Dudley Moore

by Susan King

I admit I thought Dudley Moore was adorable when I was in my 20s. I even saw him at the Hollywood Bowl playing Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” on the piano in 1981. He was smart, witty and a master of physical comedy. And Moore was not afraid of being vulnerable on the big screen.

The boyish Moore, who was born with two club feet and a leg that was shorter than the other, was also surprising sex symbol earning the nicknames, 'Cuddly Dudley' and the 'Sex Thimble'. Two of his four wives — actresses Suzy Kendall and Tuesday Weld — were sex symbols. And in the 1980s, the 5’2 1/2 Moore had a lengthy relationship with the statuesque actress Susan Anton, who was over 5’11.

Jonathan Miller, who starred with Moore in the landmark comedy revue “Beyond the Fringe,” once noted Moore had a “pagan, almost Pan-like ability to attract women.” And Moore noted: “My own desire to be loved is what makes me sexually attractive.”

Born in London on April 19, 1935, Moore was riding high in Hollywood in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. But fame can be fleeting in Tinseltown. In fact, Entertainment Tonight began it’s rather snarky 1997 article with the question:

“Whatever became of Dudley Moore?”

And what was funny 40 years ago is rather cringe worthy today. Take 1978’s “Foul Play.” Moore came to Hollywood in the late 1970s and stole the hit mystery-comedy from stars Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase as a particularly horny conductor whose apartment looks like it was decorated from the Hustler store.  

But it was Blake Edwards’ 1979 comedy “10” which transformed Moore into a major player in Hollywood. George Segal was originally set to star but left the production shortly before filming again. Moore was available — he knew Edwards — and was ready to go. It’s hard to envision Segal playing a composer going through a midlife crisis who, while driving in Beverly Hills one day, sees the perfect woman (Bo Derek) driving to her wedding, He’s so smitten, he follows her to her honeymoon in Mexico. The film also turned Ravel’s 1928 composition a hit once again. 

Probably neither of these films could be made today in the #MeToo movement because of the way these characters envision and deal with women.

And ditto with the 1981 box office "Arthur,” for which he received his only Oscar nomination. He turned on the charm as rich drunken New York playboy who will lose his inheritance if he doesn’t follow through on an arranged marriage. He’s not above hiring escorts for a night on the town. These days, he would have been sent to rehab.

In 1983, he was named National Alliance of Theater Owners Top Box Office Star-Male of the Year; the Numbers list him as the 39th highest grossing star of the 1980s.

But audiences’ obsession with Moore was short-lived thanks to some bad movie choices including the atrocious 1988 “Arthur 2: On the Rocks.” He even turned down “Splash” and was fired due to his memory loses from Barbra Streisand’s 1996, “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” He tried his luck at two TV series — both failed, as did two more marriages.

He had open heart surgery in 1997; in 1999, he announced he had Progressive Supranuclear Palsy for which there is no cure. Moore died in 2002 at 66 of pneumonia — a complication of his disease. His friend Tony Bill, who directed him in Six Weeks” and “Crazy People,” told the L.A. Times: “He had a very depilating disease.” Bill added that “his mental powers had not been affected” but was forced to watch himself ‘wasting away.”

Moore had several health issues as a child. He endured several surgeries to correct his club feet. Moore found solace in music studying the piano, violin, harpsichord and organ. He attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and then received an organ scholarship to Magdalen College of Oxford University, Moore and fellow Oxford student Alan Bennett joined Cambridge grads Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller for the smart, landmark comedy revue “Beyond the Fringe” that premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 1960, before moving to London and then to the U.S. in 1962. The cast earned a special Tony in 1963.

The quartet broke up after “Fringe” closed in 1964, but Moore and Cook became a successful award-winning comedy and scored a hit with three seasons of the BBC series, “Not Only…But Also.” They also broke into movies. In 1967, the earned good reviews — save for the New York Times — for Stanley Donen’s “Bedazzled,” a wickedly funny take on the Faust legend with Cook playing the Devil and Moore stealing the film as a short-order cook who makes the deal with Beelzebub.

Moore met and married his first wife Kendall when they starred together in 1968’s “30 is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia.”  They were together for four years. 

In 1973, the team opened on Broadway in the comedy revue “Good Evening,” receiving a special Tony for the show that ran a year on Broadway. In 1974, he met Weld. They married in 1975, had a son, and divorced in 1980.

He and Cook broke up after “Good Evening” closed because he couldn’t handle his partner’s alcoholism According the to the iMDB.com biography on Moore, “under the influence, Cook would become abusive towards Moore whose acting career was undergoing a renaissance in the late ‘70s while his career stalled.”  Still, Moore had a difficult time dealing with Cook’s death in 1995 at the age of 57.

Moore made headlines in the 1990s but rarely for acting. In March 1994, he was arrested for suspicion of domestic abuse on his fiancée Nicole Rothschild. She refused, though, to press charges. The following month they married. Six weeks after the birth of their son Moore moved out of their home. In June 1997, she sought $10 million because, she said, Moore assaulted her and forced her to take drugs and dance nearly naked up to 20 hours a day. They divorced in 1998. 

He also began having short-term memory issues. In an interview he gave at the age of 60, Moore seemed “pre-occupied” with his memory loss. He confessed “I met someone, and I couldn’t believe that I had lunch with them the day before.” And it was his memory issues that caused him to be fired from Barbra Streisand’s 1996 “The Mirror Had Two Faces.”

While he was on a concert tour of Australia in 1996, he appeared to be drunk, staggering and speaking incoherently. He was soon diagnosed with PSP. “It’s totally mysterious the way the illness attacks and eats you up and spits you out,” Moore noted in a 2000 interview. “I did get angry, but there’s not much point in being angry. There’s always ‘Why did it hit me?’ I can’t make peace with it because I know I am going to die from it.”

Though he was in a wheelchair and lost his ability to speak, Moore went to London in November 2001 to receive the Commander of the British Empire from then-Prince Charles.

His friend Arthur Hiller, who directed him in 1983’s “Romantic Comedy,” told the L.A. Times about the last time he saw Moore:

“It was a year or two ago. Lou Pitt, his agent, had a Sunday afternoon get-together. There were about 40 or 50 of us and we were just saying hi and goodbye. We were happy to see him, but it was sad to see this warm and talented…person having difficult even communicating,”

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Susan King was a film/TV/theater writer at the Los Angeles Times for 26 years specializing in Classic Hollywood.