Joanna Moore

Moore was born in Americus, Georgia. Her birth name was Dorothy Joanne Cook. She had a younger sister named Dorothy Martha and a brother named Henry Anderson Cook. While traveling, she encountered a car accident which killed her mother and sister on the spot. His father also died a year later due to the injuries he got in that accident. She got her name Joanna from her adopted parents. She first got married as a teen in 1951 to Willis Moore whom she divorced in the same year. She began studying after the divorce from Agnes Scoot College, Decatur, Georgia. Her inclination towards acting and modeling began when she participated in a beauty contest which she also won. Her career began after being noticed by a Universal Studio’s producer.

The year 1950's marked the beginning of her entry into the television industry as well as the film industry. Her first TV show appearance was in an episode of Lux Video Theatre in 1956. She made her film debut with the movie Appointment with a Shadow in 1957. She did a few more episodes in shows like Goodyear Theatre and Harbourmaster. She had small roles in movies like Slim Carter, Touch of Evil and bigger more important roles in Monster on the Campus and Ride a Crooked Trail. During 1958 and 1959, she did several small guest appearances on TV shows like The Rough Riders, Bat Masterson, Riverboat, Perry Mason Serial Story Coming Soon... >> Read More... , and so on.

During the beginning of the 1960s, she continued starring on a few episodes of The Rebel, Five Fingers, The Untouchables, Empire and many more. In 1962, she starred in Walk on the Wild Side and also in a musical called Follow That Dream alongside Elvis Presley Elvis Presley (Elvis Aaron Presley) was a pioneer >> Read More... . She appeared as the love interest of the Sheriff in four episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. After doing another movie called Son of Flubber, she started to do guest appearances again. She starred on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Peyton Place, The Iron Horse, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre and so on as a guest. In an episode of Bewitched dedicated to Charlie Harper’s Winner, she took the role of Daphne Harper.

Until 1986, she did a lot of guest appearances in a many shows and movies along with a full appearance in a TV version of Three Coins in the Fountain. She was married to Ryan O’Neal for three years (1963-1966) with whom she had two children, one of which became the youngest highest-paid Academy Award winning child actor. Their divorce became final a year later 1967. During this divorce, her health worsened due to her addiction to alcohol and drugs. She got married again to Gary L. Reeves in 1975 but got a divorce in 1977. Being a smoker, she got lung cancer in 1996, which led to her death in 1977.