Cleo Moore is another of the glamour era's Hollywood
blonde bombshells. Baton Rouge born Moore fit the Hollywood
lifestyle to a tee. Whatever she lacked in acting talent, she made up for
with her talent for outlandish publicity stunts, ala Jayne
Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren.
Moore
started her career, like most, doing pin-up work. She soon found herself
on the big screen doing lurid films for director
Hugo Haas
like "Thy Neighbor's Wife" and "Bait." But what she is most known for is
her ability to get her name in the papers and magazines. Take for example
her famous feuds with fellow (and more famous) pin-up and movie star
Anita
Ekberg. The Swedish Ekberg made the comment that
American women were immature and childish.
Moore went on
a media crusade (mostly to help her own career) to prove that American
women could measure up, in every sense. (Click here
to read a story from
Modern Man magazine from 1961 called
"The Great Glamazon Gambit.") Sadly, Moore's on-screen
success could never match the hype she generated off-screen.
|