. Also in 1996, she provided the speaking voice of the beautiful Esmeralda in Disney's animated adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and starred in Mike Judge's comedy Beavis and Butt-head Do America, alongside her then husband Bruce Willis. Moore shaved her head to play the first woman to undergo training in the Navy SEALs in Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane (1997). Budgeted at US$50 million, the film was a moderate commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$97.1 million.
1997–2003: Career downturn and other ventures
During the production of G.I. Jane, it was reported that Moore had ordered studio chiefs to charter two planes for her entourage and her, which reinforced her negative reputation for being a diva—she had previously turned down the Sandra Bullock role in While You Were Sleeping because the studio refused to meet her salary demands, and was dubbed "Gimme Moore" by the media. Moore took on the role of an ultrapious psychiatrist in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, also in 1997.
After G.I. Jane, Moore retreated from the spotlight and moved to Hailey, Idaho, on a full-time basis to devote herself to raising her three daughters. Moore was off screen for three years before re-emerging in the arthouse psychological drama Passion of Mind (2000), the first English-language film from Belgian director Alain Berliner. Her performance as a woman with dissociative identity disorder was well received, but the film itself garnered mixed reviews and was deemed "naggingly slow" by some critics. Moore then resumed her self-imposed career hiatus and continued to turn down film offers. Producer Irwin Winkler said in 2001, "I had a project about a year and a half ago, and we made an inquiry about her—a real good commercial picture. She wasn't interested."
Moore returned to the screen playing a villain in the 2003 film Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, opposite Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu. A commercial success, the film made US$259.1 million worldwide. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle was followed by yet another three-year absence. In the interim, Moore signed on as the face of the Versace fashion brand and the Helena Rubinstein brand of cosmetics.
2006–2011: Comeback and resurgence
In Emilio Estevez's drama Bobby (2006), Moore portrayed an singer whose career is on the downswing, as part of an ensemble cast, about the hours leading up to the Robert F. Kennedy assassination. As a member of the cast, she was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Motion Picture. The film won the Hollywood Film Festival Award for Best Ensemble Cast. Moore had a lead role as grieving and tormented novelist in the mystery thriller Half Light (2006) alongside Hans Matheson, then took on the role of a driven police officer investigating a serial killer in the psychological thriller Mr. Brooks (2007), with Kevin Costner. The film received mixed reviews and grossed $48.1 million worldwide. Rolling Stone wrote that "the cop on the case, played by Demi Moore with a striking directness that deserved better than being saddled with an absurd back story as an heiress with a fortune-hunting husband."
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Moore reunited with Blame It on Rio co-star Michael Caine for the British crime drama film Flawless (2008), which saw her portray an American executive helping to steal a handful of diamonds from the London Diamond Corporation during the 1960s. Moore received positive reviews from critics; Miami Herald wrote: "The inspired pairing of Demi Moore and Michael Caine as a pair of thieves in the diamond-heist semi-caper movie Flawless goes a long way toward overcoming the film's slack, leisurely pacing".
In 2010, Moore took on the role of a daughter helping her father deal with age-related health problems in the dramedy Happy Tears, opposite Parker Posey and Rip Torn, and starred as the matriarch of a family moving into a suburban neighborhood in the comedy The Joneses, with David Duchovny. The latter film was largely highlighted upon its theatrical release, with critics concluding that it "benefits from its timely satire of consumer culture — as well as a pair of strong performances" from Duchovny and Moore. In Bunraku (2010), a film Moore described as a "big action adventure," she played a femme fatale with a secret past.
Moore portrayed a chief risk management officer at a large Wall Street investment bank during the initial stages of the financial crisis of 2007–08 in the critically acclaimed corporate drama Margin Call (2011), where she was part of an ensemble cast that included Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, and Paul Bettany. The cast garnered nominations for the "Best Ensemble" award from the Gotham Awards, the Phoenix Film Critics Society and the Central Ohio Film Critics Association. Also in 2011, Moore received a Directors Guild of America Award nomination for Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film for her work as a director in a segment of the 2011 Lifetime anthology film Five, and starred opposite Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn and George Kennedy in Sam Levinson's black comedy Another Happy Day, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
2012–present: memoir and television roles
Moore appeared as the mother of Miley Cyrus' character in the romantic drama film LOL (2012). She played a similar mother role in her next film, the likewise coming-of-age dramedy Very Good Girls (2013), which co-starred Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen. Her part as an old flame of a quick-draw killer in the Western drama Forsaken (2015), with Donald Sutherland and Kiefer Sutherland, was followed by the role of the daughter of a retired high school teacher in the road comedy Wild Oats, which premiered on Lifetime in August 2016, and in a limited release the following month. In her next film, the drama Blind (2017), Moore starred opposite Alec Baldwin.
In February 2017, Moore joined the cast of Empire, in the recurring role of a take-charge nurse with a mysterious past. She starred in the comedy film Rough Night (2017). The film was released in the United States on June 16, 2017, by Columbia Pictures, received mixed reviews and grossed $47 million worldwide. She played Selma in the Indian drama film Love Sonia (2018). She portrayed Lucy, a superficial CEO in the comedy horror film Corporate Animals (2019), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 29, 2019.
Moore's memoir, Inside Out, was published on September 24, 2019, by HarperCollins. On October 13, 2019, the book debuted at number one on The New York Times' Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction best-sellers list and the Hardcover Nonfiction best-sellers list. Moore discussed the book in an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News on Good Morning America. Moore and her two daughters Rumer and Tallulah appeared on Jada Pinkett Smith's web television talk show Red Table Talk on November 4, 2019.
On June 24, 2020, Moore joined as Piper Griffin, the matriarch of a powerful family "who will stop at nothing to protect her family and her way of life" in the pandemic-themed thriller produced by Michael Bay, Songbird, alongside Craig Robinson, Paul Walter Hauser and Peter Stormare. Moore has a leading role as Diana in Amazon's drama series, Dirty Diana, which is based on the podcast of the same name. The podcast is voiced by Moore and she also serves as producer with screenwriter Shana Feste. Moore was among the celebrities who made cameo appearances modeling lingerie at Rihanna's Savage x Fenty Vol. 2 fashion show in 2020.
Personal life
Marriages and relationships
On February 8, 1981, at the age of 18, Moore married singer Freddy Moore, 12 years her senior and recently divorced from his first wife, Lucy. Before their marriage, Demi began using Freddy's surname as her stage name. The pair separated in 1983, after which Demi had a relationship with Timothy Hutton. She filed for divorce from Moore in September 1984; it was finalized on August 7, 1985. Moore was then engaged to actor Emilio Estevez, with whom she co-starred in St. Elmo's Fire and Wisdom, a crime drama he also wrote and directed. The pair planned to marry in December 1986, but called off the engagement.
On November 21, 1987, Moore married her second husband, actor Bruce Willis. She and Willis have three daughters together: Rumer Glenn Willis (born August 16, 1988), Scout LaRue Willis (born July 20, 1991), and Tallulah Belle Bruce Willis (born February 3, 1994). They announced their separation on June 24, 1998, and filed for divorce on October 18, 2000. Despite the divorce, Moore maintains a close friendship with Willis and his current spouse Emma Hemming Willis, and has assisted her and their respective children with caretaking for Willis as his health has declined. Moore had a three-year relationship with martial arts instructor Oliver Whitcomb, whom she dated from 1999 to 2002.
In 2003, Moore began dating actor Ashton Kutcher. Soon after they began dating, Moore became pregnant and she suffered a stillbirth six months into the pregnancy. They married on September 24, 2005. The wedding was attended by about 150 close friends and family of the couple, including Willis. In November 2011, after months of media speculation about the state of the couple's marriage, Moore announced her decision to end her marriage to Kutcher. After over a year of separation, Kutcher filed for divorce from Moore on December 21, 2012, in Los Angeles Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences. Moore filed her response papers in March 2013, requesting spousal support and payment of legal fees from Kutcher On November 26, 2013, their divorce was finalized.
Interests
She was at one point a follower of Philip Berg's Kabbalah Centre religion, and initiated Kutcher into the faith, having said that she "didn't grow up Jewish, but [...] would say that [she has] been more exposed to the deeper meanings of particular rituals than any of [her] friends that did." She is no longer affiliated with Berg's organization.
According to The New York Times, Moore is "the world's most high-profile doll collector", and among her favorites is the Gene Marshall fashion doll. At one point, Moore kept a separate residence to house her 2,000 dolls.
She appeared on PETA's Worst-Dressed List in 2009 for wearing fur; two years later she supported the group's efforts to ban circus workers' use of bullhooks on elephants.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Moore is the recipient of many accolades, including nominations for a Critics' Choice Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
See also
In Spanish: Demi Moore para niños
