#terry moore

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

Terry Moore

Starlet Terry Moore poses with her cats in 1948. Terry purportedly "married" eccentric billionaire aviator and filmmaker Howard Hughes the following year on a yacht in international waters off the coast of Mexico. Stating that they never divorced, making Hughes a bigamist when he married actress Jean Peters in 1957, and Moore married three other men prior to Howard's death, making her a serial-bigamist, Terry filed suit against the vast Hughes estate following Howard's passing in 1976. Of the many such claims made by others, and despite having zero proof of their marriage, Terry was one of the very few who was granted a large settlement, receiving an undisclosed amount in 1984 (which she said "was not more than eight figures"---a Hughes biographer later wrote that the amount was more likely in the vicinity of $350,000) after the Hughes heirs agreed that she'd indeed proven she'd had a long relationship with Howard, whether a marriage occurred or not. At the time of this post in July of 2026, Terry is still alive at the age of 97 and recently appeared in the film Silent Life: The Story of the Lady in Black, starring as the mysterious woman who left flowers at the crypt of silent screen star Rudolph Valentino for a number of decades.

Art by: Terry Moore

Art by Terry Moore

James Dean with Terry Moore at the premiere of Sabrina (1954) on September 22, 1954.