Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore, CBE
Born Dudley Stuart John Moore
19 April 1935
Hammersmith, London, UK
Died 27 March 2002 (aged 66)
Plainfield, New Jersey, US
Cause of death Progressive supranuclear palsy, pneumonia
Occupation Actor, comedian, musician
Years active 1961–1997
Spouse(s) Suzy Kendall (1968–72)
Tuesday Weld (1975–80)
Brogan Lane (1988–91)
Nicole Rothschild (1994–98)
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE (19 April 1935 – 27 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer.
Moore first came to prominence in the UK as one of the four writer-performers in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe from 1960, and with one member of that team, Peter Cook, collaborated on the television series Not Only... But Also. The double act worked on other projects until the mid-1970s, by which time Moore had settled in Los Angeles to concentrate on his film acting.
His solo career as a comedy film actor was heightened by the success of hit Hollywood films, particularly Foul Play (1978), 10 (1979) and Arthur (1981). For the latter film, Moore was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe for his performance in Micki & Maude (1984).
Beyond the Fringe
In 1962, the show transferred to the John Golden Theatre in New York, with its original cast. President John F. Kennedy attended a performance on 10 February 1963. The show continued in New York until 1964.
On film, Moore and Cook appeared in the 1966 British comedy film The Wrong Box, before co-writing and co-starring in Bedazzled (1967)[4] with Eleanor Bron. The film was directed by Stanley Donen. The pair closed the decade with appearances in the ensemble caper film Monte Carlo or Bust and Richard Lester's The Bed Sitting Room, based on the play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.
The last significant appearance for the partnership was in 1978's The Hound of the Baskervilles, where Moore played Dr. Watson to Cook's Sherlock Holmes
Music
During the 1960s he formed the Dudley Moore Trio, with drummer Chris Karan and bassist Pete McGurk. Following McGurk's suicide in June 1968, Peter Morgan joined the group as his replacement.[6]
Moore's admitted principal musical influences were Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner. In an interview he recalled the day he finally mastered Garner's unique left-hand strum and was so excited that he walked around for several days with his left hand constantly playing that cadence. His early recordings included "My Blue Heaven", "Lysie Does It", "Poova Nova", "Take Your Time", "Indiana", "Sooz Blooz", "Baubles, Bangles & Beads", "Sad One for George" and "Autumn Leaves". The trio performed regularly on British television, made numerous recordings and had a long-running residency at Peter Cook's London nightclub, the Establishment. Amongst other albums, they recorded The Dudley Moore Trio, Dudley Moore plays The Theme from Beyond the Fringe and All That Jazz, The World of Dudley Moore, The Other Side Of Dudley Moore and Genuine Dud.
Moore was a close friend of record producer Chris Gunning and played piano (uncredited) on the 1969 single "Broken Hearted Pirates" which Gunning produced for Simon Dupree and the Big Sound.[7] In 1976 he played piano on Larry Norman's album In Another Land, in particular on the song The Sun Began to Rain. In 1981 he recorded Smilin' Through with Cleo Laine.
He composed the soundtracks for the films Bedazzled (1967), 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia (1968), Inadmissible Evidence (1968), Staircase (1969), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978) and Six Weeks (1982), among others.
Later career in film, television and music[edit]
In the late 1970s, Moore moved to Hollywood, where he had a supporting role in the hit film Foul Play (1978) with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. The following year saw his breakout role in Blake Edwards's 10, which became one of the biggest box-office hits of 1979 and gave him an unprecedented status as a romantic leading man.
In 1981, Moore appeared in the title role of the comedy Arthur, an even bigger hit than 10. Co-starring Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgud, it was both commercially and critically successful, Moore receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, whilst Gielgud won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Arthur's stern but compassionate manservant. Moore lost to Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond). He did, however, win a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy. In the same year, on British television, Moore was the featured guest subject on An Audience With....
His subsequent films, Six Weeks (1982), Lovesick (1983), Romantic Comedy (1983) and Unfaithfully Yours (1984) were only moderate successes, but he had another hit in 1984, starring in the Blake Edwards directed Micki + Maude, co-starring Amy Irving. This won him another Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy.
Later films, including Best Defense (1984), Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), Like Father Like Son (1987), Arthur 2: On the Rocks, a sequel to the original, Crazy People (1990), Blame It on the Bellboy (1992) and an animated adaptation of King Kong, were inconsistent in terms of both critical and commercial reception.
In addition to acting, Moore continued to work as a composer and pianist, writing scores for a number of films and giving piano concerts, which were highlighted by his popular parodies of classical favourites. He also appeared as Ko-Ko in Jonathan Miller's production of The Mikado in Los Angeles in March 1988.
He collaborated with the conductor Sir Georg Solti in 1991 to create a Channel 4 television series, Orchestra!, which was designed to introduce audiences to the symphony orchestra. He later worked with the American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on a similar television series, Concerto! (1993), likewise designed to introduce audiences to classical music concertos.
Moore had been interviewed for The New York Times in 1987 by the music critic Rena Fruchter, herself an accomplished pianist, and the two became close friends. By 1995, Moore's film career was on the wane and he was having trouble remembering his lines, a problem he had never previously encountered. It was for this reason he was sacked from Barbra Streisand's film The Mirror Has Two Faces,[8] however, his difficulties were, in fact, due to the onset of the medical condition that eventually led to his death. Opting to concentrate on the piano, he enlisted Fruchter as an artistic partner. They performed as a duo in the US and Australia. However, his disease soon started to make itself apparent there as well, as his fingers would not always do what he wanted them to do. Further symptoms such as slurred speech and loss of balance were misinterpreted by the public and the media as a sign of drunkenness. Moore himself was at a loss to explain this. He moved into Fruchter's family home in New Jersey and stayed there for five years, but this, however, placed a great strain both on her marriage and her friendship with Moore, and she later set him up in the house next door.
Entrepreneur
Moore co-owned, with producer Tony Bill, a fashionable restaurant in Venice, California (1980s–2000), named 72 Market Street Oyster Bar and Grill. He played the piano whenever he was there.
Personal life[edit]
Moore was married and divorced four times: to actresses Suzy Kendall, Tuesday Weld (by whom he had a son in 1976), Brogan Lane, and Nicole Rothschild (one son, born in 1995).
He maintained good relationships with Kendall, Weld and Lane, but expressly forbade Rothschild to attend his funeral. At the time his illness became apparent he was going through a difficult divorce from Rothschild, despite sharing a house in Los Angeles with her and her previous husband.
In April 1997, after spending five days in a New York hospital, Moore was informed that he had calcium deposits in the basal ganglia of his brain and irreversible frontal lobe damage. In September 1997, Moore underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery in London. He also suffered four strokes.[11]
In June 1998, Nicole Rothschild was reported to have told an American television show that Moore was "waiting to die" due to a serious illness, but these reports were denied by Suzy Kendall.[12]
On 30 September 1999, Moore announced that he was suffering from the terminal degenerative brain disorder progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), some of the early symptoms being so similar to intoxication that he had been reported as being drunk, and that the illness had been diagnosed earlier in the year.
Dudley Moore died on the morning of 27 March 2002,[4] as a result of pneumonia, secondary to immobility caused by the palsy, in Plainfield, New Jersey at age 66. Rena Fruchter was holding his hand when he died, and she reported his final words were, "I can hear the music all around me". Moore was interred at Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Fruchter later wrote a memoir of their relationship (Dudley Moore, Ebury Press, 2004).
Honours and awards[edit]
In 1981, Moore won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his role in Arthur, for which he was also Oscar-nominated. In November 2001, Moore was appointed a Commander of the Order of The British Empire (CBE). Despite his deteriorating condition, he attended the ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 16 November to collect his honour in a wheelchair.[8] When asked by the press if he had ever expected to receive an honour, Moore replied, "No".
ADVERTISEMENT
BY
Looking for more information?
Amanda S. Stevenson 
