Demi Moore

Demi Moore (born November 11, 1962, Roswell, New Mexico, U.S.) is an American actress who became one of Hollywood’s leading ladies and highest-paid performers in the 1990s. Films such as Ghost (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), Indecent Proposal (1993), and The Scarlet Letter (1995) made her a star, but her many bold choices made her an often overlooked trailblazer.

Early life

Moore was born Demetria Guynes to a teenage mother, Virginia King, who let on that her husband, Danny Guynes, was Demetria’s father. The couple moved Demetria and her younger brother, Morgan Guynes, around the country some 30 times before settling in Southern California. Demetria’s childhood, however, remained tumultuous. Indeed, her mother attempted suicide on several occasions. After her parents separated, Demetria lived with her mother and learned that her biological father was not Danny Guynes but a man named Charles Harmon. At age 15 she was raped by a friend of her mother’s, and at age 16 she dropped out of high school. She moved in with a guitarist and two years later she married musician Freddy Moore, taking his last name.

Early acting career in the 1980s

Moore worked for a collection agency between modeling jobs and acting stints in a few low-budget films in the early 1980s. Her career took off in 1982 when she was cast in the popular television soap opera General Hospital. After acting in the 1984 films Blame It on Rio and No Small Affair, she became known as a member of Hollywood’s “Brat Pack” of young stars, several of whom also appeared with her in the movie St. Elmo’s Fire (1985). By that time, Moore had started abusing alcohol and cocaine, and during filming she joined a rehabilitation program to become sober. In addition, she divorced Freddy Moore and began dating her St. Elmo’s Fire costar Emilio Estevez.

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Ghost and marriage to Bruce Willis

After roles in One Crazy Summer (1986), About Last Night… (1986), We’re No Angels (1989), and other films considered mediocre by many critics, Moore joined Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg in the Academy Award-nominated blockbuster Ghost (1990). By then she had called off her engagement to Estevez and in 1987 had married actor Bruce Willis in a ceremony conducted by musician and ordained minister Little Richard. The couple went on to have three daughters. In 1991 Moore was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for a feature in Vanity Fair. Moore posed nude while pregnant with her second child, shocking many readers not only for flaunting her pregnancy but also for suggesting that a pregnant body could be sexy. The photographs later inspired other expectant mothers, including such celebrities as Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, and Venus Williams, to celebrate their bodies while pregnant.

Becoming the highest-paid actress in the 1990s

Moore continued to land major roles throughout the 1990s, appearing in The Butcher’s Wife (1991), A Few Good Men (1992), Indecent Proposal (1993), Disclosure (1994), The Scarlet Letter (1995), Now and Then (1995), and The Juror (1996). In addition she lent her distinctive husky voice to Esmeralda for the Disney animated film The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). By commanding $12.5 million for her lead role in Striptease (1996), Moore became Hollywood’s highest-paid actress, on par with some male performers. Moore, however, received intense backlash in the media, often being portrayed as greedy and being called “Gimme Moore.” Moore’s next film, G.I. Jane (1997), was produced by her company, Moving Pictures. For the film, she prepared extensively to play a fictional character training to become the first woman Navy SEAL. However, the film was poorly received by critics and audiences.

Movies in the 2000s and marriage to Ashton Kutcher

At the turn of the century, Moore underwent several other setbacks, including the death of her mother from cancer (1998) and her divorce from Willis (2000). She stepped back from acting in lead roles, instead taking supporting roles in such films as Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Bobby (2006), and Mr. Brooks (2007). Meanwhile, she began dating the younger actor Ashton Kutcher in 2003, causing a stir in tabloids because of their 15-year age difference. They married in 2005 and were expecting a child when Moore had a late miscarriage. By then she had begun drinking again and was soon also abusing painkillers. She and Kutcher separated in 2011; their divorce was finalized two years later.

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Later roles and other projects

After suffering a drug-related seizure in 2012, Moore entered rehab. She began penning her life story with Ariel Levy, a staff writer for The New Yorker, which was published as Inside Out: A Memoir in 2019. She also took roles in such films as Margin Call (2011), Wild Oats (2016), Rough Night (2017), Corporate Animals (2019), and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022). In addition, she had a recurring part in seasons three and four (2017–18) of the television series Empire and in the streaming adaptation (2020) of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

In 2024 Moore played socialite Ann Woodward in the TV miniseries Feud: Capote vs. the Swans. Later that year she starred with Margaret Qualley in The Substance, a body horror film centering on an aging actress who discovers a medical treatment that will make her appear younger, though at a great cost. While the movie was polarizing, Moore received widespread acclaim for her performance, and she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Oscar for best actress.

In addition to her acting, Moore won praise as the director of one of the segments in the movie Five (2011), which tackles the issue of breast cancer and the effect the disease can have on the family and friends of patients.