Gimme, gimme, gimme ...

Not for nothing is Demi Moore known as "Gimme". There's the $12 million demanded for appearing in a film, not to mention the excessive requests for perks, such as the time she flew to New York to promote Indecent Proposal and insisted Paramount lay on two planes - one for her family and entourage.

And the other? For their luggage of course - a veritable snip at $100,000.

Even in a town drowning in extravagance, Ms Moore is a by-word for excess and you'll soon have plenty of opportunities to see her in action. First there is Now And Then (at cinemas from next month), which she has co-produced; then there is The Juror, a psychological thriller, and finally Striptease, Carl Hiassen's Floridian low-life thriller, on which Ms Moore has put a determined feminist slant.

Oh yes, and it gives her plenty of opportunity to take off her clothes. Again. Or as she prefers to put it: "I live in a country that is very puritanical and afraid of the body - afraid that it may make a man feel out of control or dirty." And it doesn't do any harm at the box office either. Just consider the success of Disclosure. It also helps shift magazines - remember those notorious Vanity Fair covers?

Calling the shots is very much the Moore trademark. One of her first outings as a producer was on Mortal Thoughts, which co-starred hubby Bruce Willis. It was directed by Claude Kerven. Kerven lasted just one week. "I didn't like what we were getting," she said later.

On The Butcher's Wife, not one of her high-profile successes, she insisted on having a personal psychic on hand throughout filming. On the set of A Few Good Men, which co-starred Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, she insisted on having a bigger trailer than either men. She got a double trailer parked closest to the sound stage. Jack Nicholson's was moved further away. Jack Nicholson shrugged and laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Not for nothing is she known as a master demander, according to one studio executive. After all she is married to that past master, Bruce Willis - "Only unlike Bruce Willis, she didn't earn it," says the same insider. But if she thinks she's a star, presumably this means she also has to act like one.

The excesses of filming are carried over into her private life. Not content with an apartment in Manhattan and a spread in Malibu, she and Bruce bought a whole town, Hailey, in Idaho, for a cool $8 million.

And aren't the inhabitants of Hailey lucky! Not only can they sit back and admire as Demi, in her role as curator, presides over the town's American Crafts Museum (where the prime exhibit is the Demi Moore collection of dolls and dolls' houses), but they can marvel as Demi helps lower the unemployment figure.

"As much as Bruce and I did this for ourselves, we really did it for everyone who lives here. It's an opportunity for us to give jobs to the local kids," she says.

So what on earth is she talking about now? Yup, it's nannies. The Moore/Willis offspring - Rumer, seven, Scout, five and Belle, two - each have their own nanny. And when the nannies have a day off, there's a fourth to act as cover. Why, even Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise only have two children and two nannies - but only one works at any one time. Perhaps this excessive childcare relates to Ms Moore's own upbringing. Born Demi Guynes, she had a troubled childhood. Her mother Virginia, an alcoholic, has been a constant source of pain, popping up in the press with statements such as: "She's forgotten the world she grew up in and the people she grew up with. I see all the signs of a marriage in trouble."

Mother and daughter haven't talked for years. "We moved around a lot," recalls Demi. "I probably went to about 30 different schools."

At 13, she discovered her parents' marriage certificate, which was dated a year after her birth in 1962, and realised that her biological father was someone other than Dan Guynes, the man she grew up calling Dad. When she was 15, her parents divorced and two years later, Guynes, the only father she had ever known, committed suicide.

According to recent press reports, Virginia now lives in Las Vegas in a car Demi bought her eight years ago. And is she bitter at the estrangement? "I still have to thank Demi and Bruce for providing me with a roof over my head, even if it is only a car roof."

Demi can well afford to gush over her own strengths as a mother. "I'm very maternal and think that I'm a grounding force."

Her protective instincts extend to such incidents as the time, according to reports, when she complained in a Baltimore hotel after an off-duty chef ordered daughter Scout out of the Jacuzzi, while on another occasion, a cleaner was dismissed for using bad language in front of Rumer.

Just as long as the little darlings don't worry about Mommy stripping off for the benefit of millions and her bank account, they should grow up to be perfectly well-adjusted.

And what of the adolescent Moore? As she now says: "From the very beginning, I would assess people who were successful and wonder how they got where they were."

Armed only with this ambition, at 15, she went out and got herself an agent. When times were tough, she posed for girlie mag Oui - pictures which have come back to haunt her. Being body-painted for Vanity Fair is, presumably, altogether different.

But the fight to be mistress of her own destiny goes on. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Ms Moore sets out her current mission: "For me, a true feminist is a woman who is for women; somebody who appreciates a woman who chooses for herself . . . isn't the goal of feminism to expand ourselves, allow us to reach beyond our limitations?" Quite so.

Copyright 1996 MGN LTD
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