When Mary Moore began her high school in 1951, her mother told her, "Be sure and take a typing course so when this show business thing doesn't work out, you'll have something to rely on. "From that moment on, "the very last thing I ever thought about doing was taking a typing course," Mary recalls.
The show business thing worked out, of course. In her career, Mary won many awards. Only recently, when she began to write Growing Up Again, did she regret ignoring her mom, "I don't know how to use a computer," she admits.
Unlike her 1995 autobiography, After All, her second book is less about life as an award-winning actress and more about living with diabetes. All the money from the book is intended for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). "I felt there was a need for a book like this," she says. "I didn't want to lecture, but I wanted other diabetics to know that things get better when we're self-controlled and do our part in managing the disease."
But she hasn't always practiced what she teaches. In her book, she describes that awful day, almost 40 years ago, when she received two pieces of life-changing news. First, she had lost the baby she was carrying, and second, tests showed that she had diabetes. In a childlike act, she left the hospital and treated herself to a box of doughnuts. Year would pass before she realized she had to grow up again and take control of her diabetes. Only then did she kick her three-pack-a-day cigarette habit, overcome her addiction to alcohol, and begin to follow a balanced diet.
Although her disease has forced her to the sidelines of the dance floor, she refuses to fall into self-pity. "Everybody on earth can ask, 'why me?' about something or other," she insists. "It doesn't do any good. No one is immune to pain and disappointments. Sometimes we can make things better by helping others. I want to speak out and be as helpful as I can be. "
