Dickie Moore (Actor)

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Dickie Moore (1998)

John Richard "Dickie" Moore Jr. (born September 12, 1925 in Los Angeles , California - † September 7, 2015 near Wilton , Connecticut ) was an American child and youth actor who worked in over 100 Films occurred.

Life

Film and theater career

Dickie Moore had his first film appearance in 1927 in the adventure film Der Bettelpoet , where he played the silent film star John Barrymore in the role of the poet François Villon as a one-year-old baby. Two years later, he kept receiving offers from various film studios for roles, thereby supporting the family, also because his banker father had become unemployed during the Great Depression . He was first mentioned in 1930 in a film review in the New York Times for the film Passion Flower . Because his first films were still silent films, Moore was one of the last living actors of the silent film era until his death. Moore quickly became one of the most sought-after child actors in Hollywood. In 1932 he had an important role in Josef von Sternberg's drama Blonde Venus as Marlene Dietrich's film son . He also starred alongside Barbara Stanwyck in So Big (1932) and alongside Spencer Tracy in Man's Castle (1933).

Between 1932 and 1933 played Dickie Moore in eight films of the Little Rascals of Hal Roach . Although he only stayed with the little thugs for a short time, he was mostly seen in these eight films as the main actor and the clever leader of the children's group. His real name Dickie was also his role name. He left the Kleine Trolche in 1933 in order to increasingly play in feature films. In the same year Moore recorded a success with the portrayal of the title role in Oliver Twist (1933), based on the novel by Charles Dickens . In 1935 he played Joseph Meister , the first person to be vaccinated against rabies, in the highly acclaimed biography Louis Pasteur by William Dieterle . Two years later he could be seen again in a biography with Dieterle's direction with The Life of Emile Zola . When he was ten years old, he was considered one of Hollywood's most popular child actors and had acted in over 50 films.

Moore's popularity waned somewhat with puberty, and he now mostly played supporting roles. In 1941 he played the role of Gary Cooper's brother in Howard Hawks ' war drama Sergeant York , which was nominated for eleven Academy Awards. Moore was also best known for kissing 14-year-old Shirley Temple her first movie kiss in Miss Annie Rooney in 1942 . In the 1940s, he played the leading actor as a youth several times, for example Don Ameche in A Heavenly Sinner (1943) directed by Ernst Lubitsch . After a brief service in World War II, Moore played a key role in the film noir classic Golden Poison in 1947 , where he played the role of "deaf and dumb boy" alongside Robert Mitchum . In 1949 he acted as the lead actor, co-director and producer of the film Boy and the Eagle , which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Film. After a few television appearances in the mid-1950s, he slowly withdrew from the acting business. In total, he made around 100 films. In addition to his film career, he also worked as a stage actor, including on Broadway in the play Saint Joan between September 1956 and January 1957.

Next life

In addition to his film career, he graduated from college with a degree in journalism . After his film career, he worked for several years as a journalist for the magazine of the Actors' Equity Association, a union for the theater business. In 1966 he founded the Dick Moore and Associates publicity office , which he ran until 2010. He also worked as an acting teacher and author. In 1984 his autobiographical book Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (But Don't Have Sex and Take the Car) was published , in which he dealt with the problem of a child star growing out of its infancy. This book became a widely read work on the subject of child stars to this day. In it he also reported on his own problems with alcohol and drugs and how he overcame them.

During the course of this book, Moore interviewed numerous former child stars, including meeting actress Jane Powell , whom he married in 1988. Moore had previously been married to Eleanor Donhowe Fitzpatrick and Pat Dempsey. He had a son from his first marriage. Moore and Powell last lived in Manhattan and the small town of Wilton, Connecticut. Dickie Moore died in September 2015, five days before his 90th birthday, in a hospice near Wilton.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Dickie Moore  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bruce Weber: Dickie Moore, Child Actor Known for a Screen Kiss, Dies at 89. In: The New York Times , September 10, 2015 (English). Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  2. ^ A b c Dickie Moore obituary , in: The Guardian , September 15, 2015, accessed September 16, 2015
  3. ↑ Article about Dickie Moore, mainly about his appearances with the little rascals
  4. ↑ Dickie Moore at Allmovie
  5. ^ Dick Moore at the Internet Broadway Database
  6. ↑ Dickie Moore at Allmovie
  7. ↑ Dickie Moore at Matinee-Classics ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.matineeclassics.com
  8. ^ Notice of death in Washington Post , Washington Post , September 12, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Moore, Dickie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moore, John Richard Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American child actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 2015
Place of death Connecticut