Dickie Moore

Actor.

Born: September 12, 1925.

Died: September 7, 2015.

Dickie Moore, who has died five days before his 90th birthday, made his film debut as a baby, playing the legendary John Barrymore’s character in the silent film The Beloved Rogue in 1927.

He went on to become a child star, played one of the main characters in the Our Gang series in the early 1930s, had the title role in the 1933 version of Oliver Twist and controversially gave Shirley Temple her first kiss in Miss Annie Rooney in 1942 when she was 13 and he was 16.

By his mid-twenties Moore had appeared in around 100 films, but his popularity ebbed as he grew older. Latterly he worked with Equity, the actors’ union, set up a public relations company and wrote a book about child stars, entitled Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star: But Don’t Have Sex or Take the Car (1984).

One of his interviewees was Jane Powell, a child actress who went on to star as an adult in Royal Wedding (1951) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). They married in 1988. She was Moore’s third wife and he was her fifth husband.

John Richard Moore was born in Los Angeles in 1925. A casting director saw him and asked his mother if they could use him in The Beloved Rogue. She was reluctant, but Moore’s father was out of work and they needed money. The Beloved Rogue led to other roles and soon as he was the family breadwinner.

By the time he joined Our Gang in 1932 Moore was already a veteran of more than 30 shorts and features and an established star – he played Marlene Dietrich’s son in Blonde Venus that same year. He was so used to signing photographs for fans that he just automatically signed a birthday card to his mother “Your friend, Dickie Moore”.

Our Gang featured a troupe of spirited, young children, who got up to all sorts of mischief together. The series began in 1922 and continued into the 1940s. It was notable for the way in which it presented the playmates as equals, irrespective of race, gender, size or shape. Jean Darling, who appeared in the series in the silent era, died just three days before Moore.

Moore appeared in only eight of the Our Gang films, but was prominent within the group. He subsequently moved on to other films, with considerable success, at least in the short to medium term. He played Gary Cooper’s brother in Sergeant York (1941) and had a key role as Robert Mitchum’s deaf assistant in the classic film noir Build My Gallows High (1947), aka Out of the Past.

He is survived by his wife Jane Powell and a son from his first marriage.

BRIAN PENDREIGH