Dickie Moore, 1925-2015

Dickie Moore with Barbara Stanwyck in So Big

The death has been announced of child star Dickie Moore. Moore would have turned 90 tomorrow and died at the beginning of the week, although his death wasn't announced until last night.

Moore started his career in silents as an infant and worked until the early 1950s, with his final film being Member of the Wedding as the young man Julie Harris playing 12 meets when she tries to run away. After that he apparently had a successful career in publicity, until writing about being a child star in the book Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in the late 1980s. This brought him in contact with fellow thespian Jane Powell, and the two of them married in 1988; Powell survives him.

I'm not certain what my favorite Moore film would be, but one that comes to mind is The Star Witness, in part because it doesn't have Moore as the child version of a character who grows up; that is, not a movie where the character is presented over a large portion of life and Moore's character would be written out after the first act. In The Star Witness, Moore actually has a relatively substantial role and is critical to the plot.

Moore also plays the deaf mute who works for Robert Mitchum's character in Out of the Past, although that one is a smaller role for Moore.

I haven't seen yet whether or when TCM will be doing a programming tribute to Moore.