He's after Tom Cruise, but before Tiger Woods.
George Clooney only scored a head shot, but our guy warranted a full-body pose on a full-color page.
Appearing in flexed-biceps glory in People magazine's "Top 50 Bachelors" issue, with only ink between him and Matt Damon, is Baltimore's own Westley Moore. He's smart, sweet and oh-so single, and he's on page 73.
The ladies of Sex and the City would surely rate him a keeper.
Moore, a 22-year-old Johns Hopkins University graduate and Rhodes scholar, was selected by People editors to appear in the July 2 magazine. Tiger Woods, by the way, only got a half-page. (And it's page 105.)
Moore's e-mail account (sorry, girls, we're not giving it out) has been flooded with pictures and letters from ardent ladies who'd like to strip him of that bachelor title. Women he knew before he made the list, Moore says, are calling a little more often now. And a few of those e-mails, he adds, were too racy to show his mother. (Or share with a family newspaper.)
All of this sudden celebrity feels a little silly, says the 6-foot-2 Moore, but definitely fun.
"It's not like I sit back all day and say, `I made it,' " says Moore, who will study international relations at the University of Oxford in England this fall. "I don't own a copy of the magazine, and I don't have the [People magazine] Web site marked as a favorite on my computer."(If you'd like to bookmark Moore's online-only People photos, though, visit people.com. You can see him shirtless; you can see him in his Army uniform. Was People going for archetypes or what?)
"There are a lot of things I still want to do," he says.
Like attaining that doctoral degree at Oxford, he adds. Speaking of Oxford, Chelsea Clinton will be in his international relations program there. Is Moore interested?
"I admire her," he says. "I imagine we'll get to be very good friends."
He'd really prefer a date with R&B star Lauryn Hill, though. ("I would do anything to hang out with Lauryn," he says.)
People editors heard about Moore when a Hopkins spokesperson called the magazine to recommend Moore for a profile after he won the prestigious Rhodes scholarship. The editors were taken with his biceps and his brain.
"He's got great arms," says People Assistant Managing Editor Elizabeth Sporkin. "We love that he's a Rhodes scholar and the fact that he overcame a lot to get where he is."
Moore's father, a TV reporter, died of a rare illness in 1982, and when Moore was in seventh grade, his mom sent him to a military school in Valley Forge, Pa., to get him in gear. He hated it.
After running away from the academy a few times, he decided to dig in and follow his mother's advice to get serious. Now he plans to pursue a career in the military. Moore even eschewed college basketball scholarships for Army ROTC.
He's awaiting his next orders from the Army - a stint at military intelligence school in Arizona is likely. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, are his models of success.
While at Hopkins, Moore founded a program called STAND that pairs at-risk kids with college mentors. He has twice interned for former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, another attractive, one-time scholar-athlete and Oxford alum.
The exposure in People magazine probably won't make Moore's search for "the one" any easier. Baltimore had a bachelor on last year's People list: Dan Jones, who lived in Little Italy but recently moved to New York.
"He's still a bachelor," his former roommate Brian Costello reports.
Someday, says Moore, he'd like to settle down. So here's the answer to the question you've all been reading for:
"What's my type?" says Moore. "Someone who is independent, strong-minded, intelligent, funny, and laughs at my jokes. She has to be ambitious and faithful."
What about looks?
"Looks are on the list," he says. "But looks fade."
And here's another important answer:
"Where do I hang out? At the Barnes & Noble downtown, and at the Bally's off Route 40," he says.
Lastly, Moore can't possibly be perfect, so we asked his mom, Joy Thomas Moore, what the lucky lady who wins her son will complain about most often:
He went to military school, she says, "so he knows how to keep things clean. That doesn't necessarily mean he will do it."
