* the famous  Colleen Moore ! *

by kayla kurtzman

Colleen Moore, originally born Kathleen Morrison was born on august 19,1900 in Huran Michigan to a small middle class family. she later moved to tampa florida as a child, where she studied the piano. as she got older her interests in the theatrical area grew stronger. she was able to become a film actress at age 18, with the help of her uncle Walter Howey. who was the editor of the chicago tribune and the instrumental. her first starring role was as Annie, in the victorian version of Little Orphan Annie in 1918. some other famous films she starred in were: The Busher with Charles Ray and John Gilbert in 1919. The Sky Pilot with John Bowers in 1921, and The Lotus Eater with John Barrymore in 1921. 

     Colleen was most famous for her movie, Flaming Youth in 1923 ( in the pictures below) this movie is when colleen had decided to cut her hair into the bob form, and become celebrity over night, it also   helped start the trend known as the flapper. 

during the production of the flaming youth Colleen met and married a man named John McCormik. they had a small secretive wedding at st. thomas churh were only close family and friends attended. only on the night of their wedding did Moore find out she married a complete drunken idiot. they later bought a home  

on 503 Rossmore avenue for about 50,000 dollars. some where between 1925 and 1929 moore divorced McCormek due to his serious drinking problems, and his issue known today as bipolar disease. in 1929 while taking a hiatus from her acting career moore remarried to a newyork city stock broker named albert parker scott, which was only 1 out of her 4 husbands. by 1933 she was one again divorced and returned to hollywood shortly after. later down the line in 1934 she appeared in 3 more films that were highly successful and then later on retired that same year. she then once again remarried to a single widower named homer hargrave in 1936. she then become a stay at home mother for his children he had from a previous marriage, and continued a life long relationship with him. she stayed with him in chicago until his death in 1964. after about a year of mourning she met a film star named Michael Kutza and once again rebuilt her movie career after being happy that she was finally a private person. she moved back to californa in 1971 and built el ranchito, a western style ranch in the hills of Paso Robles. yet her fairytale castle was still a constant in her mind. she was making over 12,500 dollars a week. but instead of wasting her money on clothes shoes and accessories, she was to busy saving her money to build her fairytale dream. she dreamed of always living in a fairytale world. she collected pictures of them and eventually started building small ones in her attic. she built her first actual castle when she was married to john McCormek in hawaii. her 5th and final castle was built in chicago which is shown in the picture below.

Colleen made one final appearance on the tv show HollyWood in 1980 . after she retired from the hollywood life shewrote two books on stockbroking and actually wrote a couple of children books. she finally died on january 25, 1988 she was 87 years old. she died of an unknown form of cancer.

                                                                                 BIBLIOGRAPHY  

www.colleenmoore.org

www.goldensilents.com

www.geocites.com/hollywood/theater/moore

www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/2440/moore