Terry Moore Announces Her Retirement And Her Last Film Role As She Stars In "Silent Life" As The Lady In Black

Oscar-nominated (Come Back, Little Sheba) actress Terry Moore, joins the cast of Silent Life as the mysterious Lady in Black, announced writer/director/star of the film, Vladislav Kozlov, who produced the film under his Dreamer Pictures banner. 

The film will be Moore's final curtain call as an actress, and she will retire after shooting her scenes, announced Moore.

"The character of 'The Lady in Black,' who visits Valentino's grave each year with a single red rose, the symbol of unspoken love, is dressed in all black not only because she is mourning the death of Rudolph Valentino, but she is mourning the whole classic Hollywood bygone era," said Kozlov.


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The Oscar-nominated actress portrays the mysterious mourner who visited Rudolph Valentino's grave for several decades and left a single rose every year on the anniversary of his death. The Ode to the Classic Era of Silent Films and the World's First Male Sex Symbol also Stars Isabella Rossellini, Franco Nero, and Director Vladislav Kozlov as Rudolph Valentino.

Silent Life is a period piece shot in historic Hollywood locations and features Franco Nero and Isabella Rossellini. The film tells the story of Rudolph Valentino, the first Hollywood superstar and male sex symbol, as he ponders the most important philosophical questions of human existence from his deathbed. In the film, Valentino sits in an imaginary empty movie theatre as he, and the audience watches his life flicker like a silent movie on the screen.

After Valentino's unexpected death in 1926, a mysterious Lady in Black continued to visit his grave on the anniversary of his death with a single red rose, her identity hidden by a black veil.

In Silent Life, a group of young journalists encounter a mysterious elderly woman clad in all black, hiding her face and her secrets behind a veil, at Rudolph Valentino's annual memorial service. She is the legendary Lady in Black, who has been coming annually to Valentino's grave for untold decades, always bringing a single red rose. The team attempts to convince this solemn mourner to reveal her secret: was she really the last love of "The Great Lover" as the legend has it?

Silent Life teaser direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIjc8aLVoJk&t=2s 

"Terry Moore is a fantastic actress, and her enthusiasm and energy are contagious.  To have her play the Lady in Black is an honor and a thrill. And she has such GREAT Hollywood stories! Hollywood can sometimes seem like a cult of youth. Most older actresses do not get any significant leading roles merely due to their age, and I hope that changes.  Terry is gorgeous, inside and out; her talent and beauty are timeless." said Kozlov.

Terry Moore, born in 1929, was the leading lady in the Mighty Joe Young (1949) during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Terry knew Elvis, was best friends with Marilyn Monroe, dated James Dean, and starred in dozens of films in the 1950s, in addition to her many television roles, including 3 episodes of Batman with Adam West. In 1984, she made news as Howard Hughes' widow, posing for Playboy when she was in her 50s. Ms. Moore's most notable performance was in 1952's Come Back, Little Sheba for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress.

"I love acting.  I love to work.  I love this town.  However, roles for women my age are few and far between. When Vlad offered me the role of "The Lady in Black" in Silent Life, his homage to the 1920's, and to classic Hollywood, the parallels to my own Hollywood era, the '40s and '50s being in the rear-view mirror were not lost on me," said Moore.


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"I'm thankful for the career I've had.  Would I like to work more?  Sure!  But, I think going out on a high, on my own terms, after working on this hauntingly beautiful film, is the way to do it.  I have gratitude for, and give sincere thanks to everyone who helped me over my career, the producers, the studios, the fans, the movie-going public, and the kind strangers who come up and say 'hi' all the time!" added Moore.

Silent Life writer/director/actor Vladislav Kozlov has taken the road less travelled in his journey to bring his bio-picture about the life and death and post-death of the first Hollywood male sex symbol Rudolph Valentino to audiences.  In 2006 with the support of Hollywood Forever cemetery, Kozlov made a 17-minute silent short film, Daydreams of Rudolph Valentino, where he played the lead on his own terms, inspired by his eerie likeness to the silent screen Italian star, and his passionate love of classic Hollywood cinema.

In 2011 Kozlov decided to revisit the subject of his short film, Valentino, in a period feature film, and his work on Silent Life started. The ambitious project attracted top acting talent like Isabella Rossellini and Franco Nero, accomplished composer Robert Folk, and editors Frank Morris and Michael J. Duthie. The film is now 90% complete, with only the Lady in Black scenes left to be filmed.  Silent Life is produced with Kozlov byPaul Maslansky.

An early assemblage of some scenes, a shorter artistic vision of the film (aka Death of the Sheik) was shown at Moscow International Film festival as a special screening in summer 2017 and received positive reviews of the critics. Soon, after a long and arduous path, the Silent Life full-length feature filmwill be completed with Terry Moore's scenes as the Lady in Black scheduled to be shot in February 2018 in Hollywood at the Cathedral Mausoleum where Rudolph Valentino is laid to rest in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Teaser direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIjc8aLVoJk&t=2s

"I think of my journey as a typical American Dream story come true. I came to this country with just a few dollars in my pocket, and went through the regular immigrant drill - washed dishes, cleaned motel rooms, etc. I worked very hard and I never stopped dreaming big. I am very thankful to all the people who helped me on my way. I think what helped me most was that I never got discouraged by failures. I am an optimist. Even if they turned me down 500 times, I always believed that the next time was going to be the charm," said Kozlov.

The filmmakers have launched a crowd-funding campaign to help with finishing funds to complete the film and with stretch goals for extra scenes, production values, and the film festival run.

Crowdfunding campaign link with Terry Moore: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/silent-life-preserve-the-golden-era-of-hollywood-cinema

Valentino was a superstar of the Golden Era, 2017 marked the 90th anniversary of Valentino's infamous funeral, attended by over 100,000 devoted fans.  The Hollywood Forever Cemetery honors Valentino's life every year with a memorial service, on August 23, every year.  The public is invited to pay their respects.

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About Terry Moore

Born Helen Luella Koford on January 7, 1929, the Los Angeles, California, native worked as a model before she made her film debut at age 11 in 20th Century-Fox's Maryland (1940). Throughout the 1940s she worked under a variety of names (her own, Judy Ford and January Ford) before settling on Terry Moore in 1948. Placed under contract by Columbia Pictures, Moore was loaned out to RKO for one of her most famous films, Mighty Joe Young (1949). In 1953 she received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Paramount's Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). In the 1970s she was in the news more than she was in films, asserting that she was the secret wife of the late billionaire Howard Hughes.

She has starred in 77 feature films and listed among her leading men are such Hollywood legends including Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, Glenn Ford, Mickey Rooney and Robert Wagner. Since she was a pilot herself, Terry played a major role in preparing Leonardo DiCaprio for his portrayal of Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004). She is a skilled pilot and was the third woman in the world to check out in a jet.

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