British actor, musician and composer who is most widely known as the comedy star of the films 10 (1979) and Arthur (1981). For Arthur, Moore was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe for his performance in Micki & Maude (1984). He was a professional musician and composer as well who taught at Oxford and, in 1982, played piano at Carnegie Hall.
Small in stature at 5’2″ (1.57 m) high, he was born with a club foot, and had seven operations as a child. At age five, he began piano, later recalling that “I saw this beast in the living room and clambered on.” He later studied violin, harpsichord and organ.
After graduation, his dream was to play jazz, until in 1959, he became part of a talented team of four who wrote and performed in a music and comedy revue, “Beyond the Fringe.” They played for four years in London and three years on Broadway, firmly establishing his deft touch with comedy as well as poignant manipulation of drama.
After settling in Los Angeles in 1975, he earned his greatest fame with comedy films, but that did not put a stop to his musical involvement. In 1981, he joined with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a Gershwin tribute. Six years later, at Carnegie Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl, he performed some of his film scores along with Beethoven. In 1987 and 1989 he led a jazz trio in a Santa Monica club. Part owner of a club in Venice, he sometimes sat in for a set.
Known for something of a temper, Moore was married four times. He had one son, Patrick, with his second wife, Tuesday Weld. His third marriage was to 5’8″ (1.72 m) Brogan Lane; they divorced on 26 July 1990 after two-and-a-half years of marriage. He began therapy in 1964.
On 21 March 1994 he was arrested by police for domestic violence with his girlfriend and future wife, Nicole Rothschild. She said that he had hit her, a charge which he denied, and the whole incident was deemed a misunderstanding. About a month later, on 16 April 1994, the couple married in Venice, California. They had their first child together, Nicholas, on 28 June 1995 in Los Angeles. About a year later, on 11 June 1996, Moore filed for divorce from Rothschild. She responded in June 1997 with a ten-million dollar law suit claiming that he had “relentlessly assaulted, battered, threatened and terrorized her.” The next month, July 1997, the couple kissed and made up.
On 16 April 1993 he began a sitcom Dudley that had a quick cancellation. In October 1999, Moore entered a rehab center in West Orange, New Jersey, suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), an incurable brain disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease. The disease had begun about five years earlier but was not diagnosed until May 1999. He was in a wheelchair when he made a trip to England to accept a Commander of the British Empire medal from Prince Charles on 16 November 2001.
Moore died on 27 March 2002 in Plainfield, New Jersey at age 66. The direct cause of death was pneumonia, stemming from complications of his disease.
Link to Wikipedia biography