Actor and comedian Dudley Moore has died at his home in New Jersey. The 66-year-old had been suffering from degenerative brain disease for the last few years.
Moore achieved worldwide stardom for his 1960s partnership with the late Peter Cook. An accomplished pianist, Moore won a music scholarship to Oxford University where he met Cook. They went on to team up with Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller in the acclaimed Beyond the Fringe satirical revue. He starred alongside Cook in hit films as The Wrong Box (1966), Bedazzled (1967, and remade in 2000 with Elizabeth Hurley) and The Bed-sitting Room (1969).
He won an Oscar nomination for his role as a drunken playboy opposite Liza Minnelli in Arthur (1981) and became one of Hollywood's most improbable sex symbols in the 1980s thanks to his starring role opposite sultry Bo Derek in the film, 10. The diminutive Moore, who dubbed himself a "sex thimble", dated a succession of tall, statuesque women. He married four times in an often troubled personal life.
Moore attributed his success in music and comedy to being teased as a child about his height and club foot. "I think most comedians start off defending themselves with comedy," he said. "Generally they feel inferior in some way. I certainly did feel inferior. Because of class, because of strength, because of height...I guess if I'd been able to hit somebody on the nose. I wouldn't have been a comic."
