In 1991, however, Moore released three straight box office and critical flops, including Nothing But Trouble, The Butcher’s Wife, and Mortal Thoughts, costarring Willis. She also provoked a flurry of controversy by posing nude for the August 1991 cover of Vanity Fair while seven months pregnant. (She posed nude a second time for the magazine’s cover in 1992, this time done up in full body paint and showcasing a newly sculpted physique.)

Over the next several years, Moore scored three straight box office hits, beginning with the 1992 military courtroom drama A Few Good Men, costarring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. In 1993, she played the object of affection of a wealthy businessman, played by Robert Redford, who offers to pay Moore’s character and her boyfriend (Woody Harrelson) a cool $1 million for one night with her. The next year, Moore turned the tables on the hot issue of sexual harassment in the workplace with her portrayal of a sexually aggressive business executive who torments her ex-lover and colleague, played by Michael Douglas.

The tide turned in 1995, however, as Moore’s next several projects met with a harsh reception from critics and audiences alike. Both her high-profile film version of the classic novel The Scarlett Letter (1995) and her legal thriller The Juror (1996) were panned. Though her $12.5 million paycheck for 1996’s Striptease was the highest salary ever paid an actress for a single movie at that time, the film was a disappointment. Moore received slightly better reviews for her starring turn as a bald-headed Navy SEAL in Ridley Scott’s bid-budget action film G.I. Jane (1997), but the project failed to find the commercial success of her past hits. She had more luck as a producer, working on 1995’s Now and Then (in which she played a small role), the 1996 cable television special If These Walls Could Talk, and two extremely successful Austin Powers movies, starring Mike Myers as a super-groovy secret agent.

In 1999, Moore signed a production deal with the prestigious Miramax Films. The next year, she played dual roles in the romantic thriller Passion of Mind, her first acting project since 1997. The film met with a mediocre reception.

As the 1990s came to an end, the always-controversial Moore faced upheaval in two different areas of her personal life. Her mother, Virginia, from whom she had been bitterly estranged for the last five years, died of cancer in July 1998. Moore had reconciled with her mother shortly before her death, and was at her side when she died. In June 1998, Moore and Willis announced their separation after almost 11 years of marriage.