Juanita Moore, the Oscar-nominated star of Imitation of Life, has died at the age of 99. The actor, who played alongside Lana Turner in Douglas Sirk’s 1959 race drama, died at home, according to her grandson, actor Kirk Kelleykahn.
In Imitation of Life, Moore played a Black single mother who befriends Turner’s character, a widow whose dreams of becoming a Broadway star are complicated by her responsibility for her own young child.
Susan Kohner, who played Moore’s daughter Sarah Jane as a teenager in the film, told The Hollywood Reporter that Moore was “a lovely human being with a wonderful sense of humor.”
Both Kohner and Moore were nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar in 1959. Moore was only the fifth Black woman to be nominated for the award. She lost out to Shelley Winters, who claimed the award for her performance in The Diary of Anne Frank.
Moore started her career as a dancer at Harlem’s Cotton Club, and made her film debut with a bit-part in Pinky, which – like Imitation of Life – examined the experience of a Black woman “passing for white” in mid-20th-century America. Other notable appearances included roles in The Girl Can’t Help It and The Singing Nun. Her last feature was as a grandma in the Disney film The Kid, in which Bruce Willis plays a cynical image consultant who gets a shot at redemption when he magically meets his 8-year-old self.
Moore is survived by her husband, Charles Burris, her grandson and two nephews.
Source: guardian.co.uk
