Demi Goddess
      by Michael Dare

      (Originally printed in Daily Variety - 1991)

           First there's the voice. You feel like asking her to clear her throat, but then you realize that she's not sick, she always sounds this way. Her huskiness enters your ears, but something happens to it before it reaches your brain. It turns into syrup, coating your apples with caramel. You can taste it. It's a trans-sensual voice, a gourmet vocal experience, full of burnt offerings. If the world were populated only with blind men, Demi Moore would still be one of the sexiest women on earth.
           Then there's the body, barely gracing the current cover of Rolling Stone. You picture every father in America showing that cover to their wives, pointing out the hourglass waist, the perfectly dimpled naval, exclaiming "This is what she looks like after having two babies." Demi Moore must be to blame for more female inferiority complexes than Dolly Parton.
           Of course it takes more than a body and a voice to be a superstar. Intelligence is Demi's ultimate aphrodisiac. Her head is the real secret of her appeal. She doesn't play bimbos. Her brains shine through her roles, attracting and intimidating all the men around her. With elegance and openness, she proves it's possible to be sultry and exude innocence at the same time. Guys on the make, trying to pick her up, know that the standard lines won't work. She sees through them, making them want to beg, but begging doesn't work, and neither does a million dollars, which only buys her body, not her soul.
          She was born Nov. 11, 1962 as Demetria Guynes in Roswell, New Mexico. Her teenage parents moved 48 times before she graduated from high school and left home before the age of 16.
           Five years later, she got her first break - a part in General Hospital as Luke's new leading lady. Laura Templeton (Janine Turner) had disappeared into a fog and was presumed dead. Enter Demi as her feisty lookalike sister Jackie Templeton. She sizzled with Luke for a while till he ditched her for Emma Samms.
           Then came several wacky comedies and one widescreen 3D horror flick. Soon, her career spiraled into the stratosphere.
           My personal favorites include The Seventh Sign, where Demi is pregnant with Michael Biehn's baby and the fate of the whole goddam planet is at stake. Talk about unnatural childbirth. With outrageous symbolism and intense performances, this is a film that takes the scriptures so earnestly it makes them look like bad science fiction. And so it was spoken that mankind would come to an unspeakable end through spectacular art direction. It's terrific trash.
           In Mortal Thoughts, Joyce (Glenne Headley) kills her macho scumbag of a husband (Bruce Willis). Nobody really minds, much less her best friend Cynthia (Demi Moore). Their conspiracy to hide the truth gets them in trouble. It's a perfect double bill with Thelma and Louise.

           In Ghost, she played a woman worth coming back from the dead for. It was her first blockbuster, with her most heartfelt performance. Once again, the filmmakers took an absurd concept and ran with it, creating a non-stop tear-fest that even had confirmed macho bachelors blubbering in the aisle.
           Then she got tough, playing a marine in A Few Good Men, holding her own against two of Hollywoods most capable scenery chewers.
           Now that she finally plays strong women in total control of their destiny, it's only fitting she would eventually evolve into the bad guy. In Disclosure, she comes on to Michael Douglas so strong that it demands the strongest leap of faith to believe that he actually would turn down what Robert Redford was just willing to pay a million dollars for.
           Like all self-manufactured stars, her personal life melds into her professional life as an equal source of her fame. She started out with Emilio Estevez, but who didn't. Then she made a move that seemed beyond possibility. Julia Roberts may have captured the lead singer in the band, but Demi tamed the bartender. Bruce Willis had a well deserved reputation as the baddest boy in town. Now he's Mr. Mom.
           They met in 1987 at a screening of Stakeout, married at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, then again later that year by Little Richard on the beach at Malibu. She handled marriage and motherhood in a brand new way.
          Sure she pranced around naked in About Last Night, but it didn't have nearly the skyrocket effect of posing for the cover of Vanity Fair. Her pregnant Vanity Fair cover blurred the distinction between performance art and feminist statement. It demanded that all women take pride in their procreativity and that all men take responsibility for their actions. It was a disclosure far beyond Marilyn Monroe's Playboy calender or Nastasia Kinski with the snake, a celebration beyond sex and beyond motherhood. It was the deepest embodiment of everything female, the one profoundly attractive nude photo that certainly doesn't grace the back walls of a single garage. It's hard to imagine another actress who could have pulled this off, sailing above the controversy with her integrity intact. If you don't think the August '91 issue of Vanity Fair was a landmark in publishing, just try to find a copy of it today. In my personal quest to see it again, I discovered that it was stolen from every local library.
          Demi is the anti-Madonna, devoted to motherhood rather than hedonism. Her star has just begun to shine.
       
       

       


       


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