Background
Moore was born in Sioux City, Iowa, but her family moved away when she was aged six months and she spent most of her formative years in Dallas, Texas.
Moore was born in Sioux City, Iowa, but her family moved away when she was aged six months and she spent most of her formative years in Dallas, Texas.
Her most noted work was in wartime musicals such as Show Business and Atlantic City and the classic 1939 movie serial Buck Rogers, in which she played Wilma Deering, the only female character in the serial. All she wanted was to sing, and in the 1930s she got a job with Columbia Broadcasting System radio. While working on one of their musical series she impressed a scout from Universal Studios and signed a contract with them.
Among the stars she worked with was West. C. Fields in You Can"t Cheat an Honest Manitoba (1939).
She appeared on Broadway in the musical By Jupiter. She retired from films in 1947 but made sporadic appearances over the next few decades.
She appeared on a United Service Organizations tour with Bob Hope and the Nicholas Brothers in 1951. She painted still lifes and in 1976 was the chairperson for the Braille Institute Auxiliary in Beverly Hills, California.
Moore married her agent, John Maschio, when she was eighteen.
They were together until his death in 1998. Moore guest starred as Doris in the episode "Just a Housewife" (1960) on the American Broadcasting Company sitcom, The Donna Reed Show. In the 1961-1962 season, Moore co-starred in ten episodes on Columbia Broadcasting System as Robert Young"s romantic interest in his short-lived nostalgia series, Window on Main Street.
The series also featured Ford Rainey as a newspaper editor and the then child actor Tim Matheson.
Moore died September 16, 2005, at the age of 85 following a long illness. She was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Los Los Angeles
Moore was survived by two children, two sisters, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild.