From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Terry Moore
Moore on the cover of Playboy, August 1984
Birth name	Helen Luella Koford
Born	January 7, 1929 (1929-01-07) (age 78) Los Angeles, California
Years active	1940 - present

Terry Moore (born Helen Luella Koford, January 7, 1929) is an Oscar-nominated American actress.

Born Jan. 7, 1929 in Glendale, Calif., as Helen Luella Koford, Moore grew up in a Mormon family in Los Angeles, California. She worked as a child model before making her film debut in Maryland (1940). The studios later changed her name to Judy Ford, Jan Ford and then January Ford.

In the 1940s she was a hot sexpot of Hollywood. In the 1950s she was considered in equal running to Marilyn Monroe.

Throughout the 1940s, Moore worked under a variety of names before settling on Terry Moore in 1948. She worked on and off in radio, most memorably as Bumps Smith on The Smiths of Hollywood alongside Arthur Treacher, Harry Von Zell and Brenda Marshall. (During the run of The Smiths of Hollywood, Moore used the name Jan Ford). Although cast in mostly B-pictures, she managed to make her mark in several box office hits, including Mighty Joe Young (1949), Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) - for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Peyton Place (1957).

Although Moore has worked steadily for the past few decades, her appearances have been in usually minor roles in smaller films.

In the 2006 DVD commentary for Mighty Joe Young, Moore says that she is best remembered today for this film, made when she was 18. She says her most requested photo for autographs is of Joe holding her at the piano above his head. Moore and animator Ray Harryhausen made a cameo appearance in the 1998 remake of the film.

Long romantically involved with billionaire Howard Hughes, Moore claimed after his death that they had secretly married in 1949 and never divorced. Although she could offer no definitive proof of her allegation, Hughes's estate paid her a settlement in 1984. At the age of 55 she appeared nude in the August 1984 issue of Playboy magazine.

She went on to write two books about Hughes:

• Terry Moore - The Beauty and the Billionaire, New York (1984).
• Terry Moore and Jerry Rivers - The Passions of Howard Hughes. General Publishing Group (1996), an audio abridgement is narrated by Terry. She claims that Howard received no medical treatment because he was an abused victim of a conspiracy to take over his empire.

Despite her appearance in Playboy, she describes herself as a "devout Mormon".

She was also one of the first female jet pilots.

Terry is the mother of actor Grant Cramer.

• Maryland (1940)
• The Howars of Virginia (1940) (role unconfirmed)
• My Gal Sal (1942)
• A-Haunting We Will Go (1942)
• True to Life (1943)
• Gaslight (1944)
• Since You Went Away (1944)
• Sweet and Low-Down (1944)
• The Clock (1945)
• Son of Lassie (1945)
• Shadowed (1946)
• The Devil On Wheels (1947)
• Heartaches (1947)
• Summer Holiday (1948)
• The Return of October (1948)
• Mighty Joe Young (1949)
• The Great Rupert (1950)
• He's a Cockeyed Wonder (1950)
• Gambling House (1951)
• Two of a Kind (1951)
• Sunny Side of the Street (1951)
• The Barefoot Mailman (1951)
• Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)
• Man on a Tightrope (1953)
• Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953)
• King of the Khyber Rifles (1953)
• Postmark for Danger (1955)
• Daddy Long Legs (1955)
• Shack Out on 101 (1955)
• Between Heaven and Hell (1956)
• Bernardine (1957)
• Peyton Place (1957)
• A Private's Affair (1959)
• Cast a Long Shadow (1959)
• Platinum High School (1960)
• Why Must I Die? (1960)
• She Should Have Stayed in Bed (1963)
• Black Spurs (1965)
• Town Tamer (1965)
• City of Fear (1965)
• Waco (1966 movie) (1966)
• A Man Called Dagger (1967)
• The Daredevil (1972)
• Death Dimension (1978)
• Double Exposure (1983)
• Hellhole (1985)
• W.A.R.: Women Against Rape (1987)
• Father's Day (1988)
• Going Overboard (1989)
• Beverly Hills Brats (1989) (also producer and writer)
• American Boyfriends (1989)
• American Southern (1995)
• Second Chances (1998)
• Mighty Joe Young (1998)
• Final Voyage (1999)
• Stageghost (2000)
• Sweet Deadly Dreams (2002)
• The Still Life (2005)
• Kill Your Darlings (2005)
• I'm King Kong!: The Exploits of Merian C. Cooper (2005) (documentary)

• Official site for Terry Moore
• Terry Moore at the Internet Movie Database
• Fan site