Owen Moore

Biography

Owen Moore stepped off the boat from County Meath in 1895—an eleven-year-old with copper-bright hair that would later glow on silent screens. By 1908 he had traded New York theater dust for the flicker of Biograph’s lamps, catching D. W. Griffith’s eye and becoming one of the studio’s first rugged heart-throbs. In 1911 he quietly married the girl with the golden curls, Mary Pickford; together they spun fairy-tale light—he the prince in Cinderella (1914) and the swashbuckling hero opposite her in Mistress Nell (1915). When Pickford’s heart galloped off to Douglas Fairbanks, the marriage unraveled, the divorce finalized in 1920. Moore rebounded, wedding actress Kathleen Perry in 1922; they co-starred in a string of silents and stayed together until his final breath. A mellow baritone lived in that leading-man chest, but sound arrived too late—by 1930 his brand of suave had slipped out of fashion. His farewell appearance came as a weary film director guiding Janet Gaynor in A Star Is Born (1937). Three brothers—Tom, Matt, and Joe—also faced the cameras; sister Mary took a brief stab at acting. Only Owen reached marquee heights, thanks in part to the Pickford spotlight. The four acting siblings shared a single screen, the 1929 melodrama Side Street. Their mother, character player Mary Moore, left Hollywood for an Irish title, becoming Lady Wyndham before her death in 1931. On 9 June 1939, a heart attack stilled Moore at 54, leaving Kathleen a widow and silencing one of the medium’s earliest matinee idols.