Demi Moore - Background and Early Life

Background and Early Life

Moore was born in Roswell, New Mexico. Prior to Moore's birth, her biological father, Air Force man Charles Harmon, Sr. left her mother, Virginia (née King), after a two-month marriage. When Moore was three months old, her mother married Dan Guynes, a newspaper advertising salesman who frequently changed jobs; as a result, the family moved a great many times. Moore said in 1991, "My dad was Dan Guynes. He raised me. There is a man who would be considered my biological father who I don't really have a relationship with." Moore learned of him at age 13, when she found her mother and stepfather's marriage certificate and inquired about the circumstances since "I saw my parents were married in February 1963. I was born in '62." Dan Guynes committed suicide in October 1980 at age 37, two years after divorcing Moore's mother. Moore's biological father appeared on Inside Edition in 1995, making an appeal to see his grandchildren. Virginia Guynes had a long record of arrests for crimes, including drunk driving and arson. Moore broke off contact with her in 1990, when Guynes walked away from a rehab stay Moore had paid for at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. Guynes later embarrassed her daughter by posing nude for the low-end magazine High Society in 1993, where she spoofed Moore's controversial Vanity Fair pregnancy and bodypaint covers, and parodied her love scene from the film Ghost. Moore and Guynes briefly reconciled shortly before Guynes died of cancer in July 1998 at age 54.

Moore has a maternal half-brother, Morgan Guynes, who in 1988 was a U.S. Marine stationed in North Carolina, and gave her away at her wedding the previous year; two paternal half-brothers, Charles Harmon Jr. and James Craig Harmon (b. 1974) who in 2006 was sentenced to 10 years in jail for aggravated assault; and a paternal half-sister, Charlotte Harmon Eggar, who in 2012 said she had not seen Moore in 30 years.

Moore was cross-eyed as a child; this was ultimately corrected by two surgeries. She also suffered from kidney dysfunction. At age 15, Moore moved to West Hollywood, California, where her mother worked for a magazine-distribution company. Moore attended Fairfax High School there, and recalled, "I moved out of my family's house when I was 16 and left high school in my junior year." She worked at a debt collection agency and had a stint as a pin-up girl in Europe upon signing with the Elite Modeling Agency, then enrolled in drama classes after being inspired by her neighbor, 17-year-old German actress Nastassja Kinski. In August 1979, three months before her 17th birthday, Moore met musician Freddy Moore at the Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour. Freddy Moore was married to another woman at that time. In February 1980, six months after they met, Freddy and Demi were married and moved into an apartment in West Hollywood.