Dudley Moore

At 66 years old, Dudley Moore has this physical status:

Dudley John Moore, CBE (1935-2004) was an English actor, comedian, singer, and composer.

Moore came to prominence in the United Kingdom as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s.

He was one of four writer-performers in Beyond the Fringe's 1960 revival of satirical comedy, and with one teammate, Peter Cook, they collaborated on the BBC television series Not Only.... However, they did not include a girl.

Before the mid-1970s, the pair worked on other projects before deciding in Los Angeles to concentrate on his film acting. The rise of hit Hollywood films, particularly Foul Play (1978), 10 (1979) and Arthur (1981), all boosted his solo career as a comedy film actor.

Arthur Moore was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and received a Golden Globe Award.

For his work in Micki & Maude (1984), he received his second Golden Globe.

Early life

Moore was born in central London at the original Charing Cross Hospital, the son of Ada Francis (née Hughes), a secretary, and John Moore, a Glasgow railway electrician. Barbara, his older sister, had a younger brother. Moore was born in Dagenham, Essex, and was brought up on the Becontree estate. He was short at 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) and had ankle ligament problems that required extensive hospitalization. He was the subject of a slew of jokes from other kids. By the time he was six, his right foot was responding well to corrective therapy, but his left foot was permanently injured, and his left leg below the knee was broken. Throughout his life, he was always worried about this.

Moore became a chorister at the age of six. He earned a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music, where he took up harpsichord, organ, violin, musical theory, and composition at the age of 11. He rapidly developed into a superb pianist and organist, and by the time of 14, he was playing the organ at local church weddings. Peter Cork (1926-2012), who aided him in obtaining a Oxford music scholarship, attended Dagenham County High School, where he received devoted musical instruction from him. (Norma Winstone, a fellow at Dagenham, was another student of Cork's Dagenham). Cork was also a composer. Moore kept in touch until the mid-1990s, and his letters to Cork were published in 2006.

Moore received an organ scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was taught by composer Bernard Rose. He performed with Alan Bennett in The Oxford Revue while studying music and composition there. Moore discovered a passion for jazz music in his college years and became a well-known jazz pianist and composer. He began working with musicians like John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. He moved from Dankworth's band to Beyond the Fringe in 1960.

Personal life

Moore was married and divorced four times (1967–1976), and Catherine Rothschild (21 February 1989 – 1998; one son Nicholas was born on 28 June 1995).

He had positive interactions with Kendall, Weld, and Lane, but he had specifically forbidden Rothschild from attending his funeral. He was going through a difficult divorce from Rothschild while simultaneously sharing a house in Los Angeles with her and her former husband at the time when his illness became apparent.

Moore dated Susan Anton in the early 1980s, with a lot of talk about their height difference being made: Moore stood at 5 feet 21.12 inches (1.588 m) and Anton at 5 foot 11 inches (1.80 m).

Moore was arrested and charged with domestic violence after reportedly assaulting Nicole Rothschild, his then-girlfriend.

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Career

To producer Robert Ponsonby, who was putting together a comedy revue entitled Beyond the Fringe, John Bassett, a graduate of Wadham College, recommended Moore, his jazz bandmate and a rising cabaret star. Jonathan Miller was also selected by Bassett. Moore suggested Alan Bennett, who in turn recommended Peter Cook.

Beyond the Fringe was at the forefront of the 1960s British satire revival, but the show's original performances in Edinburgh and the provinces in 1960 had a lukewarm response. Because the revue was transferred to the Fortune Theatre in London as part of a new production by Donald Albery and William Donaldson, it became a sensation, thanks in large part to Kenneth Tynan's favourable review. In addition, there were several musical items on the program, including Dudley Moore's music, most notably a version of the Colonel Bogey March in the style of Beethoven, which Moore seems to have been unable to bring to an end.

With its original cast, the performance was transferred to the John Golden Theatre in New York in 1962. On February 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy attended a performance. The show ran in New York from 1964 to 1964.

Not Only... When Moore returned to the United Kingdom, he was sent his own show on the BBC. But also (1965-1966, 1970). It had been planned as a vehicle for Moore, but when Peter Cook welcomed him as a guest, his comedic relationship became so popular that it became a permanent fixture of the series. Cook and Moore are best known for their sketches as two working-class guys, Pete and Dud, writing on politics and the arts, but they also created a sequence of one-off characters, with Moore in the role of interviewer to one of Cook's upper-class eccentrics.

The pair devised an unorthodox way of scripting the script, recording an ad-libbed routine that would later be transcribed and edited. They didn't have enough time to completely rehearse the script, so they did have a set of cue cards. Moore was known for "corpsing," so Cook would intentionally make him laugh in order to get an even bigger audience. The BBC lost a large portion of the series, though some of the soundtracks (which were issued on LP records) have survived. Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes called Goodbye Again in 1968, but the BBC shows that they were not as well received as the BBC hoped.

Moore and Cook appeared in The Wrong Box, a 1966 British comedy film, before co-writing and co-starring in Bedazzled (1967) with Eleanor Bron. Bedazzled was shot by Stanley Donen in Swing London in the 1960s. With appearances in Monte Carlo or Bust and Richard Lester's The Bed Sitting Room, based on Spike Milligan and John Antrobus' play, the pair finished the decade. Moore embarked on two solo comedy ventures, firstly in the film 30's A Dangerous Age, Cynthia, and secondly on stage for an Anglicized adaptation of Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam at the Globe Theatre in London's West End.

Moore and Cook's friendship became more strained in the 1970s as the latter's alcoholism began to influence his work. Cook and Moore took sketches from Not Only...but Also and Goodbye Again...along with new information, to create the stage revue Behind the Fridge in 1971. This exhibition toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York City in 1973, renamed as Good Evening. Cooking was both on and off stage, the worst for drink. Nevertheless, the show was extremely popular, and it received Tony and Grammy Awards.

Moore stayed in the United States to fulfill his film acting ambitions in Hollywood after the Broadway run of Good Evening ended, but the pair reunited on Saturday Night Live on January 24, 1976. In addition to participating in some skits with the show's ensemble, they performed a variety of their classic stage routines, including "One Leg Too Few" and "Frog and Peach."

Cook begged Moore to take the humour of Pete and Dud further on long-playing duties as Derek and Clive during their Broadway tenures. Chris Blackwell produced bootleg copies to friends in the music industry, and the recording's success compelled Cook to release it commercially as Derek and Clive (1976). Derek and Clive Come Again (1977) and Clive Ad Nauseam (1978) were among the new "Derek and Clive" albums to be released. The latter was also shot for a documentary called Derek and Clive Get the Horn. It's clear that tensions between the two guys were at a breaking point, with Moore and Moore at one point walking out of the recording room singing, 'Breaking up is so straightforward to do.' It was discovered in 2009 that three separate British police forces had requested their arrests under obscenity law for their "Derek and Clive" comedy videos.

Moore appeared in 1978's The Hound of the Baskervilles, where Moore appeared in drag; as a one-legged man; and as a flamboyant and mischievous pianist at the beginning and end of the film. He also contributed to the film's score. Terry-Thomas, a co-star, described it as "the most outrageous film I've ever seen... there was no magic... it was bad." Whether critically or financially, the film was not a success.

Moore and Cook reunited in 1987 for the annual American benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief, and in 1989 for a British audience at the Amnesty International benefit The Unknown Policeman's Biggest Ball.

Moore was greatly affected by Cook's death in 1995, and for weeks afterwards, just to hear his friend's voice on the telephone answering machine. Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London, and many people who knew him said Moore was behaving strangely and attributed it to anxiety or bingeing. Moore co-hosted a two-day salute to Cook in Los Angeles with friend and humorist Martin Lewis in November 1995.

The channel 4 television station in the United Kingdom broadcast Not Only But Always, a TV film resizing Moore and Cook's relationship, although the main subject of the film was Cook. Around the same time, Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde's "Pe and Dud" portrayed the couple's friendship. Moore is the principal focus of this film. It's based in a chat-show studio in the 1980s and explores Moore's comedic and personal friendship with Cook as well as the career paths that followed after the break of the couple.

He formed the Dudley Moore Trio with drummer Chris Karan and bassist Pete McGurk in the 1960s. Peter Morgan was brought on as his replacement after McGurk's suicide in June 1968.

Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner were Moore's most influential musical influences, according to Moore. In an interview, he recalled the day he finally mastered Garner's unique left-hand strum and was so ecstatic that he walked around for several days with his left hand always playing that cadence. "My Blue Heaven," "Take Your Time," "Baubles, Bangles & Beads," "Take Your Time," "Indiana," "Sooz Blooz," "Take Your Time," "Beads," "Sad One for George," "My Blue Heaven," "My Blue Heaven," "My Blue Heaven," "Take Your Time," "Take Your Time," "Take Your Time," "Mozilla", "Take Your Time," "Poova Nova," The trio appeared on British television, made numerous films, and spent a long time at the Establishment of Peter Cook. Dudley Moore's Theme from Beyond the Fringe and All That Jazz, The World of Dudley Moore, The Other Side Of Dudley Moore and Genuine Dudley Moore The Dudley Moore Trio were among their albums.

Moore was a close friend of record producer Chris Gunning and played piano (uncredited) on Gunning's 1969 album "Broken Hearted Pirates" (which Gunning produced for Simon Dupree and Big Sound. He appeared on Larry Norman's album In Another Land in 1976, in particular the song From The Sun Began to Rain. He sang Smilin' Through with Cleo Laine in 1981.

He wrote the soundtracks for Bedazzled (1967), among others. Cynthia, 30, a Dangerous Age (1968), Inadmissible Evidence (1968), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978) and Six Weeks (1982), among others.

Moore then migrated to Hollywood, where he appeared in the hit film Foul Play (1978) with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Blake Edwards's 10th anniversary was his breakout role as a leading man in 1979, earning him unprecedented attention as a leading man. Moore continued with the comedy film Wholly Moses!, which was not a big hit.

Moore appeared in Arthur's title role in 1981, a much bigger success than 10. Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgud co-starred in this film, with Moore receiving an Academy Award for Best Actor and Mr. Gielgud winning the Best Supporting Actor award for her role as Arthur's stern but compassionate manservant. Moore lost to Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond). He did win the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy award, but not successfully. Moore was the featured guest speaker on An Audience With... in the same year on British television.

His subsequent films, Six Weeks (1982), Lovesick (1983), Romantic Comedy (1983), and Unfaithfully Yours (1984) were only modest success. In 1984, he received his second Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy, co-starring Amy Irving.

Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988), Like Father Like Son (1990), A sequel to the original (1990), Blame It on the Bellboy (1992) and an animated version of King Kong were inconsistent in terms of both critical and commercial reception. Moore eventually disapproved Arthur II, but Cook would tease him later by claiming he preferred Arthur 2: On the Rocks to Arthur.

He appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1986, but this time without Peter Cook.

Moore was honoured by the British This Is Your Life program in March 1987, for the second time; he had previously been honoured by the programme in December 1972.

Moore went back to work as a composer and pianist, writing scores for a number of films and performing piano concerts, which were emphasized by his popular parodies of classical favorites. In Jonathan Miller's production of The Mikado in Los Angeles in March 1988, he appeared as Ko-Ko.

In 1991, he released Songs Without Words and in 1992 Live From an Aircraft Hangar, a London hangar.

In 1991, he collaborated with conductor Sir Georg Solti to produce Orchestra!, a Channel 4 television program meant to attract audiences to the symphony orchestra. He worked with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on a similar television show called Concerto! (1993) was also designed to attract classical music concertos.

Moore appeared in two series for CBS, Dudley (1993) and Daddy's Girls (1994), but the latter was cancelled before the end of their run.

Moore appeared in The New York Times in 1987 by Rena Fruchter, a brilliant pianist, and the two became close friends. Moore's film career was on the decline, and he was having trouble recalling his lines, something he had never encountered. He was fired from Barbra Strobisand's film The Mirror Has Two Faces because of this. However, his troubles were, in fact, due to the onset of the illness that eventually led to his death. He recruited Fruchter as an artistic collaborator despite choosing to concentrate on the piano. In the United States and Australia, they performed as a pair. However, his disease soon became apparent there, as his fingers did not always do what he wanted them to do. Public and media misinterpreted further signs of inebriation as evidence of inebriation. Moore himself was in a bind trying to explain it. He stayed at Fruchter's family home in New Jersey for five years; however, this put a strain on her marriage and her friendship with Moore; she also moved him into the house next door.

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