44 Facts About Dudley Moore

Dudley Stuart John Moore CBE was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer.

Dudley Moore was one of the four writer-performers in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe from 1960 that created a boom in satiric comedy, and with a member of that team, Peter Cook, collaborated on the BBC television series Not Only.

Dudley Moore was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987, and was made a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on 16 November 2001 in what was his last public appearance.

Dudley Moore was born at the original Charing Cross Hospital in central London, the son of Ada Francis, a secretary, and John Dudley Moore, a railway electrician from Glasgow.

Dudley Moore was brought up in the Becontree estate in Dagenham, Essex.

Dudley Moore rapidly developed into a highly talented pianist and organist and was playing the organ at local church weddings by the age of 14.

Dudley Moore attended Dagenham County High School where he received dedicated musical tuition from Peter Cork, who helped him towards his Oxford music scholarship.

Dudley Moore kept in touch until the mid-1990s and his letters to Cork were published in 2006.

Dudley Moore won an organ scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was tutored by the composer Bernard Rose.

Dudley Moore began working with musicians such as John Dankworth and Cleo Laine.

Dudley Moore then recommended Alan Bennett, who in turn suggested Peter Cook.

When Dudley Moore returned to the UK he was offered his own series on the BBC, Not Only.

Dudley Moore was famous for "corpsing" so, as the programmes often went out live, Cook would deliberately make him laugh in order to get an even bigger reaction from the studio audience.

In 1968 Cook and Dudley Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes entitled Goodbye Again; however, they were not as critically well-received as the BBC shows.

On film, Dudley Moore and Cook appeared in the 1966 British comedy film The Wrong Box, before co-writing and co-starring in Bedazzled with Eleanor Bron.

In 1968 and 1969 Dudley Moore embarked on two solo comedy ventures, firstly in the film 30 is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia and secondly, on stage, for an Anglicised adaptation of Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam at the Globe Theatre in London's West End.

In 1971 Cook and Dudley Moore took sketches from Not Only.

The last significant appearance for the partnership was in 1978's The Hound of the Baskervilles, where Dudley Moore played Dr Watson to Cook's Sherlock Holmes, as well as three other roles: in drag; as a one-legged man; and at the start and end of the film as a flamboyant and mischievous pianist.

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

Dudley Moore was deeply affected by the death of Cook in 1995, and for weeks would regularly telephone Cook's home in London, just to hear his friend's voice on the telephone answering machine.

Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London and, at the time, many people who knew him noted that Dudley Moore was behaving strangely and attributed it to grief or drinking.

In November 1995, Dudley Moore teamed up with friend and humorist Martin Lewis in organising a two-day salute to Cook in Los Angeles that Dudley Moore co-hosted with Lewis.

In December 2004 the Channel 4 television station in the United Kingdom broadcast Not Only But Always, a TV film dramatising the relationship between Dudley Moore and Cook, although the principal focus of the production was on Cook.

Dudley Moore's admitted principal musical influences were Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner.

Dudley Moore was a close friend of record producer Chris Gunning and played piano on the 1969 single "Broken Hearted Pirates" which Gunning produced for Simon Dupree and the Big Sound.

Dudley Moore composed the soundtracks for the films Bedazzled, 30 is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia, Inadmissible Evidence, Staircase, The Hound of the Baskervilles and Six Weeks, among others.

In 1981 Dudley 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, Dudley 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.

Dudley Moore eventually disowned the Arthur sequel, but, in later years, Cook would tease him by claiming he preferred Arthur 2: On the Rocks to Arthur.

Dudley Moore was the subject of the British This Is Your Life, for a second time, in March 1987 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at his Venice Beach restaurant; he had previously been honoured by the programme in December 1972.

Dudley Moore appeared as Ko-Ko in Jonathan Miller's production of The Mikado in Los Angeles in March 1988.

Dudley Moore appeared on Kenny G's music video "Against Doctor's Orders" from the album Silhouette.

Dudley 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.

Dudley Moore moved into Fruchter's family home in New Jersey and stayed there for five years; however, this placed a great strain both on her marriage and her friendship with Moore, and she later set him up in the house next door.

Tony Bill and Dudley Moore founded a restaurant in 1983,72 Market Street Oyster Bar and Grill, in Venice, California.

Dudley Moore was married and divorced four times: to actresses Suzy Kendall, Tuesday Weld, Brogan Lane, and Nicole Rothschild.

Dudley Moore dated Susan Anton in the early 1980s, with a lot of talk being made of their height difference: Dudley Moore at.

In 1994, Dudley Moore was arrested and charged with domestic assault after allegedly assaulting his then-girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, Nicole Rothschild.

Dudley Moore maintained good relationships with Kendall, Weld and Lane.

Dudley Moore underwent quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery in London and suffered four strokes.

On 30 September 1999, Dudley Moore announced that he was suffering from the terminal degenerative brain disorder progressive supranuclear palsy, a Parkinson-plus syndrome, 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 as a result of pneumonia, secondary to immobility caused by his PSP, in Plainfield, New Jersey, at the age of 66.

In 1981, Dudley Moore won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his role in Arthur, for which he was Oscar-nominated.

In November 2001, Dudley Moore was appointed a Commander of the Order of The British Empire.