Once a pretty, sultry teenage model with a slightly subdued, aloof quality, Moore evolved into one of the top female screen stars of the 1990s. She began as a regular on ABC's staple of daytime drama, "General Hospital"; her husky voice and hushed line delivery seemed to lend itself well to the tense plots. Moore soon segued to features, making her debut in "Choices" (1981). She went on to appear in Charles Band's "Parasite" (1982) and Garry Marshall's "Young Doctors in Love" (1982). In 1984 she became a Hollywood mainstay, playing Michael Caine's vulnerable young daughter in "Blame It on Rio" and a callous model in "No Small Affair". Moore joined the female contingent of the "brat-pack", co-starring in "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985) and "Wisdom" (1986), a road movie directed by her then-fiancé Emilio Estevez.
Moore graduated to adult roles as the prophecy-bearing mother in "The Seventh Sign" (1988), a foul-talking hooker in Neil Jordan's misfire "We're No Angels" (1989) and the mourning, teary-eyed lover in the surprise hit "Ghost" (1990). She gave one of her better performances and moved into production when she co-produced Alan Rudolph's intriguing "Mortal Thoughts" (1991). The extremely popular "A Few Good Men" (1992) kept her in the public eye but the military courtroom proceedings largely kept her sidelined dramatically as the more prominent male characters occupied center stage. Moore shed more tears as Woody Harrelson's wife who sleeps with Robert Redford for a million dollars in Adrian Lyne's popular "Indecent Proposal" (1993). In Barry Levinson's thriller "Disclosure" (1994), she received a chance to shed her "nice girl" image, playing a ruthless corporate executive who becomes the target of a sexual harassment suit lodged by a disappointed employee and former lover, played by Michael Douglas. While many reviewers slammed the film for its skittish treatment of the issue, its implausibility and irrelevance to real world concerns, Moore received some favorable notices for her icy turn.
Moore made her debut in a costume epic as adulteress Hester Prynne in the misconceived and unpopular adaptation of Hawthorne's classic "The Scarlet Letter" (1995) opposite Gary Oldman and then segued to more contemporary times in "Now and Then" (1995), a drama she also co-produced focusing on childhood friendships. She followed with the title role of "The Juror" (1996) as a single mother pressured to influence a jury by a gangster (Alec Baldwin). Moore could also be heard as the voice of Esmerelda in Disney's animated version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (also 1996). She solidified her stature in Hollywood with a reported $12.5 million salary to play a single mother who turns to exotic dancing in "Striptease" (also 1996), making her the highest-paid actress in Hollywood.
After a string of financial disappointments, Moore bounced back with "G.I. Jane" (1997), in which she played a female recruit training for the Navy SEALs. Receiving wildly mixed reviews, the film placed Number One at the box office. Perhaps signaling an upswing in her career, Moore also had a featured role as a psychiatrist in Woody Allen's "Deconstructing Harry" (1997) and then disappeared from movie screens for a lengthy stretch, retreating to Idaho to raise her daughters and appearing only in the public eye during media coverage of her 1998 split with Bruce Willis. Dipping her toes back into Hollywood waters in 2000, Moore took the lead role in the well-received but little-seen fantasy thriller "Passion of Mind," in which she played a woman living two entirely different lives—a widowed Rhode Island mom and a fast-track Manhattan literary agent--in two separate timelines, each dreaming about the other and neither knowing which life is actually the real one.
Another three years would pass before Moore would make another film, playing the villainous "fallen Angel" Madison Lee in the 2003 sequel "Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle" after being heavily recruited by star/producer Drew Barrymore, who conceived the role specifically for Moore. Looking unbelievably well-preserved and gorgeous at age 40—with the help of some strategic plastic surgery, speculation abounded—Moore made a major impact on-screen and off-screen nearly walked away with all of the film's publicity due to her high-profile relationship with 25-year-old actor Ashton Kutcher. Though many initially scoffed at the coupling and claimed it was a publicity stunt, the relationship endured and they married in September 2005 in a traditional Kabbalah ceremony.
Moore returned to onscreen vitality in an attempt to remake herself into a serious actress with a strong performance in “Bobby” (2006), former hubby-to-be Emilio Estevez’s engaging look at the 16 hours prior to Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles as seen through the eyes of several guests and employees. She played aging lounge singer and raging alcoholic, Virginia Fallon, a role Moore was at first was reluctant to take because of the similarities to her mother, Virginia, who had a long, losing battle with booze. Starring opposite heavyweights Anthony Hopkins, William H. Macy and Helen Hunt, Moore held her own—and even stole a few scenes—with her mature and emotionally charged performance. After a nine-minute standing ovation at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, critical kudos were heaped upon the film and talk of an Oscar nod for Moore circulated. Moore continued her comeback with starring roles in “Mr. Brooks” (2007), a thriller where she played a detective investigating a serial killer (Kevin Costner), and “Flawless” (lensed 2006), where she played an executive at a London-based diamond firm who teams up with an almost-retired janitor (Michael Caine) in a plot to steal from their employers.