In the Loop: Oscar winner Graham Moore’s direct line to the Obama White House

By Colby Itkowitz February 23 at 10:16 AM

Graham Moore accepts the award for the best adapted screenplay for “The Imitation Game” at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Perhaps the most moving moment of Sunday’s Academy Awards came during author Graham Moore’s acceptance speech for writing “The Imitation Game” screenplay.

Moore brought the Oscar audience to its feet when he shared that as a teenager he’d tried to commit suicide because he felt “weird and different.” He implored young people watching at home who felt like outsiders to believe that one day they too will have their moment.

But what Loop fans might not know is that Moore has a direct connection to the Obama White House.

Moore’s mother is Susan Sher, who was Michelle Obama’s first chief of staff and is now coordinating the push to have Obama’s presidential library located in Chicago.

Last week, Variety wrote that “The Imitation Game” – the film about a mathematician who helped crack Nazi code during World War II, but was prosecuted for being gay – was a White House favorite:

Though they aren’t in the habit of choosing sides (and thus opponents) in most cultural and sporting contests, the Obamas have told Sher how proud they know she must be of her oldest son. Now an administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center, Sher called all the attention “very sweet.”

Moore is deep inside the Obama orbit. In 2010, when Sher hosted a Washington book party for her son’s novel, “The Sherlockian,” it was described as a “who’s who’s” crowd, by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet. The Bidens also hosted a gathering for the book’s release at the vice president’s residence. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett called herself Moore’s “other mother.”

But outside of the Obama inner circle and the people who follow it closely, like Sweet, many people only learned of the Moore-White House connection when congratulations and comments poured out over Twitter after his Oscar win.

Colby Itkowitz is a national reporter for In The Loop.