Joanna Moore

Armed with an entrancing whiskey-like voice that complemented her stunning, creamy blonde looks, Southern-bred beauty Joanna Moore had so much going for her when her film and TV career first took off in the late 50s. Sadly, what began as an exciting Hollywood carnival ride would all too soon careen out of control and turn into a dangerous and tragic roller coaster ride filled with personal and professional ups and downs. Born Dorothy Joan Cook on November 10, 1934, in Americus, Georgia, Joanna was the elder daughter of Dorothy Martha (née English) and Henry Anderson Cook III. A fatal car accident in 1941 took the lives of both her mother and baby sister. When her father died from his severe injuries a year later, 7-year-old Joanna lived with her grandmother. When she was too feeble to care, Joanna was adopted locally by a well-to-do family and her name changed from Dorothy to Joanna. In 1951, the 16-year-old girl married and divorced another teenager, Willis Moore, and divorced him within the year. She later enrolled at Agnes Scott, a woman's college in Decatur, Georgia (near Atlanta). Around this time, Joanna won a local Georgia beauty contest that would take her straight to Hollywood. Spotted at a party by a Universal producer, the actress was tested and quickly signed. A brief, impulsive marriage (1956-1957) to minor actor Don Oreck also occurred during this early career stage. She began as a lovely presence on such TV anthologies as "Lux Video Theatre," "Goodyear Theatre," "Studio One in Hollywood" and "Kraft Theatre," and also found work in top female lead and second lead roles in "B" movies. She started out promisingly as handsome George Nader's love interest in the film noir Appointment with a Shadow (1957), directed by Richard Carlson wherein both play crime reporters -- he with an alcohol problem. She followed this with second femme roles in both the western comedy Slim Carter (1957) starring Julie Adams and Jock Mahoney as the title country singer, and the romantic drama Flood Tide (1958), which reunited her with Nader. After Orson Welles gave her a small cryptic role in his classic film noir Touch of Evil (1958), Joanna went on to a secondary femme role in the Audie Murphy western Ride a Crooked Trail (1958) and co-starred as Arthur Franz's fiancée in the cult sci-fi horror programmer Monster on the Campus (1958) with Franz playing a Jekyll and Hyde college professor who turns ape caveman-like thanks to his radioactive exposure. She ended the decade with another second femme role in an "A" picture -- The Last Angry Man (1959) starring Oscar-nominated Paul Muni as a Jewish doctor and featuring Joanna in a romantic subplot involving married TV producer David Wayne. In the early 1960s, Joanna suffered severe auditory nerve loss (otosclerosis) to the point of having to read lips. An operation thankfully restored her hearing (in one ear) in 1962. By this time, Joanna had moved more towards TV and enjoyed guest parts on such dramatic shows as "Bourbon Street Beat," "Maverick," "The Rifleman," "Bat Masterson," "Tales of Wells Fargo," "The Rebel," "Adventures in Paradise" and "The Untouchables," with a few comedy shows such as "Bachelor Father" and "The Real McCoys" thrown in for good measure. Joanna went on to portray more than a few wily females on screen as she did with her neurotic "Miss Precious" in the drama Walk on the Wild Side (1962), sexy "Alisha Claypoole" in the Elvis Presley vehicle Follow That Dream (1962), and Southern belle "Desiree de La Roche" in the light-hearted Disney comedy Son of Flubber (1963). She played the same kind of crafty gals on such TV shows as "Perry Mason," "Route 66," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Bewitched" and "The Wild Wild West." She is perhaps best remembered, however, for her down-home benevolent role of Peggy, the four-episode girlfriend of Sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) in the third season of TV's The Andy Griffith Show (1960). At the peak of her career, Joanna married her third husband, the "Prince Charming" actor Ryan O'Neal, on April 3, 1963. O'Neal would soon make a huge TV impact as handsome but troubled "Rodney Harrington" on the prime time soaper Peyton Place (1964). The exceptionally good-looking couple became a popular Hollywood twosome and went on to have two children who also became actors: Tatum O'Neal and Griffin O'Neal. Joanna's marriage to O'Neal was stormy, to say the least, and they divorced in February, 1967. Joanna went into a gradual but deep decline after her divorce from O'Neal. Depression set in and she developed a severe amphetamine and alcohol addiction. Multiple arrests over time for drunk driving (one much later resulted in the loss of three fingers) led to her losing custody of her children in 1970. That same year she checked into a state hospital for psychiatric treatment. Sadly, both her children, Tatum and Griffin, would battle similar substance abuse problems as adults. There was also talk that Joanna was growing more and more bizarre, living in self-styled communes and isolating herself from any Hollywood contact. She went on to marry and divorce a third and fourth time. For awhile Joanna managed to stay afloat on both film with such occasional second-string offers as the sci-fi chiller Countdown (1967); the comedy caper Never a Dull Moment (1968); the "bikersploitation" yarn J.C. (1972) and the all-star thriller The Hindenburg (1975). She also co-starred in the TV adaptation of Three Coins in the Fountain (1970) with Yvonne Craig and Cynthia Pepper and was seen fairly regularly on such late 1960's TV programs as "The Virginian," "Judd for the Defense," "The High Chaparral," "The F.B.I.," "The Name of the Game," "The Waltons," "Kung Fu," "Bronk," "Police Story," "Petrocelli" and "The Blue Knight." After this, however, Joanna's personal life unravel dramatically, which spilled into her professional career. By the late 1970s, Joanna, still abusing drugs and alcohol, had to be supported financially by daughter, Tatum, now an Oscar-winning film star. Little was heard for nearly a decade when it was learned that the actress was living in the Palm Springs area (Indian Wells) involving herself in small theater projects. A long-time smoker, Joanna was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1996 and died a year later on November 22, 1997, age 63, with Tatum by her side. She was interred at Oak Grove Cemetery in her hometown of Americus, Georgia. In 2015, grandson Kevin Jack McEnroe (son of Tatum and her then-husband/tennis star John McEnroe) published a gripping novel entitled Our Town, a "fictionalized account" of the damaging effects of substance abuse on a family. It is said to be strongly based on his own grandmother's devastating struggles.