Dickie Moore, who had been one of the most highly sought-after child and youth actors during the 1930s and 1940s, has died:
Child actor Dickie Moore, who was in “Our Gang” comedies and numerous notable films, was so used to the limelight by the time he was 6 that when he got a birthday card for his mother, he signed it, “Your friend, Dickie Moore.”
But like many child actors, his transition to adulthood was difficult.
“People don’t want to see you as you are now, but as you were then,” he said in a 1984 Associated Press interview, “because that’s what they remember, and enjoyed, and made money off of.”
Moore, 89, who eventually became successful apart from acting and had a long marriage with actress Jane Powell, died Sept. 7 in a Connecticut hospital.
He had more than 100 roles in movies and television in a career that lasted from 1927 to 1957. The films in which he had roles included some of the best movies of the 1930s and 40s including The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Life of Emile Zola, Heaven Can Wait, The Song of Bernadette, and Out of the Past.
He gave Shirley Temple her first screen kiss in Miss Annie Rooney (1942), a peck on the cheek. When he met her again, many years later, he was nervous. In her characteristic manner she is said to have pointed to her cheek and said “Kiss me there, like last time.”
