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Fri 21 February 2025 20:15, UK
Demi Moore hit the peak of her stardom in the 1990s following the box office juggernaut of Ghost. She was the highest-paid female star in Hollywood during that period and doubled down on her status with hit movies like 1992’s A Few Good Men and 1993’s Indecent Proposal. Given the level of her fame in the ’90s, it’s easy to forget that she got her start in the ’80s with the group of young actors known as the Brat Pack.
Comprised mostly of actors who had had their career breakthroughs in John Hughes movies, the Brat Pack included everyone from Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe to Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy. Moore was a late addition to the group. She was never in a Hughes movie and had only appeared in three features when she made the coming-of-age drama St Elmo’s Fire with a hoard of members from the unofficial gang. It was a turning point in her career, but it also turned out to be a life-or-death experience.
From her late teens, Moore struggled with substance abuse, specifically cocaine. When director Joel Schumacher cast her to play Jules in St Elmo’s Fire, she was only 21 years old, but she was at the lowest point in her addiction. One afternoon, during wardrobe fittings for the film, Schumacher walked in and threatened to fire her if she so much as had a single drink while the movie was in production, humiliating her in front of a group of peers. Later, a studio executive informed her that he had set up an appointment at a rehab clinic for the next day.
When she arrived at the facility, Moore realised that she was being booked in for a 30-day in-patient stint to get sober. “We’re starting to shoot a movie in 16 days,” she remembered telling the head administrator in her memoir when she tried to refuse admittance.
“What’s more important? The film or your life?” the woman shot back. “The film!” Moore exclaimed. She knew how crucial it was for her career and cared more about making it than she did about her own wellbeing. The next day, Schumacher and two of the movie’s producers showed up at the clinic to tell her that they had arranged the treatment and that if she could stay sober and complete the thirty-step recovery process in 15 days, they would keep her in the movie.
The actor was struck by how much they stuck their necks out for her. At the time, she wasn’t a star. She hardly had any credits on her CV and was a relative unknown. There were also six other members of the primary cast, most of whom were famous. They could have replaced her with any young Hollywood hopeful and it wouldn’t have altered the film’s prospects.
“To this day, I see this as some version of divine intervention,” the actor wrote. “If I’d had to give up the movie and go through the programme to get sober for myself, I doubt I would have done it. I just didn’t value myself enough for that.”But with the movie and a potential career at stake, as well as the “enormous show of support” from Schumacher and the studio executives, she had something much bigger to fight for.
The film changed her life, turning her into one of Hollywood’s rising stars, but she believed that St Elmo’s Fire also saved it.
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