Moore, Dudley Stuart John

▪ 2003

      British actor, comedian, and musician (b. April 19, 1935, Dagenham, Essex, Eng.—d. March 27, 2002, Plainfield, N.J.), was a versatile, multitalented performer whose career ranged from jazz and classical musician and composer to satiric comedian to Hollywood movie star. He first became known for his partnership with Peter Cook in stage revues, in films, and on television and later gained further renown for his roles in two blockbuster motion pictures—as a musician seeking the perfect woman in 10 (1979) and a lovable millionaire drunk in Arthur (1981). A small man who was born with a deformed foot, Moore turned to comedy to combat feelings of inferiority. He was also an accomplished musician; he attended Magdalen College, Oxford, on a music scholarship, earning a bachelor's degree in 1957 and another in 1958, and then toured as a jazz pianist. In 1960 Moore, Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Alan Bennett created the satiric revue Beyond the Fringe for the Edinburgh Festival. The show thereafter was performed in London and on Broadway, where it won its creators a special Tony Award in 1963. Cook and Moore then teamed up for the television sketch comedy series Not Only … but Also (1965–66; 1970); the films The Wrong Box (1966), Bedazzled (1967), and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1977); three “Derek and Clive” comedy record albums in the 1970s; and, beginning in 1971, a follow-up to Beyond the Fringe. At first called Behind the Fridge, it toured Australia before being presented in London and then, retitled Good Evening, in the U.S., where it won Cook and Moore a special Tony Award in 1974. Moore also composed film scores, including those for Bedazzled and Inadmissible Evidence (1968), and starred on the London stage in the comedy Play It Again, Sam (1969). Following the end of his partnership with Cook, Moore made his Hollywood debut in 1978 in Foul Play. Most of his other films, as well as two TV series—Dudley (1993) and Daddy's Girls (1994) were less successful, however, and Moore concentrated on his music career until a rare neurological disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, caused his health to deteriorate. Moore was created CBE in 2001.

* * *